Nature vs. Humanity - Day 2
Editor's Note: The following article is a reproduction of one of the keynote speeches delivered during the Summer Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It has been lightly edited for ease of reading.
One of the most important aspects that I tried to clarify yesterday is that gender exists in constant fluidity, manifested in the multiple ways in which people express themselves and exist within their bodies. It is central for those of us who confess and profess the Gospel of Jesus as a possibility for the world to understand that diversity is, therefore, a tangible display of God's immense love and its multiple manifestations in the lives of each individual. Understanding diversity as the multiplicity of ways in which God is capable of revealing Himself to His creation not only opens up more just and ethical ecclesial spaces but also provides a new way of understanding the Sacred Gospel and reveals to us a God with new and refreshing possibilities.
In today's presentation, I would like to focus on the ways in which our humanity exists directly related to the surrounding nature, suggesting that understanding this principle promotes relationships based on a healthy ethic rather than an anthropocentric colonialism. By anthropocentric colonialism, I refer to the Eurocentric idea of placing the human being at the center of the world. To do this, I will briefly analyze some indigenous philosophies in an attempt to decentralize the idea that humanity and nature exist in disconnected spaces and to reclaim the harmonies between these spaces that have gradually been erased and overshadowed by global colonialism and capitalism.
During the first part of my presentation today, I intend to provide some insights from decolonial feminism to explain how colonization plays a fundamental role in the destruction of nature, which, in turn, disrupts the life philosophies of indigenous communities. Then, I will analyze the indigenous worldview of O’tanil to suggest that humanity exists in deep connection with the surrounding nature and, therefore, our humanity progresses as our bodies and identities respect, value, and relate to nature. What I intend to emphasize today is the idea that nature and humanity are understood in constant harmony and reciprocity, dismantling the idea of nature as a resource for and by humanity.
Decolonial researcher Sylvia Marcos deeply analyzes how colonization manages to create a fundamental disconnect between humanity and nature, thereby shaping how this idea shapes human wisdom and knowledge.[1] Marcos asserts:
that the dualism between nature and society (as well as other dualisms in our thinking) that, which postulates that "humanity" is entirely independent of nature and that nature is equally independent of society, has shaped our way of thinking about the world and our place in it, making alternative thinking almost impossible.[2]
What Marcos seems to explain is that colonialism, in its economic drive— – something that David could explain more precisely— – has managed to establish a fundamental idea of human superiority over nature that promotes and celebrates the abuse of natural resources in pursuit of economic growth, development, and progress. For Marcos, one of the fundamental problems with this is that this type of thinking conditions the ways in which we understand the world as human beings.[3] In other words, understanding humanity and nature as disconnected elements breaks the Sacred bonds that indigenous communities assumed for centuries as an essential part of life. These bonds are therefore replaced with capitalist and economic ideas of development, civilization, and progress.
The critique of development and progress as fundamental elements of civilization is not new; various notions of development have been analyzed for years. Let us remember that at the dawn of Latin American Liberation Theology, Gustavo Gutiérrez argued that the idea of "development" as progress and civilization needed to be deconstructed because this idea resulted in the destruction of forests and nature in pursuit of money and technological advancements.[4] For Gutiérrez, this kind of development and progress did not consider the life experiences of impoverished communities, who, ultimately, would never benefit from this "progress" and "development". According to Gutiérrez, the idea of development and progress since historical colonization, which exploits poor nations in the pursuit of "civilizing" them, restricts the right of countries to own their own destiny and "the possibilities of leading an authentic human existence."[5] In other words, the division between nature and humanity imposed through colonial processes in the Americas configures a hierarchical idea that places the human as the custodian and possessor of nature, allowing primarily the man— – and here I mean man, not humanity— – to consider nature as a "thing" for his use and "development". As Marcos has said, "Today it is proven that this separation (between nature and humanity), as absurd as it may seem, was the necessary condition for the expansion of capitalism."[6]
I believe it is important to dismantle this dualistic idea that humanity and nature exist in a hierarchical and binary structure that separates them. By analyzing the multiplicity of indigenous spiritualities, we discover that the earth, plants, air, stars, among other elements, serve as the basis for understanding human identity and connection to the Sacred.[7] In other words, in pre-Columbian civilizations, the concept of the Sacred and spirituality was deeply intertwined with nature and the way people related to it. About indigenous spirituality, Sylvia Marcos explains that, for indigenous communities:
Spirituality is, above all, a set of embodied practices, with their correlate of shared communal presences, in which the collective identity of the peoples is expressed. It is the communal force that feeds back into contact with the earth by affirming being here next to the water, or on the mountaintop, and also resurges inside sacred caves. Indigenous spirituality is not a series of individual, mental, silent, meditative exercises in isolation; it happens in a body that, porous and malleable, encompasses the cosmos, merging into it.[8]
That is to say, as Marcos explains —– and other authors like Rivera-Cusicanqui, Pérez Moreno, and Susana Matallana— explain, – it is not possible to conceive indigenous spirituality detached from nature because nature exists in an inseparable relationship with individual and communal spirituality. Humanity is composed of and connected with everything that surrounds it; therefore, thinking and articulating an ethic about human well-being also simultaneously involves thinking and articulating an ethic about nature's care. For example, María Pérez Moreno explains that in Tseltal communities, the term "we" includes plants and animals, hills and valleys, caves and springs. In other words, everything lives. Everything has a heart or soul, the principle of life. We live, then, in a circle of cosmic extension, not only social."[9]
Therefore, it seems to me that understanding this relationship between humanity and nature from a broader spirituality and worldview, which seeks to decentralize this separation between them, becomes vital in the current world that still largely maintains the mentality that nature is a resource for and in service of human production and development. In this context, it seems important to understand that if human-nature relationships do not exist separately, then the ways in which people identify and relate are also influenced by the ways in which nature has been exploited for capital and development. In other words, the violation and abuse of nature is a violation and abuse of humanity itself.
