For centuries, we have worked towards dominating, exploiting and utilising nature. Now the ill-considered consequences of these actions come to us in the form of catastrophic events and processes as alien natural processes. This shows that the root of our relationship with nature lies in our alienation from the potentials of nature, which can only be overcome if we recognise, in our thoughts and actions, that the human subject always and everywhere deals with immanent strivings of the animate and inanimate. In The Principle of Hope, Ernst Bloch mentioned the need to assume a "natural subject" with which human being and action must mediate. He calls the social practice of this mediation a "natural alliance". Ludwig Fischer takes up this term, reconceptualises it and expands it: he sees nature alliance as a fundamental principle of natural processes – every breath, every food production, every technical device is based on nature alliance. To recognise them attentively and respectfully could stop the unrestrained destruction of the basis of life. Because "alliance thinking" includes all ambivalences, contradictions and imponderables and gives social action a new direction.
Non-fiction
Ludwig Fischer, born in Leipzig in 1939, was Professor of Modern German Literature and Media Culture at the University of Hamburg. He is a landscape and nature theorist, writer, gardener and herbalist.
