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I’d like you to consider this prompt in light of our conversation Tuesday about the similarities and differences between Leopold “sketches” and Trumpey’s lectures. Remember that there were as many overlaps of core concepts and attitudes as there were distinctions.
In lecture we have been talking about the “production based and consumer oriented” nature of our global society.* Find a quote from Sand County that illustrates Leopold’s opinion on this topic. The text is FULL of his observations infused with either implicit or explicit commentary on consumerism (see examples below). Summarize the context of the quote, explain Leopold’s main points and tone. Reflect on your individual experience in our production-based/ consumerist society. Give an example from your personal experience/ observations that relates to the quote you chose.
Things to think about: There are many ways you could approach this depending on which quote you choose. Think about his discussion of the paradox of conservation (100-101) or how not “thinking like a mountain” actually leads to poorer situation for the consumer (129-133).
Examples:
• “The high priests of progress knew nothing of cranes, and cared less. What good is a species more or less among engineers? What good is an undrained marsh anyhow?” (100)
• “To build a road is so much simpler than to think of what the country really needs” (101)
• “…but if I were (an economist) I should do all my pondering lying prone on the sand, with Draba at nose length” (103)
• “everything on this farm spells money in the bank…even the pigs look solvent” (119)
• “…Thoreau’s dictum: In wildness is the salvation of the world” (133)
Last thing: No more slacking on citing your sources in the other WRs!!! (I know most of you have been doing this, so disregard). This was a clear requirement of all written work in this class (it’s for your own good- trust me☺) and I have to take off points when you don’t list your citations.
*(note: this is no longer just a critique of “Americans” or “American society” but a pervasive global trend).
Leopold, Aldo. Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There. New York: Oxford UP, 1949.
Trumpey, Joseph. Art Design Perspective 3: Technology and the Environment. Stamps Auditorium, Ann Arbor, MI. 5 and 7 Oct 2009. Lecture.
Aldo Leopold talks greatly about our relationship with nature, and how we use nature and land for consumer reasons. “That man-made changes are of a different order than evolutionary changes, and have effects more comprehensive than is intended or foreseen.”(Leopold 218). This quote is part of a list about “land as an energy circuit” and after he has two main ideas about this list “can the land adjust itself to the new order? Can the desired alterations be accomplished with less violence”(Leopold 218). It seems as if Leopold knows that there is no way to escape the drastic changes to the earth, but the fact that there is so much change is a horrible way to treat he land. He poses the question bout the land being able to adjust to the new way it is being used. This is an amazing question to ponder. If it cannot, how can we fix the mess? Leopold also asks if there is a less violent way to alter the land, which is a very reasonable way to go about these changes. The fact that the word violence is used to describe how we treat the land is very intense. I think that most people do not view clear cutting and whatnot violent, but as a way to get more land. I think that using the word violence is a very good description about what is actually happening to the land. If the land were a human, it would be severely mutilated, but because we see the land as something that does not have feeling or life, then it seems easier to destroy it.
ReplyDeleteWhen reading this, I could not help but to think about all the destruction that the world has gone through. Clearing land for buildings, roads, farms, that when this happens, people do not think about how that can change the land, and if it is reversible. Leopold talks greatly about how there is more than meets the eye in the land. He speaks about how there are ecosystems in the soil, in the plant, in the insects, and it is more than just a bug or dirt. Thinking about the violent ways that I have seen the land treated bothers me. Before reading this book, I just thought it was sad, these trees are gone, and now a new building is in their place. But now I see it as more than that. I realize now that it is so much more than just losing trees. It is greatly changing the world, killing animals, insects, plants, and soil. Even though I have seen clear cutting for new buildings, does not mean that I avoid these buildings after they have been built. For a short while I remember the trees, and think about how strange it is that here is a building there, but after some time, I forget that this land was once nature. I think that there has to be another way to make room for buildings. Perhaps clear cutting works in some places, but what if there is another way? I know there has to be, and if this has been an issue for over sixty years, there is no reason for this violent treatment of our land to continue. I believe that this question is asked to make us come up with a better alternative to such destruction. We know now that there is a lot of damage to be fixed, and it is better to find solutions and work to make up for the loss of nature.
