In U.S. History I have learned about how the colonists saw this land as they began to settle it. It seemed natural to the colonists to take over the land: “That which lies common, and has never been replenished or subdued, is free to any that possess and improve it” (Winthrop, Objection I, Answer 1). The British thought the land should be taken away from the Indians because they had left it alone and not worked it. In a time when religious beliefs meant everything to society Winthrop states that “The whole earth is the Lord’s garden, and He hath given it to mankind with a general commission (Gen. 1:28) to increase and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it” (Winthrop, pt. 4). Owens acknowledges when he relates:
Gradually, almost painfully, I began to understand that what I called ‘wilderness’ was an absurdity, nothing more than a figment of the European imagination. Before the European invasion, there was no wilderness in North America; there was only the fertile continent where people lived in a hard-learned balance with the natural world. (449)The Puritans came to America seeking religious freedom (for themselves, not for anyone else) and displayed the strong work ethic that this country was built on. In the south the colonies were driven to make profits from cash crops such as Indigo, Sugar, and Tobacco. Most of the original southern colonists were of the lower class and wanted to raise their station in life. For over a hundred years they came to the south because they were promised land after serving a certain amount of time; it wasn’t until later that slave labor became prevalent. Here is where America was built: on the land that kept the middle-class colonists alive. It is little wonder that a hundred years later the colonists overthrew royal governors who tried to make them pay for land they already owned, rioted because there wasn’t enough land and Parliament wouldn’t allow the colonies to expand west of the Appalachians, and went to war with England over their infringement upon what they considered to be God-given rights (McCorkle).
I therefore resent it when Americans insinuate that land ownership is unimportant. Stegner claims that the wilderness has:
...helped form our character and that has certainly shaped our history as a people. It has no more to do with recreation than churches have to do with recreation, or than the strenuousness and optimism and expansiveness of what historians call the “American Dream” have to do with recreation. (443).How can he have so missed the point? Our forefathers viewed the wilderness as something to be tamed. They attended church as a form of enlightenment as well as for recreation (for the Puritans it was often their only form of recreation other than the “bee”s at which they worked together sometimes). Owning land was integral to success and fulfilling the American Dream; this is still the case today. It is quite natural for this love of the land has only led to the intense desire that many have to protect the earth. I, too, want to protect the land, but not if Human life suffers as a result
Limbaugh puts it best when he comments: “It is quite natural to want a clean planet, with clean water and air for ourselves and our children. It is quite commendable to not want to destroy that which enables us to live” (441) and argues against the belief that: “Everything that happens in their deified nature is somehow acceptable” (442). Try as I might, I cannot understand how we can have global warming and an ice age at the same time. I don’t agree with the belief that “God is the earth and that God is nothing more than the earth” (440) nor understand the agony Merwin describes with: “One really wants, hopelessly, to save the world, and one tries to say everything that can be said for the things one loves” (432) because he seems to care more about nature than the ones who are full of life around him yet admits “the trees have risen one more time” (434).
I do understand why people are worried about pollution: I don’t like seeing and smelling large clouds of exhaust coming from the muffler of an old clunker any more than the next man. I do not think there is anything wrong with trying to protect animals, but closing down a construction project and losing thousands of dollars because one worker thought he might have seen one endangered ant is ludicrous. Claiming that an owl can only live in one area is also stupid and was discovered to be false.
It is true that trees take decades to regrow after they’ve been cut down or burnt to the ground, but there are more trees in America now than there were in colonial times But trees are not gods to be worshiped, either: each year trees put out more greenhouse gasses and pollute more than all the vehicles in the world, and if a volcano erupts there is way more pollution in the air for several years (if not decades). Our government refuses to consider better alternatives to trees–such as hemp–that could be used to make paper and other materials for obvious reasons.
As much as I hate to hear that the rainforests are being burnt down I hate even more than farmers are doing this so they can grow the food they need for their families to survive. In my mind man is more important than any tree no matter where it is growing. Scientists are now discovering that forest fires are natural and necessary for the health of a forest. I do not agree with Russell when she says that she will not place the needs of ranchers, her husband, or her children “above the land itself” (437). How can you put the welfare of an inanimate object above the welfare of your loved one or above the welfare of Human beings as a race? Environmentalists all seem to have certain sentimentality that–as much as I love the earth–I seem to have missed out on. Bingham laments that a deer will suffer after her death because the piece of wilderness she owns–and it lives on–will be exploited by her children (425), Piercy the fact that foxes had to find a new den (404). Do these environmentalists (who are almost certainly evolutionists) not believe in survival of the fittest? Stegner claims that we are just animals, that we have domesticated ourselves: why in the world does he have a problem with us using the planet we “evolved” on? Are we not the fittest?
