Kinship to Mastery Explores Human Roots in the Natural World

Humans evolved in the company of other creatures, and our identity remains rooted in the natural world. No matter how much we may have become urban dwellers, we continue to rely physically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually on the quality and richness of our natural surroundings.

That is the basic hypothesis of Stephen R. Kellert’s book “Kinship to Mastery: Biophilia in Human Evolution and Development” Island Press, 1997 , a hypothesis first explored by Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson in his controversial book “Biophilia” Harvard University Press, 1984 , which describes our inherent biological need to affiliate with the world of plants and animals.

Biophilia is reflected in the power and imagery of languages, the universality of fairy tales involving animals, and the pervasive need not only to establish a kinship with nature but to exert mastery over it, says Professor Kellert, who teaches at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Our affinity for nature also is thought to be the driving force behind the current environmental movement.

“Nature offers a universal classroom for learning and instruction – a place where, independent of culture and history, intellectual capacity can be nurtured and developed,” Professor Kellert writes. “Our species’ inherent inclination to engage in study and observation has always fed upon nature’s never-ending mystery and diversity.”

Using a conceptual framework of nine principals, Professor Kellert builds his biophilia hypothesis fact by fact, making his case by quoting seminal writers such as Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, John Steinbeck, Carl Jung and Friedrich Nietzsche, and by citing scores of studies about public interactions with and perceptions of the environment.

In an attempt to make the abstract more concrete, Professor Kellert also scatters engaging vignettes throughout his book, such as an anecdote about how the gift of a pet assuaged a child’s grief over the death of a parent; how acquiring a parrot provided a prisoner with a delightful subject for studying bird behavior; and how a summer sojourn on a remote Nova Scotia island helped a busy couple find deeper meaning in their marriage. As one New York Times reviewer put it, “Kellert’s vignettes wake us up to smell the flowers – the ones that are left.”

“I wanted this book to be accessible to a wider audience,” says Professor Kellert, who views “Kinship to Mastery” as the third book in a trilogy. He co-edited “The Biophilia Hypothesis” Island Press, 1993 with Professor Wilson, which brought together some of the most creative scientists of our time to explore the theory in depth, and followed up by writing “The Value of Life: Biological Diversity and Human Society” Island Press 1996 . The latter book was aimed primarily at scholars and conservationists.

“It’s easy to think of nature as being peripheral in our lives because we tend to experience it piecemeal,” he says. “But when we look at the broad sweep of ways we experience nature, and look at nature’s profound impact on our physical, material and emotional well-being, we see more there than we first imagined.”

To illustrate his point, he presents an array of facts:

* An estimated $3 trillion, or 15 percent of the global economy of $21 trillion, is obtained from the wild pharmaceuticals, honey, fish, berries, mushrooms, nuts, etc. . That includes $180 billion for wild foods alone.

* More Americans 135 million visit zoos during an average year than attend all the professional baseball, basketball and football games together. Another 10 million people visit the 35 most popular aquariums.

Visits to national parks and protected areas are soaring dramatically.

* Three million people in more than 20 countries seek the chance to see whales and other marine mammals in the wild – an activity that was unknown 50 or 60 years ago.

* Ecotourism is now the fastest growing segment of the international travel industry and one of the most significant sources of income for countries like Kenya, Nepal, Costa Rica and Ecuador.

* Twenty-five percent of the American population either fishes or hunts for recreation during an average year. One-quarter of Americans claim to be bird watchers, and Americans own some 130 million cats and dogs.

* The world’s biodiversity includes an estimated 10 million species of plants and animals.

* Half of the world’s 350,000 flowering plants occur in the tropical rain forests, which are experiencing 1 to 2 percent deforestation each year. The rosy periwinkle in Madagascar and the Pacific yew in the United States, both of which are threatened by deforestation, provide extracts that are effective treatments for cancer.

The cumulative effect of Professor Kellert’s quotes, vignettes, factoids and research reports is to make the reader more deeply aware of the pervasiveness of nature in our lives and its role in making us human.

“Over the millennia, humanity’s affiliation with life and natural processes conferred distinctive advantages in the human struggle to persist, adapt and thrive as a species,” Professor Kellert writes. “During the long course of human evolution, our interest in the natural world has endured because, like all expressions of biophilia, it still has functional significance in human evolution and development.”

One of the most controversial aspects of the biophilia hypothesis is the claim that it is acquired through evolution. “But it is not something that is hard-wired in the brain, like breathing or eating,” he says. “Instead, our complex affiliation with nature is a predisposition, a tendency to learn rapidly. In other words, humans have genetic clusters of traits that prepare them to develop very quickly in a certain way upon exposure to nature.” It is “prepared learning,” he proposes, and extends to our easily learned fear of snakes, spiders and bugs.

Furthermore, the symbolic use of nature appears to be instrumental in language acquisition and psychosocial development in children. “Symbolizing nature enables all cultures to confront basic dilemmas of authority and independence, order and chaos, good and evil, love and sexuality, parochialism and worldliness, in a tolerable yet compelling and instructive manner,” Professor Kellert says. “Anthropomorphism through totems and fairy tales helps render the enigmatic and challenging issues of desire, need, and conflict more palpable and captivating.”

The book’s concluding chapters give readers ideas about how they can preserve biodiversity and reduce pollution through education and action. “Contemporary society frequently fails to recognize the significance of maintaining rich and healthy ties with natural diversity,” he writes. “The illusion emerges that humans can live apart from nature, somewhat transcending the need for experiencing natural diversity….Thus a vicious cycle develops: denying the importance of natural process and connection encourages apathy and destructive excess, further estranging people from their fundamental physical and mental dependence on a healthy living environment.”

In summing up, Professor Kellert quotes Professor Wilson, a Pulitzer-prize winning author, who said, “The more we know of other forms of life, the more we enjoy and respect ourselves. Humanity is exalted not because we are so far above other living creatures, but because knowing them well elevates the very concept of life.”