Work Cited:
Leopold, Aldo. Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There. New York:
Oxford UP, 1949
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ReplyDeleteLily Porter
ReplyDeleteResponse #5
Leopold says “When I call to mind my earliest impression, I wonder whether the process ordinarily referred to as growing up is not actually a process of growing down; whether experience, so much touted among adults as the thing children lack, is not actually a progressive dilution of the essentials by the trivialities of living” (Leopold 120). At point in the book he talks of his relationship to nature as a child. He tells the story of the first partridge he shot and how he suspects his “present affection for bunchberries and asters dates from that moment” (Leopold 122).
By reversing our widely accepted idea that adults are valued more in the intellectual world than children, he challenges us to see the other side of the situation. Society is always throwing things at us to fill our minds with unnecessary garbage. Everywhere we turn, there is an advertisement for the newest product or a sign for the best store. As adults, we have been influenced by this for years, and therefore persuaded by it and sucked into the ideas of consumerism. But children are pure. Their minds are fairly protected from what our consumerist society pushes on us. They cannot read much, and once they can, they are not very interested in “the cheapest burgers in town” or the “best price on a house” because they’re not paying. So as we “grow up”, our minds are really just being altered to think differently, to think how society wants us to.
As a young adult in the U.S., I’ve grown up in the country that is obsessed with possessions and products. It is ingrained into us that more is better: more money, more cars, more clothes, buy, buy, buy. But who is telling us this? The people and companies that are selling the products. Of course they want us to have more because they want to earn more. So the cycle just continues and people get greedier and greedier.
If we think back to when we were kids (around 5 or so), it did not matter if you wore a J. Crew coat or a K-mart coat. It was not a big deal whose house was the nicest, or what kind of car your parents drove. Life was more about having a good time and being with friends and family. Shouldn’t that be more important than how many and how nice your possessions are?
Just yesterday I was watching University of Michigan verses University of Iowa football game on ABC. As University of Michigan went to kick their first extra point, the net to prevent the ball came up and had “Allstate” written on it and their logo. How many places could they possibly stamp their advertisements in our faces? It seems like during the three and a half hours or so of watching the football game, at least one of those hours there was some sort of product being advertised or company being praised. Is this what we want our children to “grow” into; a product-obsessed person that just continues the cycle?
I am not saying that we should stop buying everything, throw out all of our possessions and become a hermit, but maybe if we make small efforts to really realize what is most important to us in life, we can help to improve the cycle and raise the next generation in a better habitat.
Leopold, Aldo. Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There. New York: Oxford UP, 1949.
The consumer will stop at nothing in order to get what they want. And comfort is always in high demand, by people of each and every economic status. As Aldo Leopold stated, "The modern dogma is comfort at any cost," (p. 71). Unfortunately, this quote has only grown to be even truer of modern society than when Leopold originally wrote it sixty years ago. I believe that in this context Leopold is referring to the fact that the human population will stop at nothing, even if their actions are ultimately harming the Earth more than helping, if it will provide a more comfortable life. We live in a world that thrives on consumerism. It is impossible to walk down the street, watch television, or flip through a magazine without being hounded by advertisements. The cost of living continually rises, as people decide that more material items are necessary for maintaining a comfortable lifestyle. While how much one buys is entirely up to each individual, it cannot be denied that corporations are trying their hardest to make the consumer believe that their product is one that should be purchased. Clever marketing almost always wins. I admit that I have fallen into the consumerism trap every now and again when the moment arises that you really need to have that one special thing, even if the cost is a bit outrageous. It’s only human nature. Yet, modern market and advertising continue to make it more difficult for one to remain a smart shopper. In today’s scrambled world, it’s a rather grueling task to steer clear from becoming a reckless consumer.
ReplyDeleteLeopold, Aldo. Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There. New York: Oxford UP, 1949.
I think that Leopold refers to a consumer driven society without even attempting to make a point in relation to this idea. I first noticed the juxtaposition of manufacturing and consumerism with a natural society in one of the book’s opening chapters. “ For the duration of a cigarette, I sat on a rock midstream…” (38). Such a line seemed completely out of place in a section filled with descriptions of the earth’s changing atmosphere and the function and role of environmental cycles. I can’t pinpoint exactly why Leopold decided to put the absolute antithesis of something natural in a description of a flowing stream and fishing cycle. The tone is relaxed and peaceful, mirroring the flowing nature of a stream.
