There has been a huge number of acts to protect nature, and people have come to raise their voices for environmental, animal, and marine conservation. However, there is no clear definition for the term ‘nature.’ Although numerous scientists claim to work on “nature,” none of them defines it. It is because defining “nature” could be complicated and controversial, as its meaning changes depending on people, time, culture, and other factors. Therefore, the definition of ‘nature’ could be varied. This article investigates how the concept of nature has varied between Westerners and the Japanese since ancient times.
Westerners’ perspective of the concept of nature
The words representing the idea of nature have been traced back in many languages, such as Latin, ancient Greek, and Chinese. Linguists realised that the term ‘nature’ was a quite recent word because the idea of this word was not recorded in archaic texts but mostly presented in classical ones (Berque, 2014 cited in Ducarme and Couvet, 2020).
In Greek, people describe nature with ‘phusis’ grounded in verbal root for growing and producing. ‘Phusis’ was mainly used by scholars in an urbanistic context, and its meaning does not exclude humankind: humans as a part of nature (Ducarme and Couvet, 2020). However, the Bible had hugely influenced people’s minds in the Greek and Roman periods regarding the concept of nature. In a monotheist context, God reigns at the top of the world, and man transcends nature (Callicott and Ames, 1989 cited in Ducarme and Couvet, 2020). Therefore, nature was then no longer viewed as a sacred matter but rather as a simple tool for men to live comfortably on Earth.
Japanese perspective of the concept of nature
The idea of nature did not exist until the Meiji Period. In Japanese, nature is translated into ‘shizen.’ Shizen derives from the Chinese word ‘ziran’ through Chinese literature in the mid-sixth century. The first component of the word ‘shi’ refers to ‘spontaneously or naturally so’ (Tucker, 2003).
Japanese has a different concept of nature compared to Westerners. The Japanese have not considered nature as a matter of investigation or exploitation for human benefit. They perceive themselves as a part of nature and treat the art of living in harmony with nature as wisdom (Watanabe, 1974). Since untamed-wild nature has been considered to be dangerous and uncontrollable from the Japanese perspective, people have tried to co-exist with it. However, not many people are willing to immerse themselves in the untamed wild nature for an extended period. They would rather prefer well-controlled nature, such as well-groomed gardens, ikebana flower arrangements, and bonsai trees. For the Japanese, gardens, parks, artificial beaches, and hot spring baths all fall under the category of nature because something filled with trees, flowers, and water is considered to be natural views. Consequently, the Japanese consider both Mother Nature and controlled-nature as natural (Tokyo Business Today, 2017).
Conclusion
There is a concept of humans against nature in the Western world, whereas the Japanese think they are part of nature. These contradicting concepts are intertwined with landscape, culture, time, and religion, and there is no wrong or right idea.
Reference:
Ducarme, F. and Couvet, D. (2020). What does “nature” mean?. Palgrave Communications, 6(1).
Watanabe, M. (1974). The Conception of Nature in Japanese Culture. Science, 183(4122), pp.279–282.
Tokyo Business Today. (2017). Japan’s Unique View of Nature | Life. [online] Available at: https://toyokeizai.net/articles/-/190690.
Tucker, J.A. (2003). Japanese Views of Nature and the Environment. Science Across Cultures: The History of Non-Western Science, pp.161–183.
