ABSTRACT
In chapter 19 we saw that modernity encourages “opportunities . . . for selfexpression lacking in more traditional contexts”1 even as it discourages opportunities for the more meaningful relationship with (non-human) nature that normally prevails in those more traditional contexts. In a number of other chapters, you will recall, I envisioned a synthesis of the modern and the traditional world-views that would incorporate the best of each and leave the worst behind: this synthesis would preserve the self-expression of modernity while rejecting its “drive to mastery” over nature and would reject the traditionalist suppression of self-expression while preserving its more reverential relationship to nature. In this chapter I extend my Kleinian account of the human subject to its relationship with nature in order to supply the psychological support for this synthesis.
