In Part I, I described some of the historical causes and
environmental consequences of the American love for grassy lawns. One of the
explanations offered by Ted Steinberg, author of American Green, is prestige: the valorization of a neat, mowed lawn
trickled down from the wealthy aristocrats of Britain to the working class of
the United States over many decades, as individuals, counties, and homeowners
associations came to feel that a neat, green, mowed lawn expressed a certain
level of class. I think prestige is an important explanation for this and so many
other human behaviors and preferences.
But why a neat, monolithic green lawn rather than something
else, say a lawn covered in rose bushes or expensive stones from some far-off
land? I think there is another explanation here, which also applies to a great
many human behaviors and preferences.
One theory that has been prevalent in cultural anthropology
over the last century involves the idea that human cultures are built on binary
oppositions that structure relationships between people and things in each
culture. For example, male/female is an important binary, and each society will
have its own culturally-formed ideas of what are “male” and “female” behaviors,
dress, roles, activities, etc. For some anthropologists, such binary
oppositions reflect structures in the human brain that force us to think about
the world in this way. For others, these are cultural constructions that have
no biological or psychological basis. One of the problems with this human
tendency to order society around binary oppositions is that one side of the binary
is valued more highly than the other. Thus, the theory goes, sexism exists
because most or all societies value the masculine over the feminine.
Another important binary seen across societies by
anthropologists is nature/culture. The cultural life of most human societies
rests on subjugating nature. Religion seeks to tame our natural impulses and
instincts. Laws about marriage seek to control our bodily desires and legitimize
offspring. Agriculture is all about bringing nature into tune with human
rhythms of time and space. And so on. Societies generally value culture over
nature, and in some ways nature comes to be seen as the enemy of culture.
This theory may explain in large
part why we breathe a sigh of relief when we look out of our windows and see a
neat, green lawn. Our lawn mowing and other practices have tamed nature. Rather
than a variety of colors, we see a smooth green, accented in a controlled way
by flowers we bought at Home Depot, guaranteed to a look a certain perfect way
that is a far cry from their wild, original versions. All the scary insects and
animals, such as snakes and spiders, don’t have much of a chance in short grass
completely exposed to our human eye, especially if we use pesticides on the
lawn. Some people even fight to the death against any plant or animal that mars
that perfection. Our former neighbor was at war with clover and dandelions, obsessively
bringing out the Roundup and re-seeding any little patch in the lawn. (And you
don’t want to know what he did to the rabbits and groundhogs.) I always
wondered how he felt as he looked across the fence at our messy lawn, with
yellow dandelion flowers poking up in spring, white clover flowers in summer,
and little bees buzzing all around (at least, that is, until my husband sacrificed them to the blades of the mower).
One of the critiques against the theory of binary
oppositions is that they are overstated by the anthropologist, that actual
human behaviors and preferences are much more in flow and flux between and
around these binary structures. There are certainly groups and societies that
value nature as well as culture, and ecologists and anthropologists study
small-scale indigenous groups to learn how we can better live in an integrated,
sustainable way with nature. Furthermore, critics argue, these binary structures can change over time. So there
are people today who are happily living with weedy lawns or planting wildflowers to attract snakes and spiders and all the biodiversity that comes with
them, to the yard. In other words, according to this take on the theory, we’re
not necessarily naturally inclined to a neat, green lawn; it is something that
has been given to us as a preference by history and our circumstances. And
prestige. And thus it can be changed. We may always prefer culture over nature, but the content of that relationship can be altered.
In Part III of this series, we’ll take a look at how some
individuals and groups are converting lawn into a little slice of wilderness,
answering recent calls to forms of prestige that seek to bring a little
nature back into the cultural world of our lawns.
