ABSTRACT
Contemporary environmental hazards make it difficult to conceive of nature and culture as separate. Whether we think of the ozone hole, pollution, or food scares, nature is inescapably contaminated by human activity, that is, by a way of life that is practised and exported by industrial societies. This loss of clear distinction between nature and culture, however, is not only brought about by the industrialisation of nature but also by the hazards that endanger humans, animals and plants alike. That is to say, the common danger has a levelling effect that whittles away some of the painstakingly erected boundaries. It erodes the meticulously constructed and carefully guarded differences between humans and (the rest of) nature, between creators of culture and creatures of instinct, or to use an earlier distinction, between beings with and beings without a soul.
