The monotony of defeat and self-destruction compelled Western Marxists to reevaluate the relationships of history and nature. Initially, they kept distant from the natural sciences for devaluing the new and unique in history; this devaluation condemned Marxism to improving, not undoing, the past. Yet the uniform defeat of the European revolutions and the barbarism of fascism exacted a toll. The hope of a liberating breakthrough dimmed. Moreover, Marxists were not only victims but victimizers. To Walter Benjamin&s words that the “bourgeoisie never ceased to be victorious” could be added: Marxists never ceased to bury each other and the revolution. The subordination of history to bleak repetition tempered the efforts to rescue it from nature.

The Western Marxists, especially the theorists of the Frankfurt School, adopted a negative vision of nature. This vision is not be confused with the classic ethos of entrepreneurial capitalism, which eyed nature only as stuff to be exploited and subdued. Rather nature, even before and outside of human exploitation, was racked by violence and pain. Nature mutely testified to ceaseless horror, perpetual cycles of silent suffering. “Nature” and “natural” lost their benign and innocent quality; the natural in nature was also violent and unnatural. Big fish eat little fish, although, Marcuse noted dryly, “it may not seem natural to the little fish.”