What the Flaws in "Macbeth" Mean for Environmental Communication

Macbeth isn’t “a tale told by an idiot,” but it does have a flawed understanding of the environment, and we must learn from those flaws to improve environmental communication.

A fundamental problem in Macbeth arises from William Shakespeare’s depiction of natural and unnatural. It’s a false dichotomy that perpetuates and expands on the flaws in science’s “laws of nature,” flaws highlighted by Yrjö Haila and Chuck Dyke in How Nature Speaks: The Dynamics of the Human Ecological Condition. Having “laws of nature” requires the conclusion that when those laws are broken, something “unnatural” is done. In other words, these laws imply that a separation exists between what is natural and what is not natural. This is one of the main ways we end up seeing humans and nature as distinct from each other. 

In Macbeth, Shakespeare goes to great lengths to present the title character’s usurping of the Scottish throne as an affront to nature. He does this to protect the “divine right” of kings to hold power, a move intended to curry favor with James I. In this way, the King Duncan of the play and his line embody the “laws of nature,” which, when broken, throw Scotland into an unnatural state of turmoil. As Lady Macbeth’s doctor says, “Unnatural deeds do breed unnatural troubles.”

For Haila and Dyke, nothing, including deeds and troubles, can be unnatural. Nature is simply the parameters of what is possible. As a result, they argue “that nature’s speech means nature’s presence in everything we humans do.” Killing someone, whether they are a monarch or not, is no more unnatural than not killing them. Humans have simply determined that killing, in most circumstances at least, is morally wrong, and that is where people who study environmental communication must pay special attention.

To argue that some action humans take is “unnatural” is an untenable position. It responds to a question of fact (whether something is true, if it exists, etc.), and that question has only an answer in the negative, setting up the person making the argument for failure. No matter how many human elements are involved in an activity, whether it’s hiking a mountain, emitting carbon pollution, clearcutting a forest, or producing chemical toxins, it can never be unnatural because the environmental parameters allowed for it.

We can still argue against certain actions because of their potential environmental harm, but we must avoid statements based in the issue of what is “unnatural.” For example, if we want to stick with questions of fact, we can argue that an action will create chaos in the environmental system or that such chaos will cause harm to the system. Unlike the claim about unnaturalness, these claims of fact have the potential of being proven as true. We can also examine questions of value (whether something is good or bad, moral or immoral, etc.), which is what Shakespeare seems to have tried to explore with the issue of unnaturalness in Macbeth’s actions. We can claim that some action we take within our environment is immoral (like driving other species to extinction). This, like the questions of fact about systemic balance, is also a question that can be investigated with the potential of the claim emerging victorious.

As compelling of a play as Macbeth might be, it represents a faulty line of thinking about the “laws of nature,” and if we want to improve our communication and understanding of our environment, we must choose lines of inquiry that diverge from the idea of unnaturalness.

Chehalis, Stay Free

During the last decade, the story of dams in Washington state has moved from "Elwha, be free" to "Chehalis, stay free."

Occurring during the removal of two dams on the Elwha River in Washington state's Olympic Peninsula, proposals to dam the Chehalis River in southwestern Washington carried no small amount of irony. Just as the follies of the Elwha dams fell aside under demolition, the state prepared to place the Chehalis under constraints similar to those that had strangled fish runs and sediment flows on the Elwha.

The surge plain of the Chehalis River.

Despite the trend of removing dams on rivers in Washington and around the rest of the country, calls to dam the Chehalis followed a series of major floods on the river. The floods, largely the result of unwise logging practices and continued development in the river's flood plain, caused extensive damage and cut off transportation routes like Interstate 5 in 2007 and 2009. A dam became the preferred way of dealing with the excessive flooding without addressing the root causes, and for a long time during the public debate, it seemed almost inevitable.

Several groups remained firm in their opposition to the dam, and their efforts recently paid off in an announcement from Governor Jay Inslee. For years, the Chehalis Tribe, the Quinault Tribe, and environmental groups like Conservation Northwest have emphasized how the dam would hurt fish runs and the overall health of the river, calling for alternative approaches to flood mitigation. During a public comment period in May 2020, the dam proposal met with heavy resistance. Then, in July, Governor Inslee ordered both the suspension of planning for the dam until at least January 2021 and the pursuit of non-dam options. This is the right decision and an important development in the life of the Chehalis River. For more information about it, read the news release from Conservation Northwest.

"Elwha, be free" became a key slogan in the push to remove the dams from that river, and it appears the desire to keep the Chehalis River free has swung momentum away from a proposed dam there.