The Attempt To Banish Nature

By DONALD DeMARCO

The central irony of feminism, which was founded in the interest of giving due respect to the special gifts of women, has logically led to the denial that there is such a being as a woman. “I understand,” writes feminist Julia Kristeva, “by ‘woman’ that which cannot be represented, something that is not said, something above and beyond nomenclature and ideologies.”
Gender studies Professor Rebecca Jordan-Young, author of Brain Storm: The Flaws in the Science of Sex Differences, states that there is not even a singular biological answer to what is a female. Another gender expert, Sarah Richardson, author of The Maternal Imprint: The Contested Science of Maternal-Fetal Effects, argues that science cannot settle what are really social questions. According to these “experts,” human sexuality is no longer anchored in nature. It is now free-floating, definable by extrinsic factors.
Ketanji Brown Jackson, a U.S. Supreme Court nominee as of this writing, caused a stir during the Senate hearings in late March when she stated that she could not define the word “woman.” In pleading ignorant to something that human beings have understood for millennia and what biology has confirmed, she chose to conform to an ideology that is now supposedly independent of nature. DNA, X and Y chromosomes, and genitalia are no longer relevant in defining a woman.
Somehow, in ways that are not exactly clear, ideology has displaced nature. This creates the impression that we now have the power to change human sexuality and turn it into what we would prefer it to be. It is as if the science of astronomy were to regress back to the superstition of astrology, a pseudo-science for stargazers who were fond of inventing fascinating myths. The Bible, the testimony of human beings throughout history, along with what were once thought to be enlightening works, such as Pope John Paul II’s 130 allocutions on the Theology of the Body, have now been superannuated.
Woman as well as man are now presumed, according to the Zeitgeist, to be above nature and not determined by it. In this way, nature is seen as having been a limiting factor that must be banished. Man (the human being) is no longer the “quintessence of dust.” He has shaken off the “dust” and is, finally, what he wants to be. Or is this merely an illusion?
Chemistry, for the ancient Greeks, did not deal with 92 natural elements, but with a mere four: earth, air, fire, and water. Yet there was an added mystery to their primitive science. They believed that the stars were composed of a fifth element, or a quinta essentia, a higher kind of matter, immortal and imperishable. This fifth essence was the substance of the stars.
Shakespeare, who was more than willing to define what a “man” is, brought this fifth essence down to earth. The unity of this higher matter with dust constituted the nature of the human being. As Hamlet declares:
“What a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a God! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!” And then, to bring his panegyric to a climax, he defines man as “the quintessence of dust.”
This marvelous expression is a synthesis of starlight and earth-dust, the eternal and the ephemeral, spirit and body, the heavenly and the natural. Man is a paradox. He is not just one element, either merely social or merely natural. This is why man (including woman) is challenging both to define and to put into practice. Throughout history the pendulum has swung from one side to the other. Is man simply natural and should not be restricted by moral norms? Or is he angel, and should not be held back by his body? It is easy to define something that is simply one thing, like hydrogen or helium. But the truth of man is best expressed in a paradox.
Carl Sandburg tells us that “Truth consists of paradoxes and a paradox is two facts that stand on opposite hilltops and across the intervening valley call each other liars.”
Man is an enigma, claiming to be either the special creation of God or the accidental product of chance. His ancestry is either sovereignty or slime. The ability to integrate celestial aspirations with corporeal responsibilities has long been a source of frustration, confusion, and one-sidedness. Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae was widely misunderstood because it was based on a “total vision” of man, combining the spiritual with the corporeal. The human being is a psycho-somatic entity, an integrated person.
Nature may be denied, but it will not go away. Sociology cannot supplant biology. As Cicero stated long ago, “Custom cannot conquer nature; indeed, nature will always conquer her” (Numquam naturam mos vinceret; enim ea semper invicta).
No small amount of humility is required for a person to accept the fact that he is an embodied spirit. It is not that the body limits us. It is, in fact, an essential factor in defining us. We are not “liberated” when we reject the body and seek a more lofty reality. As the poet Hyde Partnow has said, “I am free not because I can fly, but because my feet touch the ground.” We are liberated when we guide our life through the light of reason. Reason, like nature, endures and will persist despite repeated attempts to ostracize it. Pride was the cause of original sin because our primal parents wanted to be more than they could be. Pride begets a fall because it throws away the ladder that connects us to reality.
We must relearn what it means to be male and female. And this learning process requires little more than the restoration of common sense. The attempt to banish the body will prove, in the end, to be counterproductive.

• + + (Dr. Donald DeMarco is professor emeritus, St. Jerome’s University, and an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College. He is a regular columnist for St. Austin Review and is the author of 41 books. He is a former corresponding member of the Pontifical Academy of Life. Some of his latest books, The 12 Supporting Pillars of the Culture of Life and Why They Are Crumbling, Glimmers of Hope in a Darkening World, and Restoring Philosophy and Returning to Common Sense, are posted on amazon.com. His most recent book is Let Us Not Despair. He and his wife, Mary, have 5 children and 13 grandchildren.)