ReplyDeleteI’ve always been against smoking cigarettes. Usually I don’t have an issue with what choices people makes in regards to their body, but when those choices potentially effect the health of me and those around me I get very passionate in my negative stance. More than being dangerous to the body, cigarettes cause pollution to the ground, air, and everything around them. I’m baffled that Leopold can sit and casually enjoy a cigarette while describing the beauty of nature and an unscathed world.
I’m going to reference pop-culture again in hopes that no one will judge me for the semi-ridiculous example I’m going to use. I’m almost certain that everyone will be aware or at least understand what I’m referencing which is why I think it makes for a good paradigm. For the past two elections, Sean “P Diddy” Combs has run a campaign called “Vote or Die” in hopes of getting 18-25 year olds to vote. He attracted celebrities to assist with his campaign, one of the most popular and recognized being Paris Hilton. I remember hearing on the radio the day after the 2000 election that Paris Hilton, who wore the “Vote or Die” slogan around her LA neighborhood and was photographed in magazines sporting the logo, didn’t even REGISTER to vote for the election. In a sense, she was only pretending to be an advocate of getting the youth to vote…the same way that Leopold smoking makes him a fake promoter for a beautiful and natural world.
If A Sand County Almanac stands as the epitome of what our world should be, then the fact that cigarettes are present makes our modern-day consumer driven and industrial world a black hole of danger and peril.
( sources....
ReplyDeleteLeopold, Aldo. Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There. New York: Oxford UP, 1949.)
“The passengers talk and talk and talk. About what? About baseball, taxes, sons-in-law, movies, motors, and funerals, but never about the heaving groundswell of Illinois that washes the windows of the speeding bus. Illinois has no genesis, no history, no shoals or deeps, no tides of life and death. To them Illinois is only the sea on which they sail to ports unknown. (Leopold 119)”
ReplyDeleteLeopold comments on consumerism by describing a traveling scenario. Though the passengers of this bus are riding through lands full of ecological culture, they neglect to consider that the road they are traveling on had been carved out of Illinois natural resources. Along with this fact, they are busy discussing materialistic topics that are all linked to money in one way or another, which these passengers are consumed with. Leopold uses these strong examples to make the comment on the priorities of the average person in society.
Theses passengers care about all the materialistic things he mentioned, and fail to notice what creates all of these luxuries, or what surrounds them. The roads they are driving on have been widened and expanded to a point that the field that used to be barren land is now working around the bends of the road. Leopold’s idea of paradox can explain his thoughts with this quote. To take advantage of the land we had available, a system of roads was probably created to contribute to a global transportation system, that could be used for exports/imports. After we put this land to use, its primary intentions are mottled as our society gets more and more wrapped up in consumerism. The roads are expanded and changed to benefit the economy more so than the environment. Our wilderness is not the same as it used to be, after it has been tampered with. Leopold’s bitter tone is used to get this message across.
I actually can relate to this ‘bus riding’ scenario. In the summer of 2005, I was on a 6-week travel trip around our Midwest/west coast. Almost entirely by bus, this trip was supposed to give us teens a better knowledge on our country, by taking us to and through places we had never been. On a bus with wide windows, we traveled through some of our most famous landmarks. An example is the Grand Canyon. When driving through, majority of the students listened to their iPods, or watched a movie to pass the time, as we moved from one location to another, instead of looking out to see what the nature they were missing. No one thought about the roads that have been carved out of the canyon, to allow tourists and consumers to visit their landmarks, to circulate our economy. It baffles me to think that so many of our natural resources have been altered to fit the growing consumerism that takes place all over the world today.
Leopold, Aldo. Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There. New York: Oxford UP, 1949.
