I don't even know if that's a word. Anyways...
Texts: Terry Tempest Williams' "Clan of One-Breasted Women" and Leopold's "Marshland Elegy" and "Land Ethics"
Aldo declares that "the trend of evolution is to elaborate and diversify the biota.... Evolutionary changes, however, are usually slow and local. Man's invention of tools has enabled him to make changes of unprecedented violence, rapidity, and scope." Our mass consumption is scary. Is this where campaigns, marches to Washington, and protests targeting the Kyoto-nonsigning come in, then? I can't help but notice that those who do care, who do march and protest are considered hyperactive liberal hippies--at least from the conservative Christians' eyes. What's the craziness about a vegetarian diet or organic food? The advocacy for a completely different lifestyle threatens people used to the middle-class, suburban comfort zone plush with cable TV and diet coke. I feel the tension and either side thinks it's right. The conformists cannot comprehend what's the big deal about using the refrigerator; the activists cannot comprehend how one can continue using refrigerators in view of the ozone-depletion. This almost reminds me of the abolitionist movement little over a century ago in which economic interests have completely blinded people to their moral obligations.
Aldo writes that the content of our ecological education
I think because we are so detached from the land, detached from a natural way of life, that we think we need high corn fructose syrup,the urban white collar job, the stuff somehow for survival. And for these, we are willing to trade away a daily walk on grass barefooted or quiet wait for the moon-rise with lights off. We've become oblivious to our surroundings, the soil underneath, the rivers that wind through, the names of native flora and fauna, the place in which we live.
Terry Tempest Williams, however, is one whose sensibilities have refused to be oblivious. Reading her words that painted the Utah landscape of desert and atomic bomb testing with wild Native women dancing their irrational song of love for the land--that was a moving account, almost as if to instill in me also the suffering and then take me up with the dance. The way she married the familiar landscape with poetry utterance gathered much momentum for political activism that remained close to her heart. Having been imprisoned for acts of civil disobedience, to protest the governmental destruction of her home, her land, and people, Williams, it seems, wants to be a prophetic voice that brings awareness not just to the grandeur and beauty of the surroundings in which she lived but also the necessity for protection of it from harm. She does this from her own voice, a uniquely feminine one that refuses to be repressed, in this campaign for justice. I must admire her for combining all these elements cohesively and seamlessly into a unifying one.
Recently for the past years, I, too, have been struggling to weave together what is myself, or that coming-of-age milestone called one's own "poetic voice." How does one navigate the waters of a million differing elements? I am both a Native of China and an exile of the same, having lived abroad for more than half my life in America. Sometimes I don't know which I am. Yes, I became a Christian at ten years of ago and have embraced the faith with all my heart, soul, and strength. Yet, how can I now reconcile myself with an irrepressible interest in Marxism, Freudian theory, and Zen Buddhist teachings? And what about the fragmented, off-centered Postmodern society in which I breathe but from which also feel utterly estranged? I crave escape into solitude, but find myself still longing for solidarity.
Before the princes and authorities who hold sway over the world with their fiscal policies and endless conventions, sometimes I feel as but a mere drop of water in the vast sea. Is there anything this voice can pronounce that will mean anything in the large scheme of things?
Texts: Terry Tempest Williams' "Clan of One-Breasted Women" and Leopold's "Marshland Elegy" and "Land Ethics"
Aldo declares that "the trend of evolution is to elaborate and diversify the biota.... Evolutionary changes, however, are usually slow and local. Man's invention of tools has enabled him to make changes of unprecedented violence, rapidity, and scope." Our mass consumption is scary. Is this where campaigns, marches to Washington, and protests targeting the Kyoto-nonsigning come in, then? I can't help but notice that those who do care, who do march and protest are considered hyperactive liberal hippies--at least from the conservative Christians' eyes. What's the craziness about a vegetarian diet or organic food? The advocacy for a completely different lifestyle threatens people used to the middle-class, suburban comfort zone plush with cable TV and diet coke. I feel the tension and either side thinks it's right. The conformists cannot comprehend what's the big deal about using the refrigerator; the activists cannot comprehend how one can continue using refrigerators in view of the ozone-depletion. This almost reminds me of the abolitionist movement little over a century ago in which economic interests have completely blinded people to their moral obligations.