But I don’t believe any of these ludicrous sentiments. I realize that without God there is no morality: the universe screams that it has been created, and all life is precious (Korow). God made us to be creative people, to subdue the land. I don’t fully agree with Wordsworth when he says: “Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers“ (356) because we must get and spend somehow in order to survive.
Traven wrote: “If I were to make them in great numbers there would no longer be my soul in each, or my songs. Each would look like the other with no difference whatever and such a thing would slowly eat up my heart” (365) and I do think that we have lost something since corporations started making cheap junk that breaks in a few years and forming monopolies, but I don’t believe we can turn back time to get it back. I knit, but I’m not sure I want to start keeping sheep to make my own wool. No, I agree with Kaufman:
I propose that if we understand and accept the development urge, we will come closer to solving our land-use problems. We should no more repress the development part of our psyche because some developers pillage nature than we should repress our sexuality because some men and women are pornographers and prostitutes. (416)
“Our work is more than a pastime. It is our life. It takes up years of the portion we have been allotted on this Earth to work out our salvation” (368), there needs to be an in between area, a place with room for what Roszak was talking about:
All of us have a gift, a calling of our own whose exercise is high delight, even if we must sweat and suffer to meet its demands. That calling reaches out to find a real and useful place in the world, a task that is not waste or pretense. If only that life-giving impulse might be liberated and made the whole energy of our daily work, if only we were given the chance to be in our work with the full force of our personality, mind and body, heart and soul... what power would be released into the world! (368)It’s true that “they–the company, the system–rarely have any use for that calling” (368). I’ve worked several jobs, been unhappy in most. I still struggle just like the next person to find meaningful work that pays well enough for me to support and better myself–the American Dream. I just can’t believe that succeeding economically and growing as a society is bad. I don’t own land yet, but I hope to one day. I don’t have any desire to work in a convention job and make lots of money and go in debt trying to keep up with my neighbors but I know I must support myself somehow. Limbaugh argues:
We are 4 percent of the world’s population here in America and we use 25 percent of the world’s resources. How dare we be so selfish. Never mind the fact that our country feeds the world. Never mind the fact that our technology has improved life everywhere on the planet. (441)I just don’t think there are any easy answers to any of these issues, nor do I think the environment should come before our growth as a race and a society. I believe that my “desire to change nature” (441) is a gift from God and that–despite our sinful nature–men can be trusted with the future of this planet else God wouldn’t have given it to us. I think God knew what He was doing.
My friends, the earth is a remarkable creation and is capable of great rejuvenation. We can’t destroy it. It can fix itself. We shouldn’t go out of our way to do damage, but neither should we buy into the hysteria and monomania which preaches, in essence, that we don’t belong here. We have a right to use the earth and make our lives better. (442)
Anderson, Lorraine, Scott Slovic, and John P. O’Grady. Literature and the Environment: a Reader on Nature and Culture, eds. New York: Longman, 1999.
Bingham, Sallie. “A Woman’s Land.” Anderson, Slovic, and O’Grady, 425-427.
Kaufman, Wallace. “Confessions of a Developer.” Anderson, Slovic, and O’Grady, 414-422.
Korow, Dr. Dan. “John 3:16 vs Evolution.” Creation Celebration, Grand Junction. 24 Sept. 2004.
Limbaugh III, Rush. “The Environmental Mindset.” Anderson, Slovic, and O’Grady, 440-442.
McCorkle, Anne. “Rising Conflict - The Eve of the Revolution.” History 131, Grand Junction. 5 Aug. 2004.
Piercy, Marge. “Sand Roads: The Development.” Anderson, Slovic, and O’Grady, 403-404.
Roszak, Theodore. “Take This Job and Shove It.” Anderson, Slovic, and O’Grady, 367-371.
Russell, Sharman Apt. “The Physics of Beauty.” Anderson, Slovic, and O’Grady, 435-439.
Stegner, Wallace. “Wilderness Letter.” Anderson, Slovic, and O’Grady, 443-447.
Traven, B. “Assembly Line.” Anderson, Slovic, and O’Grady, 357-365.
Winthrop, John. “Reasons for the Plantation in New England.” 1628. The Winthrop Society. 1996-2003. American History and Genealogy Project. 31 August, 2004
Wordsworth, William. “The World Is Too Much with Us.” Anderson, Slovic, O’Grady, 356.
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