Pleasure: An Ethics Of Inhabiting, An Analysis

Engaging in pleasure that does not entail the natural world has made westernized communities be completely removed from the surrounding ecosystems and ultimately eliminates humans from what it means to live in the environment. In other words, socioeconomically privileged humans chose to live in a world filled with pleasure, a term coined by Alaimo in This is about Pleasure: An Ethics of Inhabiting, that removes any life or natural source from the life of a human, thus having the human live in a home that has no traces of the environment inside of their domestic life. They engage in a large amount of cleanness, an argument made by Alaimo, a practice made exclusively by humans to keep their living space isolated from germs, insects, and other
The economic system, as Alaimo argues, is a large contributor to the pleasure rhetoric that neglects the environment. The economic system, specifically capitalism, works to remove humans further from nature by glorifying ecotourism and by providing the rhetoric of needing protection within nature, showing humans that nature is an environment that is to be observed and removed from. This glorifying of the environment is harmful because it involves exploiting the environment for humans to enjoy and to view the environment as a viewing place and not a part of our reality. The economy also proposes that proper products are needed to protect against the environment, solidifying a fear of nature. For example, humans must drive to a nature destination with proper products to protect them against insects and wildlife so they are not harmed in the process of observing this nature. This idea of touring nature causes privileged humans to view themselves further removed from the environment and that utilizing items such as insect sprays or pest repellent, that harms the environment more than protect because of the harsh chemicals that pollute the air, provides false protection. Due to these actions, Alaimo’s pleasure discourse exists within the economic system because the system keeps the fear of nature and the separation of nature and human
As alluded to earlier, the pleasurable lifestyle that removes humans from nature excludes individuals of low socioeconomic status. To expand, individuals that do not have the privilege of living in luxuries that revolve around a large, gated home with products and tools to keep the domesticity in tact and away from nature do not live a complete pleasurable life style. These items and methods are often expensive or time consuming and can only be regularly performed by the middle class or wealthy (Alaimo 24). The middle class and wealthy are given economic resources to reiterate their pleasurable lifestyle, such as having constant access to a vehicle, having funds to build fences or gates, and having exceptional cleaning and beauty products that keep the well-off away from nature. Another large factor in the lack of pleasure for low socioeconomic status individual’s is the geographic location of the home. For example, Tretter researches in Austin that non-whites, specifically blacks, were placed in geographical areas in the early 1900’s that were surrounded by high-flooding areas, high polluting industrial factories, and/or high wildlife infestation areas that made it difficult for the non-whites to live a successfully pleasurable life (21-30). These residential downfalls are currently prevailing as the majority of non-whites in Austin still reside in these areas and whites do not. However, this