J.G. BALLARD’IN THE CRYSTAL WORLD ROMANINDA TOPRAK ETİĞİ VE İNSANMERKEZCİLİK

Yıl 2021, Cilt: 5 Sayı: 2, 39 - 58, 31.12.2021

Cenk Tan

Öz

James Graham Ballard, iklimsel ve esrarengiz felaketler ile teknolojik modernitenin olumsuz etkilerini konu alan eserlerle tanınan çağdaş İngiliz bir romancıdır. Ballard’ın dördüncü romanı, The Crystal World (1966) Kamerun’da cüzzam hastalarını tedavi eden bir tıp doktoru olan Edward Sanders’ın sıra dışı öyküsünü anlatmaktadır. Sanders, arkadaşlarıyla birlikte Afrika’nın ormanlarında çevrede bulunan her şeyi yavaşça kristale döndüren tuhaf bir olgu ile karşılaşır. Bu araştırma, Ballard’ın The Crystal World romanını Aldo Leopold’un toprak etiği ve insanmerkezcilik kavramı penceresinden irdelemektedir. Makalenin teorik bölümü, Aldo Leopold’un toprak etiği kavramını çeşitli metin ve kaynaklara yapılan göndermelerle etraflıca ele almaktadır. Toprak etiği kavramı, doğal alanların çevre etiğine dayanarak korunmasının formülasyonunu önerirken, insanmerkezcilik ise insanın evrendeki merkezi konumunu ısrarla savunmaktadır. Özel anlamda makale, Ballard’ın alegorik anlatısı aracılığı ile toprak sömürüsü, insan türcülüğü ile şovenizmi yücelterek, insanmerkezci düşünceyi yapısökümüne uğrattığını ve toprak etiğinin acil gerekliliğini imalarla açığa çıkardığını tartışmaktadır. Bu bağlamda araştırma, Ballard’ın The Crystal World romanında insanmerkezciliği nasıl alaşağı ettiğini ve ekolojik bilinç ile birlikte toprak etiğine yönelik ihtiyacı yansıttığını ortaya koymaktadır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

J.G. Ballard, The Crystal World, Aldo Leopold, Toprak Etiği, İnsanmerkezcilik

LAND ETHIC AND ANTHROPOCENTRISM IN J. G. BALLARD’S THE CRYSTAL WORLD

Öz

James Graham Ballard was a contemporary British author mostly known for his dystopian works dealing with climatic disasters, uncanny catastrophes and the negative effects of technological modernity. Ballard’s fourth novel, The Crystal World (1966) tells the unusual story of Edward Sanders, a medical doctor treating leprosy patients in Cameroon. Together with his friends, Sanders encounters a strange phenomenon in the African jungle that slowly turns everything into crystal. This study aims to interpret Ballard’s The Crystal World from the window of Aldo Leopold’s land ethic and the notion of anthropocentrism. The theoretical section of the article gives a detailed account of Aldo Leopold’s land ethic referring to various texts and sources. The land ethic proposes a formulation for the preservation of land from the perspective of environmental ethics whereas anthropocentrism strongly insists on the central position of humans in the universe. Specifically, the article argues that through the allegorical narrative, Ballard deconstructs anthropocentric human thought and reveals the immediate necessity for a land ethic by revealing the exploitation of land and the exaltation of human speciesism/chauvinism. To this end, the study examines how Ballard deconstructs anthropocentrism in The Crystal World and implies the necessity for a land ethic, combined with an ecological conscience.

