Natur und die westliche Zivilisation

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The development of Western civilization is marked by an increasing alienation from nature, first recognized during the Enlightenment by writers like Rousseau and Schiller, who critically addressed the resulting dichotomy. A symptom of this crisis is a paradoxical poetic enthusiasm for nature, which yearns for its subject while remaining inwardly distant. Schiller noted that our feelings for nature resemble a sick person's longing for health. While literary depictions of nature compensate for its absence in reality, they extend beyond the visible world. If civilization represents daytime, nature encompasses the nocturnal aspects of life, including hidden powers of the psyche. In the German-speaking world, resistance to civilization is framed in terms of "Kultur." Despite the complexities of this reference, particularly regarding Eros and violence, the pursuit of nature since the 18th century has been linked to cultural recognition, evaluated aesthetically, while civilizing actions are often reduced to concepts of craft, technology, utility, and societal structures. This modern split between the humanities and natural sciences largely stems from this dichotomy. Lothar Pikulik, born in 1936, was a professor of Modern German Literary Studies at the University of Trier from 1973 until his retirement, and he authored numerous works on literature and intellectual history.