A Post for Earth Day

At the beginning of the chapter “A Woman’s Touch,” Classen writes “Hot, dry, cold and moist. The same qualities thought to shape the cosmos in premodernity were also believed to shape the bodies of men and women” (71). This sentence reminded me of the theme song from one of my favorite cartoons as a kid: “Earth, fire, wind, water, heart, go planet!” While not the same kind of elements, in both cases the elements that make up the earth also make up people. In the show Captain Planet, five kids from different countries each represent one of the elements (earth, fire, wind, water, and “heart”) with a magical ring. They fight villains representing pollution and greed and other threats to the planet. They join their magic ring powers together to summon Captain Planet to help save the day. The kids and their elemental rings aren’t the same as the hot, dry, cold, and moist qualities believed to shape all things including people, what’s the same is an identification with the earth, with our environment. In Captain Planet, when the major elements of the earth combine (along with “heart” to give him life, maybe?) they produce an environmental superhero ready to save the earth from the destructive force of capitalism and consumption that has separated us from earth off which we leach. In most of Classen’s chapter, though, deep identification with the earth seemed to help enforce pretty restrictive and patriarchal gender roles. Men, being hot and dry and hard, must be bigger and stronger and more rational, while women were seen as smaller, weaker, and more emotional, being identified with cold, wet squishiness. Despite these negative outcomes from Medieval Europeans identifying with the tactile elements of their environment, it is important for people to feel connected to and identify with their environment, both tactilely and through our other senses. In losing touch with nature and all its feelings, we risk losing perspective, we risk becoming the villains in Captain Planet.