Aldo writes that the content of our ecological education
"is substantially this: obey the law, vote right, join some organizations, and practice what conservation is profitable on your own land; the government will do the rest. [Yet] Is not this formula too easy to accomplish anything worth-while? It defines no right or wrong, assigns no obligation, calls for no sacrifice, implies no change in the current philosophy of values. In respect of land-use, it urges only enlightened self-interest.... No important change in ethics was ever accomplished without an internal change in our intellectual emphasis, loyalties, affections, and convictions."What is that "internal change"? perhaps what Mary Frolich has called an ecological conversion? And how in the world is that to be achieved? Even those who do "obey the law, vote right, join some organizations, and practice what conservation is profitable"--even these are rare. How many in society actually vote with ecological interests, or join any sort of environmentally-oriented organization, or even recycle?? It's a crying shame that so many college students I personally know on this campus think next to nothing of their car fuel emission in dreaming of their next new Lexus. All those Styrofoam cups stacked high in Mi Casa cafe gross me out, not to mentioned the hundreds of Hungry Howie pizza boxes trashed after every Sunday night (from Tuscana closing). All the lights turned on in vacant lobbies for hours, all the dryers tumbling almost non-stop, all the plastic....
I think because we are so detached from the land, detached from a natural way of life, that we think we need high corn fructose syrup,the urban white collar job, the stuff somehow for survival. And for these, we are willing to trade away a daily walk on grass barefooted or quiet wait for the moon-rise with lights off. We've become oblivious to our surroundings, the soil underneath, the rivers that wind through, the names of native flora and fauna, the place in which we live.
Terry Tempest Williams, however, is one whose sensibilities have refused to be oblivious. Reading her words that painted the Utah landscape of desert and atomic bomb testing with wild Native women dancing their irrational song of love for the land--that was a moving account, almost as if to instill in me also the suffering and then take me up with the dance. The way she married the familiar landscape with poetry utterance gathered much momentum for political activism that remained close to her heart. Having been imprisoned for acts of civil disobedience, to protest the governmental destruction of her home, her land, and people, Williams, it seems, wants to be a prophetic voice that brings awareness not just to the grandeur and beauty of the surroundings in which she lived but also the necessity for protection of it from harm. She does this from her own voice, a uniquely feminine one that refuses to be repressed, in this campaign for justice. I must admire her for combining all these elements cohesively and seamlessly into a unifying one.
Recently for the past years, I, too, have been struggling to weave together what is myself, or that coming-of-age milestone called one's own "poetic voice." How does one navigate the waters of a million differing elements? I am both a Native of China and an exile of the same, having lived abroad for more than half my life in America. Sometimes I don't know which I am. Yes, I became a Christian at ten years of ago and have embraced the faith with all my heart, soul, and strength. Yet, how can I now reconcile myself with an irrepressible interest in Marxism, Freudian theory, and Zen Buddhist teachings? And what about the fragmented, off-centered Postmodern society in which I breathe but from which also feel utterly estranged? I crave escape into solitude, but find myself still longing for solidarity.
Before the princes and authorities who hold sway over the world with their fiscal policies and endless conventions, sometimes I feel as but a mere drop of water in the vast sea. Is there anything this voice can pronounce that will mean anything in the large scheme of things?
Your remarks on conservative Christians' view of the "liberal hippie" interested me. It's ironic that before the fall, Adam and Eve were two nudist, vegan hippies content with enjoying the garden and a personal relationship with God. It amazes me how far sin has taken Christians away from our original state.
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