“We fancy that industry supports us, forgetting what supports industry.” (Leopold 178) I think this is a great quote because it makes me think about the big industries where my belongings are made. A lot of comes down to how its produced and the energy that it takes to produce it. If you were to think like a paper mill. Leopold would say it supports us by making us paper, but what supports it? What goes into making that paper? When we buy paper do we think about that? In order to have paper, trees must be feed into a mill so that it can be transformed through the process of paper making into paper. The machines inside the plant don't run on magic they most likely run on some form of natural gas or fossil fuel. All of these things from nature get fed into the plant and support that industry as it supports us. As someone who is an active citizen in America, I purchase many things without a thought of what went into making them. There are usually alternatives in making something but these don't happen because they cost more. It would be great if we could all produce our own goods or trade for goods that were made by someone without a disgusting amount of energy. Unfortunately to do that would be very difficult. Its just important to be aware of where things come and if at all possible buy choose a product that was made in a environment friendly way.
ReplyDeleteLeopold, Aldo. Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There. New York: Oxford UP, 1949.
“The ribbon of concrete has been widened and widened until the field of fences threaten to topple into the road cuts.” (Leopold 117) This quote provided powerful imagery right when I read it. I saw a ribbon like road going on for miles slowly gaining width as it tears apart the trees and plants in its way. When Leopold wrote this, I think he meant for this quote to be quite literal. When he is making this observation of the road, he is on a bus driving through Illinois, looking at what had become of its prairie. No one on the bus notices what was left of the it. “A worried farmer, his fertilizer bill projecting from his shirt pocket…Where I to ask him why his corn makes a hundred bushels, while that of non-prairie states does well to make thirty, he would probably answer that Illinois soil is better. Where I to ask him the name of that white spike of pea-like flowers hugging the fence, he would shake hi head. A weed, likely.” (Leopold 118) People don’t know much about the prairie that once in the place where they live. The farmer could tell about his farm and the soil, but not about the other things that the prairie offered. People miss out on certain beauties by being so focused on what is only relevant to them and what can make money. It is such a money-oriented society, even someone whose job it is to work out in nature, knows only what is relevant to him. The farmer knew what the prairie did for his crops, but not about the other things that populate the slowly deteriorating wild life by the side of the road. The expanding road are people, gradually ripping apart what they don’t know, nature, to fill it with what they do know, something unnatural. I understand the ignorance of the green life that was before humans changed it; I am among that crowd. Many things that I know I’ve had to learn, not because I just wanted to. I am not saying I don’t appreciate what has been taught to me, but the knowledge that I have of some topics is limited, just like the farmer and the prairie. It is hard for people to try to expand their awareness of a every issue due to lack of time in life, but sometimes what people make their main focus can be a problem.
ReplyDeleteLeopold, Aldo. Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There. New York: Oxford UP, 1949.
Ekta Shah
ReplyDeleteWeekly Response prompt # 5: Leopold’s take on consumerism
When Leopold asks, “The gadgets of industry bring us more comfort than the pigeons did, but do they add as much glory to the spring? (116), he is referring to how society gives importance to material objects and advancements in technology, rather than focusing on what he believes to be an important aspects of life – nature. When watching people walking outside or in a place where nature is present, most of them are too busy either talking on their cell phones or engrossed in some other activity. They do not pay attention to the beautiful plants or interesting animals that are around them. Leopold is asking his readers to reconsider what gives us happiness, and why those objects make us feel the way they do. Leopold focuses on consumerism, because products and technology are the main barrier between humans and nature. An example of this is when he encounters two boys that are on a canoe. They get a thrill out of not having a watch to tell time, no rood to cover their heads, or someone to serve their meals (120). They feel a sense of freedom because they have no one to tell them what to do or where to go. Leopold suggests that every youth should experience a wilderness trip. I agree with this suggestion because there is so much to learn about the environment. Whether it is an inspiration for art work, or for a better understand of natural phenomena, the process of enjoying and valuing nature is important for everyone to experience.
When professor Trumpey discusses the value of nature, he does not impose any ideas or beliefs on his students in the way that Leopold does to his readers. He wants us to realize the resources that nature provides, and wants us to learn the value of these resources because they are not unlimited. However, both Trumpey and Leopold discuss the negative effects that technology can have on the environment.
Leopold, Aldo. Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There. New York: Oxford UP, 1949.
Trumpey, Joseph. Art Design Perspective 3: Technology and the Environment. Stamps Auditorium, Ann Arbor, MI. Lecture.