Grizzly Man and the Spiritual Life
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.v4i3.206Keywords:
Treadwell, eco-spirituality, environmental philosophyAbstract
The story of Timothy Treadwell, as portrayed in Werner Herzog’s film (2005), provides a basis for a critique of two opposing attitudes and programmes which can be identified, in broad metaphysical terms, as spiritual idealism and scientific materialism. I criticize the former, inferring from Treadwell’s fate the danger – for spiritual seekers, directly, and for scholars, indirectly – of trying to be at-one or achieve absolute unity with the beloved. I then recommend a radical but viable middle way, grounded in our embodied, imperfect, unstable, liminal nature – a view clearly evident in aboriginal and folk wisdom traditions but also articulated by philosophers including Merleau-Ponty, Plumwood, Abram, Snyder and Bateson.References
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Ames, Roger T., and David L. Hall (ed. and trans.). 2003. Daodejing: ‘Making This Life Significant’: A Philosophical Translation (New York: Ballantine Books).
Auden, W.H. 1970. A Certain World: A Commonplace Book (New York: The Viking Press).
Bateson, Gregory, and Mary Catherine Bateson. 1987. Angels Fear: An Investigation into the Nature and Meaning of the Sacred (London: Rider).
Benjamin, Jessica. 1985. ‘The Bonds of Love: Rational Violence and Erotic Domination’, in Hester Eisenstein and Alice Jardine (eds.), The Future of Difference (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press): 41-70.
Bloomfield, Leonard (ed.). 1993. Sacred Stories of the Sweet Grass Cree (Saskatoon: Thistledown Books).
Brennan, Teresa. 1993. History after Lacan (London: Routledge).
Bringhurst, Robert. 2009. Selected Poems (Kentville: Gaspereau Press).
Burke, Kenneth. 1966. Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature and Method (Berkeley: University of California Press).
Cavarero, Adriana. 1995. In Spite of Plato: A Feminist Rewriting of Ancient Philosophy (trans. Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio and Aine O’Healy; New York: Routledge).
Curry, Patrick. 2003. ‘Re-Thinking Nature: Towards an Eco-Pluralism’, Environmental Values 12.3: 337-60. doi:10.3197/096327103129341351.
———. 2006. Ecological Ethics: An Introduction (Cambridge: Polity Press).
———. 2007. ‘Post-Secular Nature: Principles and Politics’, Worldviews: Environment, Culture, Religion 11.3: 284-304. doi:10.1163/156853507X230564.
———. 2008. ‘Nature Post-Nature’, New Formations 26: 51-64.
———. 2010a. ‘Some Remarks on Val Plumwood’, Green Letters 12: 8-14.
———. 2010b. ‘Embodiment, Alterity and Agency: Negotiating Antinomies in Divination’, in Patrick Curry (ed.), Divination: Perspectives for a New Millennium (Farnham: Ashgate): 85-118.
———. 2010c (forthcoming). ‘From Ecocriticism to Ecohumanities: An Essay-Review’, Green Letters 13.
———. 2011 (forthcoming). ‘On Not Saving Enchantment for Modernity’, in Tom Crook and Mathew Feldman (eds.), Sacred Modernities: Rethinking Modernity in a Post-Secular Age (London: Continuum).
Deloria, Jr,Vine. 2000. ‘The Speculations of Krech’, Worldviews 4.3: 283-93.
Eagleton, Terry. 2006. ‘Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching’, London Review of Books, 10 October.
———. 2009. Reason, Faith and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate (New Haven: Yale University Press).
Ferrer, Jorge N. 2002. Revisioning Transpersonal Theory: A Participatory Vision of Human Spirituality (Albany: SUNY Press).
Flieger, Verlyn, and Douglas A. Anderson (eds.). 2008. Tolkien on Fairy-Stories (London: HarperCollins).
Gray, John. 2008. ‘The Atheist Delusion’, The Guardian, 14 March.
Harvey, Graham. 2006. Animism: Respecting the Living World (New York: Columbia University Press).
Jain, Andrea R., and Jeffrey J. Kirpal. 2009. ‘Quietism and Karma: Non-Action as Non-Ethics in Jain Asceticism’, Common Knowledge 15.2: 197-208. doi:10.1215/0961754X-2008-049.
Jonas, Hans. 1982. The Phenomenon of Life: Toward a Philosophical Biology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
Kane, Sean. 1998. Wisdom of the Mythtellers (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2nd edn).
Le Guin, Ursula. 1989. Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places (London: Paladin).
