Bahai Philosophy and the Question of the Environment

One’s approach towards the environment is informed by one’s conceptions of nature, culture,

self, body, others, and the sacred. In other words, the complex of beliefs and attitudes concerning

the relation of God to nature, the relation of human beings with each other, the relation of soul

and body, and the relation of culture to nature determines the normative premises of one’s

approach towards the environment. With the rise of the modern, industrial, capitalist, nationalist,

and technological social order, a materialistic and mechanistic worldview began to develop and

dominate Western consciousness. The outcome of this approach to life has been an obsessive

emphasis on material values and selfish desires which has defined the meaning and purpose of

life in terms of the maximization of consumption and material gratification in the context of a

competitive, aggressive, and unequal world economy. The result has been mass poverty on the

one hand, and an increasing disparity between the masses of the desperately poor and

comfortably rich on the other, as well as the increasing degradation and destruction of the

environment.

Because of the significance of this foundational (and mostly unconscious) determination

of behavior we need to examine the phenomenology of this materialistic consciousness and the

history of its emergence, lest we fall into the mistake of considering the current dominant

worldview as natural and normal or an eternal curse of humanity. In fact, the materialistic and

mechanistic worldview is only a recent and historically specific phenomenon which is linked to a

particular type of organization of life and society, and one which can and must be transcended if

humanity’s will to life is to be realized. In the next section we will briefly review the premodern

conception of nature and culture and the two stages of the development of the modern

mechanistic worldview.

A. The Premodern conception of nature and culture

Although there have been various interpretations of nature and culture in nonindustrialized and

premodern societies, all those interpretations and worldviews shared a fundamental principle in

their understanding of nature and society. This fundamental principle was the

organic

conception

of both nature and culture. This organic conception of nature and culture was rooted in an

organic definition of reality. Consequently, the premodern worldview not only maintained the

organic character of both nature and culture but also emphasized the existence of an organic

interrelation, exchange, harmony, and unity between the two realms. In that traditional