With this in mind, in the remaining time of my presentation this morning, I would like to briefly discuss the concept of O’tanil, which refers to a philosophy and worldview of the Tseltal people in Bachajón, Chiapas, Mexico.[10] It seems to me that O’tanil serves as a valuable example of the multiplicity of knowledge and worldviews that have been invisibilized and discarded by colonial processes, producing a capitalist-heterosexual logic that understands nature and the non-human as objects in service of humanity. At the same time, O’tanil allows us to see how indigenous cultures and philosophies understood the concepts of nature and humanity as important inseparable components of each individual's integral life.
María Patricia Pérez Moreno has written an important work explaining the indigenous philosophy of O’tanil. Pérez Moreno explains:
When we refer to o’tanil (heart) in our oral communication in Tseltal, we are at the same time communicating a different philosophy of being-feeling-living-thinking and acting in the world, as o’tanil refers not only to the physiological organ but also to a stalel (way of feeling-thinking-doing-living-speaking) of the Tseltal people with respect to their surroundings (people, animals, plants, natural forces, cosmos). Similarly, it refers to qualities or characteristics that give identity to these beings, to an ethics (what ought to be) of individuals in society, to a wisdom, to honesty and the strength of the word, spiritual strength, and a sacred discourse.[11]
Pérez Moreno reveals that O’tanil is not solely a word in the language that translates literally to "heart." Rather, it encapsulates an entire philosophy of life and worldview that encompasses the ways in which Tseltal communities exist in solidarity and harmony.
While it is true that mechanisms have been recently developed to reclaim nature as a fundamental element for life, it is also important to understand that colonialism and its mechanisms of oppression have shaped a logic that minimizes and makes invisible the ways in which life philosophies like O’tanil provide a deep relationship between nature and human beings. Pérez Moreno explains that the "global model of scientific rationality, by gradually subordinating or ignoring other forms of knowledge because they differ from its epistemological and methodological principles, becomes a totalitarian model of knowledge, as it is considered the only valid one."[12]
It seems to me that the indigenous concept of O’tanil allows us to understand the ecological problem in a deeper way, by decentralizing the idea of nature as a "thing" and understanding it as an essential part of our human identity. Therefore, care for and relationship with nature, for the Tseltal people, does not arise from an urgent survival instinct focused on avoiding the end of the world; rather, O’tanil implies an ethical responsibility toward nature, stemming from the understanding that humanity cannot exist ethically if the world around us is not treated ethically as well.
It is extremely important to understand the differences between viewing nature as a necessary object for human existence and understanding nature as a divine creation that complements and exists in an inseparable connection with humanity. From this perspective, it seems that ecological discourses and efforts cannot be sustained solely by the desire to save humanity, as this adheres to a colonial logic that places the human being at the center of divine creation and constructs a hierarchy in which the human continues to view nature as an object for use and development. This also adheres to a capitalist-heterosexual economy that seeks to survive and perpetuate itself without altering or questioning its foundations. In other words, assuming the care of nature as a life project seeking to save humanity from a dystopian future is a movement that, in my view, adheres to a colonial capitalist logic rather than an ethical one.
