Which Nature Are We Growing?

A draft using #OxfordBoaters as an example Today I was half joke about ducks and geese, but there’s something underneath the joke if you lift the lid. After Darwin, many nineteenth-century elitists became fascinated with cataloguing nature. Too often, though, they also saw their own society reflected back at them. Hierarchy, competition, borders and domination weren’t simply political arrangements any more, they were presented as “natural laws”. Social Darwinism grew out of this way of thinking, using selective readings of nature to justify existing inequalities. Later, ethologists like Konrad Lorenz studied geese, ducks and other animals, revealing fascinating patterns of territoriality, dominance and aggression. The science itself mattered. The mistake came when people stretched those observations into a claim about human society: this is simply how we are. You still hear versions of that today. “People are naturally selfish.” “You’ll never stop conflict.” “Communities always need…