Price 4
what does nature stand in contrast to?
- cities
- civilization
- technology
- artificial, very much a human construct,
sometimes implies fake
- imitation, replica
- what we are used to comes to seem natural
- anything that is disappearing as a result of
industrialization, we call natural
nature becomes a signifier of authenticity
The Nature Company
Ways in which The Nature Company is environmentally
responsible
- no live animals killed for things to sell
- accurate replicas, not cutesy approximations
of animals
- their original goal was nature as stress
relief
- material that helps people appreciate nature
- get people interested in authentic nature
Ways in which it stereotypes nature
- crafts made by indigenous people are counted as nature
- emphasis on nature as a place for people to enjoy in
their leisure time
- mass sales of things that are real, don't seem
mass-produced
- store interiors are carefully designed to feel like
walking in a forest
- manufactured authenticity
- in such a consumer environment we realize that the
meaning of nature is being constructed and sold
- consumerism: defining yourself by what you buy
- fits the point of malls, which is to sell things people
don't really need
If you turn nature into a commodity is it still natural?
we attach the same meanings to nature and to handcraft, and that
confuses our thinking about nature
not all questioning of consumer society is about going back to
nature, some is about going back to producing things ourselves
Malls tend to be very generic, but there has been an effort
to make the more upscale ones into fake towns
- like The Nature Company, things are reproduced out of
place
- we miss a connection to place
- connects us to the meanings we give to nature more than
to nature itself
- nature is constructed as relaxing, a source of
tranquility, but would it be that if you were actually there?
- malls and the stores are designed not to be logically
organized or efficient
- consumerism is the way we know to connect to things
- so The Nature Company sells nature as an antidote to
consumerism, promoting the idea of good consumerism, not the
tacky wasteful kind
We fall easily into these contradictions because we keep trying
to see nature as a place apart
seeing nature as a place apart leads us to see it as a thing we
can use
nature is an escape from reality
Consider the more recent example of giant Cabelas stores