Lloyd, Genevieve. 1984. The Man of Reason (London: Methuen). doi:10.4324/9780203423240.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 1962. The Phenomenology of Perception (trans. Colin Smith; London: Routledge & Kegan Paul).
———. 1968. The Visible and the Invisible (ed. Claude Lefort; trans. Alphonso Lingis; Evanston: Northwestern University Press).
Midgley, Mary. 1992. Science and Salvation (London: Routledge).
———. 2001. Science and Poetry (London: Routledge).
Montaigne, Michel de. 1991. The Complete Essays (trans. M.A. Screech; London: Penguin).
Mumford, Lewis. 1967–70. The Myth of the Machine (2 vols.; New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch).
Oviedo, Gonzalo, and Luisa Maffi, with Peter Bille Larsen. 2000. Indigenous and Traditional Peoples of the World and Ecoregion Conservation: An Integrated Approach to Conserving the World’s Biological and Cultural Diversity, a report by the WWF and Terralingua (Gland: World Wildlife Federation).
Plumwood, Val. 1991. ‘Nature, Self and Gender: Feminsim, Environmental Philosophy and the Critique of Rationalism’, Hypatia 6: 10-16, 23-26.
———. 1993. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature (London: Routledge).
———. 2000. ‘Deep Ecology, Deep Pockets, and Deep Problems: A Feminist Ecosocialist Analysis’, in Eric Katz, Andrew Light, and David Rothenberg (eds.), Beneath the Surface: Critical Essays in Deep Ecology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press): 59-84.
———. 2002. Environmental Culture: The Ecological Crisis of Reason (London: Routledge).
Reynolds, Jack. 2004. Merleau-Ponty and Derrida: Intertwining Embodiment and Alterity (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press).
Snyder, Gary. 1990. The Practice of the Wild (Berkeley: Counterpoint).
Taylor, Bron (ed.). 2005. The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature (2 vols.; Bristol: Thoemmes Continuum).
———. 2010. Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future (Berkeley: University of California Press).
Tolkien, J.R.R. 2005. Smith of Wootton Major (ed. Verlyn Flieger; London: HarperCollins).
Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo. 2004. ‘Exchanging Perspectives: The Transformation of Objects into Subjects in Amerindian Ontologies’, Common Knowledge 10.3: 463-84. doi:10.1215/0961754X-10-3-463.
Westling, Louise. 2007. ‘Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty: Ecopoetics and the Problem of Humanism’, in Fiona Beckett and Terry Gifford (eds.), Culture, Creativity and Environment: New Environmental Criticism (Amsterdam: Rodopi): 233-47.
Zwicky, Jan. 1992. Lyric Philosophy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press).
Ames, Roger T., and David L. Hall (ed. and trans.). 2003. Daodejing: ‘Making This Life Significant’: A Philosophical Translation (New York: Ballantine Books).
Auden, W.H. 1970. A Certain World: A Commonplace Book (New York: The Viking Press).
Bateson, Gregory, and Mary Catherine Bateson. 1987. Angels Fear: An Investigation into the Nature and Meaning of the Sacred (London: Rider).
Benjamin, Jessica. 1985. ‘The Bonds of Love: Rational Violence and Erotic Domination’, in Hester Eisenstein and Alice Jardine (eds.), The Future of Difference (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press): 41-70.
Bloomfield, Leonard (ed.). 1993. Sacred Stories of the Sweet Grass Cree (Saskatoon: Thistledown Books).
Brennan, Teresa. 1993. History after Lacan (London: Routledge).
Bringhurst, Robert. 2009. Selected Poems (Kentville: Gaspereau Press).
Burke, Kenneth. 1966. Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature and Method (Berkeley: University of California Press).
Cavarero, Adriana. 1995. In Spite of Plato: A Feminist Rewriting of Ancient Philosophy (trans. Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio and Aine O’Healy; New York: Routledge).
Curry, Patrick. 2003. ‘Re-Thinking Nature: Towards an Eco-Pluralism’, Environmental Values 12.3: 337-60. doi:10.3197/096327103129341351.
———. 2006. Ecological Ethics: An Introduction (Cambridge: Polity Press).
———. 2007. ‘Post-Secular Nature: Principles and Politics’, Worldviews: Environment, Culture, Religion 11.3: 284-304. doi:10.1163/156853507X230564.
———. 2008. ‘Nature Post-Nature’, New Formations 26: 51-64.
———. 2010a. ‘Some Remarks on Val Plumwood’, Green Letters 12: 8-14.
———. 2010b. ‘Embodiment, Alterity and Agency: Negotiating Antinomies in Divination’, in Patrick Curry (ed.), Divination: Perspectives for a New Millennium (Farnham: Ashgate): 85-118.
