Nature - autonomous learning

116 de-naturalisationabout, and policy responses to, the phenomena of ‘natural resource scarcity’.To quote him at length:let us consider a [neo-Malthusian] . . . sentence: “Over-populationarises because of the scarcity of resources available for meeting thesubsistence needs of the mass of the population”. If we substituteour definitions [of subsistence, resources and scarcity] into thissentence we get: “There are too many people in the world because theparticular ends we have in view (together with the form of socialorganization we have) and the materials available in nature, that wehave the will and the way to use, are not sufficient to provide us withthose things to which we are accustomed”. Out of such a sentence allkinds of possibilities can be extracted:1. we can change the ends we have in mind and alter the socialorganization of scarcity;2. we can change our technical and social appraisals of nature;3. we can change our views concerning the things to which we areaccustomed;4. we can seek to alter our numbers. . . To say that there are too many people in the world amounts tosaying that we have not the imagination, will or ability to do anythingabout propositions 1, 2 and 3(1974: 236)Harvey’s critique of neo-Malthusianism was among the first ingeography to show that ideas about nature are not innocent in relation tothe world they purport to describe, explain and evaluate. His notion ofideology – that is, a set of ideas that appear to be true but which in factconceal the truth in order to further a certain groups’ interests (see Box 3.1)– paved the way for later research into how ideas of nature do not reflectthe realities of nature but, rather, the societal contexts in which those ideasarise. It’s important to note that Harvey was not denying the physicalexistence of those things we call natural (in his case, resources). Afterall, Marx, Harvey’s chief inspiration, was a self-proclaimed ‘materialist’ whobelieved that a real world exists regardless of our ideas about it. But theseideas matter because it is precisely through them that we come to understand