My former friend Robert, who is an astrologer and a former hippie, was writing against life in the metropolitan area. A man named Max told him that the people who believed what he believed were acting like spoiled children, and that the metropolitan area was the only environment in which they could survive.
That is not strictly true. There have been many hippies who moved to the country and survived, giving birth to the organic farming industry. More went back to the civilization, where they used their intellect and creative thinking to create the computer industry and the Wall Street boom.
The reason for the hippies’ move-back-to-the-land idea was the idea in Romanticism that scientific civilization alienated people from nature, and that denied them their humanity. They wanted to move back into the country to regain what they saw as their lost humanity. They were not spoiled children; they were people who had a meaningful disagreement with the civilization as it was being practiced at the time. Most of them decided later that life in the civilization was not so bad after all. They did what the people who remained hippies said was sell out. However I regard them as making the better choice. They contributed to the civilization, resulting in benefit for many people. Computer industry has done more for the world than has the organic farming industry.
Ayn Rand said on the contrary that man’s nature is to be a rational creator, and that civilization was the fulfillment of true humanity. She thought that the meaning of life was man and his work. She had a dismissive attitude toward environmentalism and saw nature as only resources for human consumption.
I believe that both were part-right. There is the natural aspect, and there is the intellectual-volitional aspect. I want to see coming from that the best of all worlds.
Specifically, I want to see both nature and civilization being in the best shape that they can be. Both are major parts of human reality. Both are equally real and equally important. I believe in contributing to civilization and being good to nature at the same time.
Of ancient civilizations, the ones that did this the best were the Incas. They had an advanced civilization; they also took care of nature. While contemporary suburban houses look completely out of synch with their environment, the Incan houses looked like extensions on mountains on which they were built. They terraced mountains in a way such as to prevent erosion. I see no reason why the wisdom of Incas should not be pertinent today.
In contemporary society, I’ve seen this done best at the Burningman festival in Nevada. There, people were in their natural state – often naked – while enjoying the benefits of technology. There were benefits of both naturality and civilization. Burningman is the proof that nature and civilization do not have to be forces contrary to one another. They can also feed into one another to achieve heights that neither can by itself.
Now there are many people who, when dealing with different forces, want to find balance between them. I don’t want to see balance; I want to see a positive synthesis. Positive synthesis is when forces feed into each other and achieve what neither can achieve by itself. Thus, people build an advanced civilization while taking care to be more responsible to nature, and people have the benefit of both nature and civilization. Which worlds then feed into each other to make the most of human existence and humanity as such.
I have seen some encouraging signs toward that effect. There are more people using solar panels and driving electric or hybrid cars, especially in places such as California. Some people consider these to be hypocrites for espousing environmentalism while benefiting from technology. That is completely wrong. There is no reason why the two should conflict. It is possible to have advanced technological civilization and take care of nature.
Incas knew this long before there was California. Their wisdom should be informative today. It should be possible to have both nature and civilization and for people to be both their natural selves and their intellectual-volitional selves. Then both the aspects of human nature championed by Romantics and the aspects of human nature championed by the rationalists will rise to completeness, and their positive synthesis will improve the world.