Natural: The Seductive Myth of Nature's Goodness

· Profile Audio · Narrated by Joe McQuillan
Audiobook
8 hr 47 min
Unabridged
Eligible
Ratings and reviews aren’t verified  Learn More
Want a 53 min sample? Listen anytime, even offline. 
Add

About this audiobook

Without our realising it, a single, slippery concept has become a secular deity throughout the modern industrial world. We make terrible sacrifices in its name: of our money, our health, and our planet. That deity is nature itself.

From supermarket shoppers to evolutionary biologists, from atheists to pastors, from Alex Jones to Gwyneth Paltrow, we are all prone to the intuitive faith that life should be lived 'naturally'.

But nature can't teach us how to live. If we try to stick to its imagined commands, eschewing human artifice in pursuit of Edenic purity, we jeopardise the environment, our health, and our society. (We also waste a lot of money on pots of weird slime). It is time to accept our profound responsibility to shape the world of which our technology
and our selves are wholly a part.

About the author

Alan Levinovitz is an assistant professor at James Madison University, Virginia. His writing has appeared in the Atlantic, Slate, Salon, Wired, The Believer, and The Millions.

Rate this audiobook

Tell us what you think.

Listening information

Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can read books purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.