[bufbupa]

Man vs Nature is an old dichotomy; I'm not sure many people still hold it in their world view. It was just one step along the path of defining "self" vs "other". That differentiation is significant because it helps individuals identify threats vs allies. Colonizers may have defined indigenous people as "other" because they didn't have any shared cultural substrate that they could reliably cooperate through. Of course, that differentiation was likely varried per individual, and I'm sure there were many colonial individuals who detestested taking advantage of indigenous people.

The exploration described in the article might be better described as drawing more of the "other" into "self". Finding that which was previously uknown to your "self" (perhaps your cultural upbringing, national identity, or collective societal knowledge) and understanding it. In this circumstance the understanding is of nature and environment, but people find this same fire in more modern differentiations as well. For instance, globalization is rapidly developing universally agreeable culture, and there are many people passionate about sharing and adding parts of their culture to that global identity.

Your wish for cohabitation seems to me to be a similar desire of drawing "other" into "self", and will ultimately demand a similar degree of understanding to pull off.

[jerf]

"Man vs Nature is an old dichotomy; I'm not sure many people still hold it in their world view."

It remains alive and well in the view that anything Man does is unNatural and simply by virtue of being unNatural automatically inferior to Nature.

[earthboundkid]

> Man vs Nature is an old dichotomy

I can't think of any lone man vs. the wilderness stories from before Ibn Tufail's Autodidactus (12c.), but I'm happy to be corrected.

[throwanem]

Eight hundred years still counts as "old". Horace, whose "Drive out nature with a pitchfork..." only makes sense in context of the same dichotomy, predates ibn Tufail by about a millennium in any case. And I'd argue for a likely origin alongside that of agriculture, which was much earlier still.

[earthboundkid]

Ibn Tufail is one of the fathers of modernity. His book was translated by one of John Locke’s friends. In the context of history, this is early modern Spain. 800 years is a long time for an individual, but if the question is "did people always do this or is this a modern thing?" then finding a text at the dawn of modernity which was specifically influential on later moderns doesn't count as evidence that people always did a thing.

I’d need to read Horace to get a sense of the context there.

EDIT: Looked up Horace:

> We, who love the country, salute Fuscus that loves the town… If we must live suitably to nature, and a plot of ground is to be first sought to raise a house upon, do you know any place preferable to the blissful country? … You may drive out nature with a fork, yet still she will return, and, insensibly victorious, will break through [men's] improper disgusts.

I believe in context, this is about how country living is better than city living, so it's not really about "man vs. nature" at all. I think the metaphor is that like a farm where you're ploughing the soil, still little plants will do their thing, so too you may like the city, but little bursts of rural enthusiasm will burst through.

Ibn Tufail came up with a thought experiment of "What if a person were born on a desert island? How far could they build a civilization?" The English translated this in the early modern period, and it gave birth to Robinson Crusoe, which in turn gave birth to a million derivates which pit lone individuals against the wilderness. (Robinson Crusoe → Survivor → The Apprentice → Coronavirus disaster!) AFAICT, this is a purely modern phenomenon, but again, I'd be interested in seeing what predecessors there are historically that I'm missing.

[throwanem]

I mean, I'm not knocking, but I do wonder if you're taking "man vs. nature" to mean something more specific than the way it's being intended, is all. Not so much Bear Grylls, as just the idea that the two categories exist in a way that's distinct from one another. Although I am glad to know that Bear Grylls is drawing on so historically rich a tradition!

[throwanem]

I think many more people incorporate it into their worldview than recognize that they're doing so.