O’tanil invites us to consider an ethic that sees human beings as integral parts of divine creation, in which the care of the Divine is inseparable from the care of nature. O’tanil decentralizes the colonial anthropocentric idea to provide us with a broader frame of reference and a much more ethical philosophy of life.[13] From this indigenous knowledge, human beings do not become the "saviors" of nature or seek mechanisms to ensure their survival. Instead, nature is an intrinsic part of their identity as individuals, and therefore, their care and respect for this Sacred gift stem not from a survival instinct but from a process of worship and connection with the Sacred.
However, it is not my intention to propose that we adopt the philosophy of O’tanil as a way of life from now on, as if by magic, we would change our way of thinking overnight. Such movements that seek to adopt indigenous philosophies without critically analyzing them deeply for entropy and peace seem to be grounded in a white-European-colonial idea of knowledge that attempts to subsume other ideas into its own unique and exclusive thinking. In other words, adopting the philosophy of O’tanil (or any other indigenous philosophy) and assuming it as our own while adapting it to our own ideas is one way through which colonialism sustains, spreads, and perpetuates itself. As David mentioned yesterday, it's like taking someone else's musical score and changing it to play with our instruments.
My proposal this morning, therefore, is to understand O’tanil as an example of how human beings can establish deeper and more ethical relationships with the surrounding nature, relationships that are not based on protecting the environment for human well-being. In other words, one of the significant contributions, I would say, that this philosophy brings to our daily lives is understanding that the Sacredness of creation is manifested in the various ways in which we embrace nature as an intrinsic part of our humanity, our daily life, and our connection with the divine and the Sacred.
Allow me to conclude with a quote from María Patricia Pérez Moreno regarding the indigenous concept of O’tanil, inviting us to rethink the way we perceive the world:
This wisdom and worldview of the heart allow us to understand that there are other ways of living, acting, and experiencing life, what surrounds us, the universe. Saying that everything is alive leads us to relate to our environment in a different way, a more human way that avoids violence, destruction of nature, and life. The worldview of the heart is a potential for the decolonization of being and knowing because, while my research focused on my own culture, there are references that show that this thinking-feeling from the heart is shared by several peoples and cultures of Abya Yala: o’tan among the Tseltal Maya, puksi'il among the Yucatecan Maya, pusik’al among the Ch'ol, 'altzil among the Tojolabal Maya, yólotl among the Nahuas, shungu among the Kichwas of Ecuador, gianzubuni among the Suruwahua of the Amazon in Brazil. The challenge is to deepen these references to cross and interweave these invisibilized and marginalized knowledge until now by hegemonic scientific knowledge.[14]
Notes:
[1] Sylvia Marcos, “Espiritualidad Indígena y Feminismos Decoloniales,” in Miradas En Torno al Problema Colonial: Pensamiento Anticolonial y Feminismos Descoloniales En Los Sures Globales, ed. Karina Ochoa Muñoz (México: Akal, 2019), 123 Translation mine.
[2] Marcos, 123–24.
[3] Marcos, 122–29.
[4] Gustavo Gutiérrez, Teologia de La Liberacion: Perspectivas. (Salamanca: Ediciones Sigueme, 2009), 74–78.
[5] Gutiérrez, 81 Translation mine.
[6] Marcos, “Espiritualidad Indígena y Feminismos Decoloniales.”
[7] Gloria. Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, 4th ed., Frontera (San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 2012); Zairong Xiang, Queer Ancient Ways: A Decolonial Exploration (Santa Barbara, California: Punctum Books, 2018); Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, Ch’ixinakax Utxiwa: Una Reflexión Sobre Prácticas y Discursos Descolonizadores. (Buenos Aires, Argentina: Tinta Limón, 2010); María Patricia Pérez Moreno, “O’tanil: Corazón. Una Sabiduría y Práctica de Sentir, Pensar, Entender, Explicar y Vivir El Mundo Desde Los Mayas Tseltales de Bachajón, Chiapas, México.,” in Miradas En Torno al Problema Colonial: Pensamiento Anticolonial y Feminismos Decoloniales En Los Sures Globales, ed. Karina Ochoa Muñoz (México: Edicionesakal, 2019), 157–73.
[8] Marcos, “Espiritualidad Indígena y Feminismos Decoloniales,” 126 Translation mine.
[9] Pérez Moreno, “O’tanil: Corazón. Una Sabiduría y Práctica de Sentir, Pensar, Entender, Explicar y Vivir El Mundo Desde Los Mayas Tseltales de Bachajón, Chiapas, México.,” 162 Translation mine.
[10] Pérez Moreno, 157.
[11] Pérez Moreno, 157 Translation mine.
[12] Pérez Moreno, 158 Translation mine.
[13] Pérez Moreno, 160–63.
[14] Pérez Moreno, 173 Translation mine.
