Abbey, and His Fear of Progress
Edward Abbey
The day that the gray jeep with the U.S. Government decal and "Bureau of Public
Roads" on it, Edward Abbey knew that progress had arrived. He had foreseen it, watching other parks like his, fall in the face of progress. He knew that hordes of people and their "machines" would come (Abbey 50-51). Most people see progress as a good thing. Abbey proclaims. "I would rather take my chances in a thermonuclear war than live in such a world (Abbey 60)."
"Prog-ress n. forward motion or advance to a higher goal; an advance; steady improvement (Webster's)." Is progress really all of that? How can you improve on mother nature? Progress actually detracts from the parks natural beauty.
Cars, litter, and vandalism can all be attributed to "progress." In this frame of thinking "progress" kind of contradicts it's self.
The most detrimental aspect of progress is the automobile. "'Parks are for people' is the public-relations slogan, which decoded means that the parks are for people-in -automobiles." People come streaming in, driving their cars.
They are in a hurry because they are trying to see as many parks as possible in their short vacation time. They have to deal with things such as: car troubles, traffic, hotel rooms, other visitors pushing them onward, their bored children, and the long trip home in a flood of cars. Many of them take tons of pictures, possibly so that they can actually enjoy the park without all of the hassles
(Abbey 58). Without leaving their cars they will never actually experience the beauty and wonderment of the parks. They will only find the stress and chaos that they sought to leave at home (Abbey 59).
There is a minority though, that prefers to be able to get away from the modern world completely, and travel throughout the parks on foot, bicycle, or horse.
With these vehicles they can travel on quiet trails that are impassable by automobiles. These trails will lead them to places where progress has yet to hit. They can sleep in the open, breath the fresh air, and hear nothing but mother nature herself. They will never get pushed out of the way buy the rush of other tourists, cramming to catch a glimpse of the sights (Abbey 59). This is what I call anti-progress.
Anti-progress is what progress seeks desperately to destroy. The ...
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...y 68)," I tend to agree, people need to get away from the hustle and bustle of their lives. The national parks system is a great way to get away. If we continue to allow our parks to be desecrated by progress our parks system will be just as bad as what you are trying to leave.
Abbey strongly believed in his cause. He would also get furious at the destruction of mother nature; he spoke out against this in his lectures and essays. James Bishop wrote in his book The Monkey Wrench Gang (Little 35).
Because of Abbey's madcap but deadly serious novel, people of all ages can never again look the same way at massive freeway systems where desert and farmland used to be; at once-lush forests now clear-cut into lunar landscapes-or at huge dams on once-free rivers.
Abbey loved the land so much that he wanted to be buried under a rock, in a sleeping bag, in the middle of the desert (Sandlin 11). Carved into the rock reads (Little 35):
Works Cited
Little, Charles E. "Books for the Wilderness." Wilderness. Summer 1994: 34-35.
Sandlin, Tim. "Nightmare Abbey." The New York Times Book Review. 1994, December
11.
Webster's Dictionary and Thesaurus. 1993. Landoll, Inc.
Most of the time the customers who go to the park often go in Groups.
Lewis states that Wilson was an African American playwright, whose past of racism when he was growing up caused him to drop out of high school after a racist accusation that he had plagiarized a paper (Lewis). When Wilson wrote the play Fences he centered his main characters on this racism that he grew up with. Troy, a man who deals with his issues of failure in baseball and pride from doing right by his family, says “Why? Why you got the white mens driving and the colored lifting?...what’s the matter, don’t I count?”(Wilson 1575). This display of racism and the significance of the title fences go together hand in hand because the building of the fence in the Maxson yard is a way to show that African Americans wanted to protect their families. Rose, troy’s wife, wanted to have the fence built to protect her family against the outside world of a predominately white society.
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Stoker uses phenomenal imagery to produce a late nineteenth century setting, located somewhere within eastern Europe. Transylvania, the infamous home to Dracula himself, is described in great detail in Harker’s journal. There, Stoker purposely and meticulously outlines Dracula’s castle and the surrounding town. Stoker manages to do this with a very gothic tone, immediately lowering the societal status of women. In conjunction with Dracula’s gothic tone comes the understanding of male and female traditional roles of the era. The reader sees that there is no hesitation differentiating between the two, as Stoker “ cast[s] men as rational, strong, protective and decisive…[and] women as emotional (irrational), weak, nurturing and submissive.” (Tyson, 82).
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Domestic violence and abuse takes place within family-type intimate relationships and forms a pattern of intimidating and controlling behaviors, which overtime escalates (Dennis, T. 2014, p 1). It can also cause physical psychological or sexual harm to these relations as well (Gul & Faiz, 2013). Domestic Violence according to Fairtlough (2006) is “the misuse of power and the exercise of control by one individual over another, generally by men over women, with whom they have been in an intimate relationship. It assumes a wide range of abusive physical, sexual, and psychological behaviors.” Dennis argued that domestic violence has become a serious societal and public health issue and is a major risk factor for psychiatric disorders
That’s why it holds the title of most filmed public park in the world. Awesome!
Domestic violence, also referred to as intimate partner violence, intimate partner abuse or domestic abuse, affects over one million people in the United States alone. It can be carried out in any number of ways including physically, emotionally, sexually, psychologically and/or financially. Its legal definition considers it to be “any assault, battery, sexual assault, sexual battery, or any criminal offense resulting in physically injury or death of one family member or household member by another who is residing in the same single dwelling unit” (Brown, 2008). In the United States it is considered a major health problem so much so that it was declared the number one health concern by the U.S. Surgeon General in 1992 (Peterman & Dixon, 2003). Not only is it a rapidly growing health problem but it is a growing societal concern as well. Extending beyond the effect felt by the victims and their families, it impacts our communities, government, law enforcement and public service agencies.
Alexander the Great, born in July of the year 356 B.C. was the ruler and king of the Greek Kingdom known as Macedonia. In his early years, Alexander was trained as a fighter by his tutor, Aristotle. He trained with his mentor until the age of 16, when his father Phillip II was assassinated, and he inherited his throne. With a massive army at his hand, Alexander started his conquest to capture the Persian Empire, and "ends of the world and the Great Outer Sea.”
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Sherman, M. D., Sautter, F., Jackson, M. H., Lyons, J. A., & Hans, X. (2007). Domestic violence
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