For this reader response I decided to read “World Gone Mad” by Derrick Jensen. This reading was about society and it’s sociopathic, and psychopathic tendencies. I agree with the author's point of view almost completely. In his writing he mentions how the government and the people who are in charge of society share a lot of the same traits of socio/psychopaths. He did this by siting in his work the definitions of the Sociopaths, and psychopaths with examples of them as a stereotypes and in the world of the government. For example, he starts off his work talking about how the “go green” commercials and movements make him upset because of how the world currently is, and how they have ways of “fixing it”. The way that they are fixing it though, is just like putting a rug over how we are destroying the world. I highly agree with him with these accusations because he mentions how we just constantly take and take for the benefit of ourselves without thinking about all of the other creatures and lifeforms we share the planet with. He says this is the same mindset of a sociopath in which he states have a “Callous unconcern for the feelings of others” and gives the examples of how together as a race we have killed 99 percent of the grasslands, 98 percent of native forests, and even 90 percent of large fish in the ocean. Which are some pretty harsh but true facts that he brings up. I feel like there are so many alternatives for cutting down and stealing land …show more content…
A huge example of this in our society is fast food restaurants. The chains that cleared out the patch of nature downtown were Chipotle and Jimmy Johns and this is a prime example of humans wanting more money and power and not caring about others in their way. They proved him right on this accusation by tearing down the trees and wildlife in that area so that they could just get more
In the article "The world as Polder: What does it mean to Us Today" Jared Diamond mentions how life on earth is a system of living up stream and down stream. This is seen when Diamond mentions how Eskimos who are not around chemical manufacture, but instead in remote areas. Tend Suffer the most from toxic chemical poising since they are surrounded by all the toxic chemical waste the first world countries do not dispose of properly. Diamond also mentions how the East Islanders and the Classic Maya society along with other societies could not have known the damage they were causing, since they did not have other societies to learn from. However, our current societies do yet many choose not make a difference in the world if that change will
He gives an example of a college student that found a red spider. This student, ironically, passes the Endangered Species Act and becomes powerful. This student rose from the bottom because of his “conservationists” beliefs. The example allows the writer to move into a mocking conclusion. He states that these power hungry men and women do not actually know best for the environment as much as property owners do. Just because they state that they are “ all for the environment”, it doesn’t mean that they know
Leopold would most likely approve of the work being done to preserve Gorongosa National Park and would agree with Wilson in that nature is our home and we should treat it as such, but Leopold, unlike Wilson, argues that it is our moral obligation, and not just our pleasure, to respect nature. Additionally, Wilson seems to focus specifically on the plants and animals that make up an ecosystem, but Leopold extends his focus to non-living components such as soil and water because they are instrumental in maintaining the integrity of land communities. Leopold might urge Wilson to make sure that he is not simply educating people at Gorongosa, but really help them genuinely understand land ethics. This way, humans can evolve a sense of praise and approval for preserving the integrity and beauty of the biotic community (262), and social disapproval for doing the exact
Chris McCandless was a young man who gave up his belongings to live in the wild away from society, and his journey was to find fulfillment and the meaning of life through nature. In the nonfiction book Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, Krakauer writes about the details of Chris McCandless’s journey to find and reinvent himself as he lives off the land in the Alaskan wilderness. Throughout the book, Krakauer portrays McCandless as a hero for rejecting society and falling victim to this bravery. However, Chris McCandless’s death is not an example of heroism and he did not fall victim to his courage. Instead, McCandless died as a result of ignorance and overconfidence that clouded his self-perception and ultimately led to his downfall.
In “Ideals of Human Excellence and Preserving Natural Environments,” Thomas Hill tries to explain why destroying nature is morally inappropriate. His main argument is that rather than asking whether this action is wrong or right, we should ask what kind of person would destroy nature. Beforehand, one view is that since plants have right or interests, one should not violate their interest by destroying them. But Hill’s view is that we cannot address the interests of plants in order to criticize those who destroy the nature, because this approach is good for sentient beings. In this essay I am going to examine whether sentient is a necessary condition for interests to be counted? My upshot is that Hill’s view is correct.
... position is very radical. He thinks civilization has brought disorder and has distance the human beings from nature. It is true that the ambition to dominate the planet has caused some people to destroy natural resources, increase the levels of contamination and lose the respect for our own nature. However, I cannot disregard all the progresses that humans have done through out the years, which have helped improve the quality of our life. The respect for nature has to continue along with the growth of our knowledge.
