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Step 3 of 6~8 min read~38 min left
Bacon's Language of Domination
Explore Merchant's reading of Bacon as the pivot between organic and mechanistic worldviews.
“An organically oriented mentality in which female principles played an important role was undermined and replaced by a mechanically oriented mentality that either eliminated or used female principles in an exploitative manner. As Western culture became increasingly mechanized in the 1600s, the female earth and virgin earth spirit were subdued by the machine. [Bacon] spoke of putting nature on the rack, of binding her into service as a slave. The new scientist was to interrogate nature, much as an inquisitor interrogated a witch, forcing her to reveal her secrets. — Carolyn Merchant, The ==Death of Nature==: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution (1980)”