"I" goes "CO" : human "I"solationism goes "CO"mmensal, 1939-1945

Michael Marshall

After 500 years of world dominance, something subtly changed in the psyche of Modernist Man over the relatively brief period of 1939-1945.

Modernist Man reluctantly began to accept that Humanity was not "I"solated above and beyond nature and stopped denying nature can affect us and that we can impact it.

Very tentatively, Modernist Man began to accept that Humanity was deeply embedded within nature --- and that like it or not, we along with all other Life on Earth, dine or die at a "CO"mmon table.

Now, admittedly, terms like Isolationism or Denialism are not conventionally used to describe MOdernity's relationship with Nature.

Instead those words evoke some Americans from the Midwest first fighting to remain isolationist, between 1939 to 1941, on the question of preventing the Polish Holocaust and then later, not missing a beat, going to their graves denying it ever happened.

But if we recall that in the 1940s many Midwesters did consider their "Polack" neighbours as lesser beings and much too close to Nature for comfort, we begin to see the parallels....