Theodore Roszak: Quotes about nature

“Boyle was among the first who recognized that the withdrawal of sympathy licenses conduct that would not be permissible within an animistic vision of nature. …The vision that he and his scientific colleagues were creating was fast becoming a mathematical abstraction lacking color, odor, texture, and personality. …The task of the natural philosopher, we are told, is to "probe," "penetrate," and "pierce" nature in all her "mysterious," secret," and "intimate recesses."”

Theodore Roszak

Source: The Gendered Atom: Reflections on the Sexual Psychology of Science (1999), Ch.7 The Rape of Nature

Secret , Color , Mathematics , Nature

“If we could assume the view of nonhuman nature, what passes for sane behavior in our social affairs might seem madness.”

Theodore Roszak

The Voice of the Earth: An Exploration of Ecopsychology (2001)
Context: If we could assume the view of nonhuman nature, what passes for sane behavior in our social affairs might seem madness. But as the prevailing reality principle would have it, nothing could be greater madness than to believe that beast and plant, mountain and river have a "point of view." …minds exist, so we believe, nowhere but in human heads.

Behavior , Nature , Madness

“Nature composes some of her loveliest poems for the microscope and the telescope.”

Theodore Roszak

Source: Where the Wasteland Ends

Nature

“Some Calvinist divines identified an "idol" as anything "feigned in the mind by imagination." There is a haunting similarity between such teachings and Galileo's bold attack upon what he called "secondary qualities" in nature.”

Theodore Roszak

Source: The Gendered Atom: Reflections on the Sexual Psychology of Science (1999), Ch.10 The Black Madonna

Imagination , Nature

“When theoretical physicists censor the public's spontaneous visualizing response by warning us we must not try to picture the underlying nature of the world, whether atoms or quarks or preons, they are drawing upon an intellectual discipline devised by Calvin. Reality is beyond the senses; only the rigorously logical mind, leaping bravely into the intangible, can grasp it. No images.”

Theodore Roszak

Source: The Gendered Atom: Reflections on the Sexual Psychology of Science (1999), Ch.10 The Black Madonna

World , Nature , Reality , Sense

“This is the point at which the "rape of nature" ceases to be a metaphor. It is an accurate depiction… rape stems from a compulsive need to control, to control completely. …From …inadequacy flow fear, anger, the need to punish and subjugate. …the objective is… to dominate this elusive, troubling female so that she will do what she is ordered to do. …that requires the objectification of the other; she must become what he wants her to become.”

Theodore Roszak

Source: The Gendered Atom: Reflections on the Sexual Psychology of Science (1999), Ch.7 The Rape of Nature

Fear , Nature , Anger

“We are discovering that natural philosophy needs bonds of sympathy as well as precision of intellect.”

Theodore Roszak

Source: The Gendered Atom: Reflections on the Sexual Psychology of Science (1999), Ch.11 Only Connect

Nature

“When it is another human being who is being… objectified, everybody (except the rapist) can clearly see the act as a crime. But when we objectify the natural world, turning it into a dead or stupid thing, we have another word for that. Science.”

Theodore Roszak

Source: The Gendered Atom: Reflections on the Sexual Psychology of Science (1999), Ch.7 The Rape of Nature

Stupidity , World , Nature , Science