We Must Find a Balance Between Man and Nature
"America's beauty is truly unmatched by anything I have seen!" I thought with excitement and ecstasy when I first witnessed the splendor of American landscape. The majestic forests and azure lakes have surpassed the stories I heard while growing up. However, a puzzling sight hampered my sense of admiration when I arrived in New Mexico. Though the steppe around me was untouched, "No Littering" and "Save the Earth" signs seemed to be everywhere. It puzzled me why so much effort was put into preserving a land already pristine. At the time, I knew only of the splendor of American landscape and felt that it was only natural for people to preserve the pervasive gem I had witnessed.
Gradually, I conceived the ongoing battle to preserve the environment. On one side, concerned citizens strive for environmental restrictions on industries to produce a cleaner, less technological environment their descendants can enjoy. Their formidable adversaries, the economists, argue that these restrictions limit the nation's productivity, thus degrading the general prosperity. Having witnessed the effects of overpopulation and pollution in China, I concur with the need to safeguard the environment. Yet this movement to protect is flawed. Though many people push for restrictions on industries, they themselves do not truly understand what they protect. It seems that many citizens today mistake nature for a pure, untainted essence that humanity has not corrupted. Even worse, these people go through incredible lengths to seek its revitalizing touch when they lack an overall perception of nature.
Though nature is not the quintessence that many believe, it is nonetheless valuable to humans. For me, nature ...
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...apid growth in technology, many citizens are ignorant of what will and will not deteriorate the environment. It is urgent to increase the public awareness of facts so a delicate balance between human expansion and natural preservation can be established. Perhaps in the future, mankind will have a new home among the stars, and nature on Earth will finally be left to freely run its course.
Works Cited
Cronon, William. "The Trouble with Wilderness" The Norton Reader. Ed. Peterson Linda, John Breton, and Joan Hartman. 10th ed. New York: Norton, 2000. 651-654.
Eichler, Barrett. Personal Interview. 17 Oct. 2002.
Kentucky Coal Education. Coal Education Question and Answers Forum. 20 Oct. 2002. < http://www.coaleducation.org/q&a/default.htm>.
Pollan, Michael. "The Idea of a Garden." Reading the Environment. Ed. Melissa Walker. New York: Norton, 1994. 191-201.
His often utilization of words such as wild, paradise, and pristine in describing these naturalscapes, provided a misinformed idea of what the American West was truly like. This misinformed idea rapidly changed into what people expected from wilderness. They expect to see scenes reminiscent of the Hudson River school and be cleansed by the healing power of Mother Earth (Muir). Through Muir’s expensive definitions on what constitutes a wilderness he has altered the meaning of it. In the late nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries, the wilderness served more as an idea than a definable work, Muir and his writing played a major role in defining the wilderness to the city bound masses. Muir’s wilderness is rooted in the idea of an aesthetically pleasing natural scape given they fit into certain criteria such as, “ none of Nature’s landscape’s are ugly so long as they are wild” (Muir). The attachment of this emphasis on an aesthetically pleasing landscape was partial truth, which drove people out the national parks. While these places where indeed wild and beautiful, Muir sold the masses on this idea of all nature being pristine and pure, when in reality that was not the
The Awakening by Kate Chopin, is a story of a woman who breaks free from the restraints put on her by society. During the first part of the story, Edna was a normal wife and mother; she was restricted to her stereotype and expected to stay at home, be loyal to her husband, and care for her children. As the story progresses and Edna redefines herself, we eventually are reading about a new character entirely. She ignores the internalized concept of being a mother and wife and becomes a new woman. She cheats on her husband, disregards her children, and defies her societal expectations. At the end of the story, Edna Pontellier commits suicide to free herself from her confusing and scandalous life.
Daniel Duane addresses a pressing modern anxiety surrounding technology’s destruction of the natural world. Duane is an author of seven books and many articles featured in The New York Times and Food & Wine. Also an editor for Men’s Journal, Duane’s experiences in rock climbing, science, and the beauty of the outdoors make his writings seem more passionate and credible. He recently wrote the article “The Unnatural Kingdom” in The New York Times explaining his ideas towards technological advancements and their effects on wildlife. In his article, Duane offers insights to the question, “If technology helps save the wilderness, will the wilderness still be wild?” (Duane 1). He utilizes kairos, pathos, ethos, logos, and other rhetorical devices,
Tytell, John. "The Beat Generation and the Continuing American Revolution". American Scholar 42 (1973): 308-317.