Anahtar Kelimeler

J.G. Ballard, The Crystal World, Aldo Leopold, Land Ethic, Anthropocentrism

Kaynakça

• Altaç, İsmail Serdar (2018). James Graham Ballard'ın Romanlarında Kentsel Uzamın Temsili [Doctoral dissertation]. https://dspace.ankara.edu.tr/xmlui/handle/20.500.12575/71694
• Ballard, James Graham (2014). The Crystal World. Fourth Estate.
• Bartolommei, Sergio (1995). Etica E Natura: Una Rivoluzione Copernicana in Etica? Laterza.
• Baxter, Jeannette (2016). J.G. Ballard's Surrealist Imagination: Spectacular Authorship. Routledge.
• Blackburn, James B. (1994). Ethics, science and environmental decision-making. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, 13, 679–681.
• Callicott, John Baird (2014). Thinking Like a Planet: The Land Ethic and the Earth Ethic. Oxford University Press.
• Collomb, Jean-Daniel (2017). J. Baird Callicott, science, and the unstable Foundation of environmental ethics. Angles, (4), 1-12. https://doi.org/10.4000/angles.1390
• Hayward, Tim (1997). Anthropocentrism: A misunderstood problem. Environmental Values, 6(1), 49-63. https://doi.org/10.3197/096327197776679185
• Hume, David (1998). An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. Oxford University Press on Demand.
• Klonowska, Barbara (2018). A strange New Harmony: A Posthumanist utopia in J. G. Ballard’s crystal world. Roczniki Humanistyczne, 66(11 Zeszyt specjalny), 73-85. https://doi.org/10.18290/rh.2018.66.11s-6
• Knight, Richard L., and Riedel, Susanne (2002). Aldo Leopold and the Ecological Conscience. Oxford University Press on Demand.
• Knowles, Thomas (2018). J. G. Ballard and the ‘Natural’ world. Green Letters, 22(4), 341-353. https://doi.org/10.1080/14688417.2018.1580021
• Leopold, Aldo (1987). Foreword. In J. B. Callicott (Ed.), Companion to A Sand County Almanac: Interpretive & Critical Essays (pp. 281-288). University of Wisconsin Press.
• Leopold, Aldo (1989). A Sand County Almanac, And Sketches Here and There. Oxford University Press, USA.
• Leopold, Aldo (1991a). Engineering and conservation. In The River of the Mother of God and Other Essays by Aldo Leopold (pp. 249–254). University of Wisconsin Press.
• Leopold, Aldo (1991b). The Ecological Conscience. In S. L. Flader & J. B. Callicott (Eds.), The River of the Mother of God and other Essays by Aldo Leopold (pp. 338-346). University of Wisconsin Press.
• Meine, Curt (2013). Aldo Leopold: Connecting conservation science, ethics, policy, and practice. Linking Ecology and Ethics for a Changing World, 173-184. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7470-4_14
• Minteer, Ben (2009). Nature in Common?: Environmental Ethics and the Contested Foundations of Environmental Policy. Temple University Press.
• Newton, Judith L., and Warren, Juliana Lutz. (2006). Aldo Leopold's Odyssey: Rediscovering the Author of A Sand County Almanac. Shearwater Books.
• Nimmo, Richie (2011). The Making of the Human: Anthropocentrism in Modern Social Thought. In R. Boddice (Ed.), Anthropocentrism: Humans, Animals, Environments (pp. 59-79). BRILL.
• Orr, Leonard (2000). THE UTOPIAN DISASTERS OF J. G. BALLARD. CLA Journal, 43(4), 479-493. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44325010
• Özdağ, Ufuk (2002). The Land Ethic for “A More - Than - Human World”. Journal of American Studies of Turkey, (16), 41-50. https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/jast/issue/52923/699856
• Özdağ, Ufuk (2005). Edebiyat ve Toprak Etiği: Amerikan Doğa Yazınında Leopold'cu Düşünce. Ürün Yayınları.
• Özdağ, Ufuk (2019). Türkiye’de Toprak Etiğine Doğru: Ekolojik Bilinç, Doğa Koruma, Eğitim. In G. Pultar & E. O. İncirlioğlu (Eds.), rüzgâr değil yaprağı kımıldatan Türkiye’de Çevrenin Kültürel Boyutlarına Yeni Bakışlar (pp. 205-230). Ürün Yayınları.
• Paddy, David Ian (2015). The Empires of J.G. Ballard: An Imagined Geography. Gylphi Limited.
• Plumwood, Val (2002). The Blindspots of Centrism and Human Self Enclosure. In Environmental Culture: The Ecological Crisis of Reason. Routledge.
• Romeo, Maria Vita, and Sgarlata, Sara (2020). Anthropocentrism and speciesism in the context of environmental studies. A synoptic introduction. ETHICS IN PROGRESS, 11(2), 4-8. https://doi.org/10.14746/eip.2020.2.1
• Ryder, Richard D. (1992). Painism: the Ethics of Animal Rights and the Environment. In Animal Welfare and the Environment. Duckworth.
• Saydam, Cemal, and Özdağ, Ufuk (2020). The traces of Gaia in the Gavilan: Reconsiderations for a planetary land ethic in the encounter of an Ecocritic and an environmental scientist. MOLESTO: Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi, 3(1), 178-202. https://doi.org/10.33406/molesto.670249
• Steele, Craig (2011). Land ethic? What land ethic? Ethics, Policy & Environment, 14(3), 297-300. https://doi.org/10.1080/21550085.2011.605857
• Sterenberg, Matthew (2013). Coping with the catastrophe: J.G. Ballard, the new wave, and mythic science fiction. Mythic Thinking in Twentieth-Century Britain, (8), 257-276. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137354976_5