Civilized attitude towards nature vs hunter gatherer

Question

I'm reading Murray Bookhins "The Ecology of Freedom" and he starts chapter 2 with an interesting premise: The notion that man is destined to dominate nature is not universal to all cultures. In fact, this idea would be completely alien to "primitive" (Im assuming he means hunter gatherer) societies. Rather than viewing humans and nature on a hierarchy of superior or inferior, primitive societies viewed the world through a framework of inter-dependence and uniqueness. I think implicit in his argument is a distinction between *our* culture (which I take to be all cultures of civilization, city states, industrialization, class societies, etc) and "primitive" cultures (which I take to be egalitarian hunter gatherer societies). Looking for a second opinion and some nuance on this argument and where I could go to read more about hunter gatherers attitudes towards nature. Certainly not every non-hunter gatherer society from the neolithic revolution on had hierarchical attitudes towards nature and humans?

Answer 1

It is implicit to understand that when studying different cultures you can compare those cultures but you cannot say that one culture is more sophisticated or "better" than another culture. All cultures are doing their best to adapt to their environment. This is true when comparing cultures from different time periods, say the Neolithic in the Fertile Crescent and the Bronze Age in the same area. This is also true when comparing cultures of current societies, say the Indigenous peoples of the Amazon rain forest and various cultures that comprise Western Civilization.