Born in Home, Pennsylvania in 1927, Abbey worked as a forest ranger and fire look-out for the National Forest Service after graduating from the University of New Mexico. An author of numerous essays and novels, he died in 1989 leaving behind a legacy of popular environmental literature. His credibility as a forest ranger, fire look- out, and graduate of the University of New Mexico lend credibility to his knowledge of America’s wilderness and deserts. Readers develop the sense that Abbey has invested both time and emotion in the vast deserts of America.
Does wilderness exist? To many people, this would seem to be a very meaningless question. Of course wilderness exists. But, coming from a student who decided to enroll in a class called Humans and the Natural Environment: Impacts and Moral Obligations, this question has become one that has almost thrown my world upside down. Before we can answer the question, we must first know the definition of wilderness is this, “an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man is a visitor who does not remain.” Because of my recent class periods and readings, I believe that the concept of wilderness does not exist, and that it is not useful. Throughout this essay I will explain why
The 1950’s was a decade in which rapid change was occurring and no one seemed to question it. It was a somewhat prosperous and calm time that followed a rather tumultuous time, World War II. After the war, strong ideals and nearly identical goals on how one should strive to live life were placed upon the general American public. However, soon a group emerged that would redefine American culture. This group is commonly referred to as the Beats, and in a much more general term as the Beat Generation. This subculture encompassed everything the “normal” American citizen was not. As their thoughts on American society began to be noticed, their countercultural ideals became to be widely recognized, something they had not originally planned. The Beat
The 1950s saw a period of extensive contentment within postwar America. A majority of the population adapted to the modern suburban lifestyle that emerged within this time period. They bought houses, started families, got steady jobs, and watched the television while complacently submitting to the government. Although fairly monotonous, this sort of lifestyle was safe and secure many Americans were ready to sacrifice individuality for a sense of comfort. There was a minority, however, that did not quite accept this conservative conformity that had swept across the nation; some of these people took the shape of artists and writers. During the 1950s, what became known as the "Beat Generation" inspired the challenging of and rebelling against conventional America.
In Wallace Stegner’s “Wilderness Letter,” he is arguing that the countries wilderness and forests need to be saved. For a person to become whole, Stegner argues that the mere idea of the wild and the forests are to thank. The wilderness needs to be saved for the sake of the idea. He insinuates that anyone in America can just think of Old faithful, Mt. Rainier, or any other spectacular landform, even if they have not visited there, and brought to a calm. These thoughts he argues are what makes us as people whole.
The world is categorized into many ecospheres, among all, water and land. Upon further analysis, it is evident that both nature and humanity are interdependent. However, our anthropocentric views on the world have led to a golden age of mass production, accelerating beyond natures ability to regenerate itself. In the late 1950s nature was not seen as an item of importance, during the time civilization was captured by the topic of civil rights for the human being, rather than the detrimental natural surroundings. Often times, society does not utilize all the resources provided by the environment and can fall into the mindset of hurting the environment without knowing the full consequences. In Silent Spring, Rachel Carson exposes the hidden
In such a cherished children’s book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, written in 1865, has caused great commotion in political and social satire. It slowly but surely grew into one of the most adored publications in the Victorian era, expanding into today’s modern age. Lewis Carroll was the pen name utilized by Charles L. Dodgson and has forth created a sequel named Through the Looking Glass, And What Alice Found There composed first in 1871. In short, the text of the story presented with a feminist approach, a corrupt judicial system of Victorian England, the caucus race, and the absence of a childhood, the evolution of species, and Marxism.
...litical figure came close to challenging Socrates' unique philosophical plan. In the Republic, Socrates' ideas of how ignorant a democracy is, is portrayed in the Apology when Socrates' proclamation resulted in death. A democracy is supposed to be about individuality and freedom, however it was contradicted when Socrates was put to death because he had ideas for a better system of ruling. He wanted a ruler to be somebody who would see truth, not shunning certain ideas and keeping others solely because it is not understood. These ideas are portrayed in both excerpts.
Raskin Jonah, American Scream: Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and the Making of the Beat Generation Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004.
As I mentioned earlier, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known by his pseudonym Lewis Carroll, beside being an English author was a mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer . Carrol created the character of Alice to entertain a daughter of his good friend Dean of Christ Church, little girl named Alice Liddell. The story was first published in 1865.
Carroll, Lewis. Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There. New York: The modern Library, 2002. Print