On Nature-based Culture

In this post, we give a characterization of Nature-based culture.

Nature is defined as[1]:

Nature means the physical world and all living things that humans do not make [...]

Culture as[2]:

the beliefs, customs, arts, etc., of a particular society, group, place, or time

Assume an individual who interacts with Nature in solitude, via activities like gardening, hiking, sports, spending time in solitude, etc., and reflects on the whole experience, learns how to interact with Nature, and forms habits.

Now assume the same individual interacts with a group of people, i.e., becomes a part of a culture after forming habits while interacting with Nature. A culture is Nature-based if:

  1. On interacting with a culture, an individual feels similarly to how they feel when interacting with Nature. That is, if interacting with a group of people feels similar to activities like gardening, hiking, etc.

  2. After having formed habits and thought patterns while spending time with Nature, an individual finds it easy to get assimilated back into a culture.

Overall, in a culture based on Nature, interacting with a group of people feels very similar to interacting with Nature for an individual, and for a person who has spent a lot of time with Nature in solitude, becoming assimilated into a Nature-based culture is not very challenging. This post is related to our previous post on scientific culture[3].

Thus, in this post, we put forth a characterization of Nature-based culture.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20260825064215/https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nature

[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20260816063356/https://www.merriam-webster.com/simple/culture

[3] https://m-chaturvedi.github.io/blog/042/