Doug
The issue was whether "reverence for nature" was modern. Both Maria and I strongly objected. You are now raising the issue in another way by asking whether the concept of a separable "nature" is not modern. Where does "modern" start? I would say that the notion of a nature that is separable from man and which man "governs" is at least as "modern" or "old" as the Old Testament. Before monotheism, I don't know.
It may be that those cultures who honor/revere nature do not refer to it as a separable thing, but this does not diminish the terms they make with their sustaining (and inseparable) environment. In our terms they do "revere nature" -- which Chris argued was a modern fetish...
Joanna
--- I was thinking of the Greeks. Not much reverence of nature there. A lot of fear of it, though. Nature is the thing that comes into your house and rends you apart with its teeth.
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