Are we observers or participants in this world?
Are we observers or participants in this world? The natural world is defined as everything that we see around us, nature and animals, as well as the people that we live and interact with. Even though, many people see themselves apart from nature and merely as passive observers, others believe that all humans are active participants and are a part of this whole that we call nature.
Many people view nature as being apart from them, a separate organism by itself, with no connection to the whole. The vision of this paradox is what blinds them from seeing that we are as a part of nature as the nature is a part of us. These “observers” define nature as only the natural world and the animals, but it is much more than that. Humans are also considered to be an element of this big whole. For instance, Stephen Jay Gould in his essay “Women’s Brains” sees women as not being part of the whole or the nature. He sees the role of women in being beautiful, bearing children and performing any number of “feminine” or “house-work” tasks. He draws a clear line between “masculine” and “feminine,” and puts them into separate, binary spheres. He promotes and supports his view in quoting Topinard: “The man...who is constantly active in combating the environment and human rivals, needs more brain that the woman, who [is] lacking any interior occupations, whose role is to raise children, love and be passive.” He supports the idea that a man is a part of the whole and is connected to the nature, but a woman is only a passive participant in a household. This prejudice view is not contributed to only couple of individuals in this world. Many people in different countries, especially in those where by law and religion women are considered to be the lowest beings, share the same opinion as Gould is expressing and supporting. The alienation that comes from being separated into gender camps is something that Truth Sojourner rejected all together. Truth Sojourner, in her famous speech “Ain’t I a Woman,” points out that white males with need for power deny status of humanity to women and specially to black women. And at the end, she points out that: “Christ came from God and a woman. Man had nothing to do with him.” Here the author rejects the prejudices views of men being the closest to the nature than women, but still draws a thick line between the nature and a gender superiority supporting her statement on the fact that someone as holy as Christ was created without a man at all. As we can see, certain predispositions that men have about the role of a woman in society shows us that men consider themselves as being a part of the whole and women as being separated from that whole.