...not function without an element of ruthlessness and a need to win. Could any capitalist be called a sociopath? In my opinion I believe that while this non-fiction novel does enlighten us to some degree on the nature and behaviors of sociopaths, it is not a myopic and in depth study worth putting any faith-based investments into. Also, it fails to answer a major and simple question: what does the future hold for these ‘monsters’? Will the population of sociopaths increase exponentially, until it is they who must destroy us for being the minority? Or are their numbers diminishing due to social awareness about this condition? Is sociopathy purely biological in nature or does this personality disorder also stem from personal experience or otherwise? In short, this book raises more questions that in answers, resulting in a disappointing and unfulfilled search for truth.
Kohak, Erazim V. "Part II." The Green Halo: a Bird's-eye View of Ecological Ethics. Chicago,
He believes that the wilderness has helped form us and that if we allow industrialization to push through the people of our nation will have lost part of themselves; they will have lost the part of themselves that was formed by the wilderness “idea.” Once the forests are destroyed they will have nothing to look back at or to remind them of where they came from or what was, and he argues everyone need to preserve all of what we have now.
Another example she uses to make her point is about coral. When thinking of coral, the idea that comes to most is it is a plant that lives in the ocean and provides a beautiful color. Coral provides more than that for the ocean as we see it provides “Thousands-perhaps millions- of species have evolved to rely on coral reefs, either directly for protection or food, or indirectly, to prey on those species that come seeking protection or food” (Kolbert 130). When carbon dioxide enters the ocean, it forms into an acid called carbonic acid, which has been eating away at most of the coral and not allowing it to grow or survive in the water. This other example used by the author showing humans how we are destroying important aspects to earth. We should be more alarmed to what is occurring in the ocean because we also depend on it for some of our resources. It also goes to show if we are capable of putting other animals in danger we are fully capable of erasing our own
In order words, Nature is beautiful in the more simple way, but at the same time if nature starts to recognize danger or the feeling of dying, she will defend herself. Humanity need the use of ethics and humility at the same time in order to have a good ecological environment. During “Thinking Like A Mountain” Leopold describes the intricate of a mountain’s biomes and the consequences of disturbing their ecological balances, describe specifically with a wolf and a deer. Leopold use the wolf and the deer as an example of how human treats nature. Referring to the wolf way of think, “he has not learned to think like a mountain” like humanity has not learned to think in the way that Mother Nature want us to think (140). Leopold describes how “a land, ethic, reflects the existence of an ecological conscience, and… Reflects a conviction of individual responsibility for the health of the land” giving an exact example by having a group A and a group B (258). Group A describes what one needs when on the other hand, group B “worries about a whole series of biotic side-issues” (259). By having this two groups being described, humanity today is like the group A, when one really need to change their way of mind and start to be like the group B. Society needs to use the ethics with humility in order to conserve the health of the natural
“Without Conscience" by Robert D. Hare is one aimed towards making the general public aware of the many psychopaths that inhabit the world we live in. Throughout the book Hare exposes the reader to a number of short stories; all with an emphasis on a characteristic of psychopaths. Hare makes the claim that close monitoring of psychopathy are vital if we ever hope to gain a hold over Psychopathy- A disorder that affects not only the individual but also society itself. He also indicates one of the reasons for this book is order to correctly treat these individuals we have to be able to correctly identify who meets the criteria. His ultimate goal with the text is to alleviate some of the confusion in the increase in criminal activity by determining how my of this is a result of Psychopathy.
Leopold, Aldo. “The Land Ethic” in Environmental Ethics edited by David Schmidtz and Elizabeth Willott. Oxford University Press, New York. 2002. p. 27-32.
... our way when we are trying to do something such as deforestations. We should respect living creatures in our world because they have a life they should enjoy. People never want to see the dark side of an industry which is why society doesn’t seem to care or be informed. What this reminds me of personally is the show Scooby Doo which is about monsters and teenagers investigating them, trying to figure out what it is and at the end of every show it’s always a human which gives a powerful message because at the end of the day humans are the monsters, are we the monsters today? We need to open our eyes before it's too late. Life is valuable and we need to cherish every moment.
Robert D. Kaplan’s article “The Coming Anarchy," is best summarized by the following quote, which identifies the different factors that he evaluates throughout his article, “To understand the events of the next fifty years, then, one must understand environmental scarcity, cultural and racial clash, geographic destiny, and the transformation of war.” (Kaplan, 1994) This is the framework that he uses to make his supporting arguments and thus this summary will be broken down into these four main parts.