———. 2010c (forthcoming). ‘From Ecocriticism to Ecohumanities: An Essay-Review’, Green Letters 13.
———. 2011 (forthcoming). ‘On Not Saving Enchantment for Modernity’, in Tom Crook and Mathew Feldman (eds.), Sacred Modernities: Rethinking Modernity in a Post-Secular Age (London: Continuum).
Deloria, Jr,Vine. 2000. ‘The Speculations of Krech’, Worldviews 4.3: 283-93.
Eagleton, Terry. 2006. ‘Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching’, London Review of Books, 10 October.
———. 2009. Reason, Faith and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate (New Haven: Yale University Press).
Ferrer, Jorge N. 2002. Revisioning Transpersonal Theory: A Participatory Vision of Human Spirituality (Albany: SUNY Press).
Flieger, Verlyn, and Douglas A. Anderson (eds.). 2008. Tolkien on Fairy-Stories (London: HarperCollins).
Gray, John. 2008. ‘The Atheist Delusion’, The Guardian, 14 March.
Harvey, Graham. 2006. Animism: Respecting the Living World (New York: Columbia University Press).
Jain, Andrea R., and Jeffrey J. Kirpal. 2009. ‘Quietism and Karma: Non-Action as Non-Ethics in Jain Asceticism’, Common Knowledge 15.2: 197-208. doi:10.1215/0961754X-2008-049.
Jonas, Hans. 1982. The Phenomenon of Life: Toward a Philosophical Biology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
Kane, Sean. 1998. Wisdom of the Mythtellers (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2nd edn).
Le Guin, Ursula. 1989. Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places (London: Paladin).
Lloyd, Genevieve. 1984. The Man of Reason (London: Methuen). doi:10.4324/9780203423240.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 1962. The Phenomenology of Perception (trans. Colin Smith; London: Routledge & Kegan Paul).
———. 1968. The Visible and the Invisible (ed. Claude Lefort; trans. Alphonso Lingis; Evanston: Northwestern University Press).
Midgley, Mary. 1992. Science and Salvation (London: Routledge).
———. 2001. Science and Poetry (London: Routledge).
Montaigne, Michel de. 1991. The Complete Essays (trans. M.A. Screech; London: Penguin).
Mumford, Lewis. 1967–70. The Myth of the Machine (2 vols.; New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch).
Oviedo, Gonzalo, and Luisa Maffi, with Peter Bille Larsen. 2000. Indigenous and Traditional Peoples of the World and Ecoregion Conservation: An Integrated Approach to Conserving the World’s Biological and Cultural Diversity, a report by the WWF and Terralingua (Gland: World Wildlife Federation).
Plumwood, Val. 1991. ‘Nature, Self and Gender: Feminsim, Environmental Philosophy and the Critique of Rationalism’, Hypatia 6: 10-16, 23-26.
———. 1993. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature (London: Routledge).
———. 2000. ‘Deep Ecology, Deep Pockets, and Deep Problems: A Feminist Ecosocialist Analysis’, in Eric Katz, Andrew Light, and David Rothenberg (eds.), Beneath the Surface: Critical Essays in Deep Ecology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press): 59-84.
———. 2002. Environmental Culture: The Ecological Crisis of Reason (London: Routledge).
Reynolds, Jack. 2004. Merleau-Ponty and Derrida: Intertwining Embodiment and Alterity (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press).
Snyder, Gary. 1990. The Practice of the Wild (Berkeley: Counterpoint).
Taylor, Bron (ed.). 2005. The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature (2 vols.; Bristol: Thoemmes Continuum).
———. 2010. Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future (Berkeley: University of California Press).
Tolkien, J.R.R. 2005. Smith of Wootton Major (ed. Verlyn Flieger; London: HarperCollins).
Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo. 2004. ‘Exchanging Perspectives: The Transformation of Objects into Subjects in Amerindian Ontologies’, Common Knowledge 10.3: 463-84. doi:10.1215/0961754X-10-3-463.
Westling, Louise. 2007. ‘Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty: Ecopoetics and the Problem of Humanism’, in Fiona Beckett and Terry Gifford (eds.), Culture, Creativity and Environment: New Environmental Criticism (Amsterdam: Rodopi): 233-47.
Zwicky, Jan. 1992. Lyric Philosophy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press).
Published
2010-10-04
Issue
Section
Perspectives
How to Cite
Curry, P. (2010). Grizzly Man and the Spiritual Life. Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, 4(3), 206-219. https://doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.v4i3.206
