(I edited this after some of you have commented, so don't freak out if you're returning to this post and notice something different.) To get started, it may help for you to sum up Berry's main idea in one sentence.
Then, respond with two comments/questions about the Berry article below as a comment. What struck you as totally awesome/ridiculous/irrational/rational, etc? Use direct quotes from the article and be specific in supporting your claims and responses.
1. The thing that stood out to me the most was Berry's statement about humans and how we are "not natural", not "thinking animals" but "monsters". I understand how he feels that humans are destorying the world and nature but he is in this with the rest of us. I feel that he is for nature and it is everyone elses fault that the world is getting destoryed. He is a writer and it takes paper to write on and that is hurting the Earth. I do not think he went out and planted a tree right after he wrote this so why does he expect everyone else to?
ReplyDelete2. His opinion on the economy is very true. Everyone only does something if it benefits them and there needs to be change in that if we want this world to change. Change is not going to happen quickly at and and looking at when this was wrote in 1987, we are still dealing with the same problems they are just more in the media than ever before.
I would agree with the fact the indeed humans are destructing earth and we are not exactly responsible in the way we go about it. However, many of the forest and natural resources that earth provides are necessities for human life. The question I would propose would be, Is there any alternative to what we are doing? If this is something we have to keep doing to live I would say, KEEP DOING IT!
ReplyDelete"We cannot know what we are doing until we know what nature would be doing if we were doing nothing". This line really grabbed my attention. Who decided what was harmful for out planet? Maybe for all we know, we are helping the environment. Who knows what could have evolved without humans here.
1. I definitely agree with Berry's statement that "If we do not have an economy capable of valuing in particular terms the durable good of localities and communities, then we are not going to be able to preserve anything." I think that's a very good point because if we start relying on big corporations for all of our needs, we are going to end up losing all of the locally and community made products that make different places unique.
ReplyDelete2. I was a little confused with Berry's statement that says "the 'population problem,' initially, should be examined as a problem, not of quantity, but of pattern." Berry later goes on to say that "we must ask if we have people who are misused, people who are misplaced, or people who are abusing the places they have." I somewhat understand that if people were more careful of what they were doing that the population problem might not be that big of an issue. However if a place is too overpopulated, I don't really think that it matters what the people do; if there are too many people, it's going to create some type of issue, regardless of how those people act.
One thing that caught my eye was when he was talking about the "nature conquerors" and he said, "These people divide all reality into two parts: human good, which they define as profit, comfort, and security; and everything else, which they understand as a stockpile of "natural resources" or "raw materials" which sooner or later will be transformed into human good." I like how he said it would sooner or later be "transformed" into a human good. The way i read it made me think he was kind of bashing people for what they would consider to be human good materials or how people use too much of something when they dont really need it. I may be looking at it all wrong but it just caught my eye.
ReplyDeleteI also like how he gets into talking about population and says "The population issuse thus leads directly to the issue of proportion and scale. What is the proper amound of power for a human to use?" He does make a great point, I mean when is enough a enough with anything we do. You can look at anything thats going on in the world and there will be the question "does this really need to happen?" or "are we going too far with this" or something. I like how he kind of questions that and brings up economics and industry. He just has a way of bringing up things and backing them up in my mind atleast.
I believe Berry's main point of this piece was that humans are responsible for destroying the earth's natural environment and we need to take responsibility and learn to preserve what we have left.
ReplyDeleteI love pieces like this that shed light on a different point of view that you wouldn't normally think of. "Preserving Wilderness" makes you think negatively about the human race and culture. Berry says that humans are monsters and after reading this piece, I believe he is right in saying so. We have carelessly disrespected our home and natural environment. Not only does this effect the human race, but this effects all species on our planet and slowly destroys Earth and its natural wilderness. Humans are selfish in everything they do, including myself. We are so selfish that we have entirely overlooked what we have done to our world and the worst part is I dont believe humans, as a whole race, will put forth an effort to change our habits. I would say we are no longer wild and we have not preserved either our wilderness or wildness. we have pushed passed our natural habits and moved into a society and culture centered around norms, money, and status. What is natural is no longer apart of our culture.
Another thing that surprised me as I read, was the fact that berry referred to President Reagan. When I read this, I immediately questioned when Berry wrote this piece. After I read, I looked it up and his book, "Home Economics" was written in 1987. This means all the issues he addressed in his piece were issues from over 20 years ago. This really made me think, was his rhetoric affective at all? I agreed with everything he said and I believe other readers did too but this must have only been to a certain extent because our environmental issues have not improved one bit. in fact, they have gotten much worse and it is too late not to turn back. This fact to me really proves that our race as a whole is truly carless of the environment that they live in. They are too concerned with their selves and how they fit into society. I myself can say I overlook such crucial issues in this world and this piece was an eye opener. This earth is all we have and yet we continually do things that destroy it. Can the human race honestly destroy this planet in which they live on without any guilt whatsoever? What has this world come to?
I definitely can agree with what Berry is saying. He brings you to realize that nature is key to humanity. One thing that sticks out to me is, "We are creatures obviously subordinate to nature, dependent upon a wild world that we did make. And yet we are joined to that larger nature by our own nature, a part of which i sour self-interest" We are living in our own self-centered world but you never really think about how other animals in nature are living in their own world as well. We are concerned about ourselves and what we need at the moment.
ReplyDeleteThe 3 questions also stuck out to me,
1. what is here?
2.what will nature permit us to do here?
3.what will nature help us to do here?
"If we do not work with and within natural tolerances, then we will not be permitted to work for long." Then Berry gives the example of a farm and without nature it would be too expensive for farmers to continue. So is the way we are living today (cutting down trees, industrializing, urbanizing) going to effect business in future and be more costly if we continue?
1. “At the other extreme are the nature conquerors, who have no patience with old-fashioned outdoor farm, let alone a wilderness.” I agree with this statement made by Berry. Since all of these new technological ways of getting things done quicker, its hurting the wilderness. The meat that we eat has most likely not been produced in the best way. Farmers today use techniques like genetically modifying our foods, which is not the safest. The old-fashioned way of farming was the better, safer way. There’s a better chance of not getting sick from your meat. The way our foods are processed today could be harmful.
ReplyDelete2. In Berry’s statement that “We do not need any more thousand-dollar solutions to ten-dollar problems...” I agree with this. People need to concentrate more on spending money towards helping the environment, than spending it on new technologies we don’t necessarily need. They should be making technology gadgets on things that would help us, more than distract us.
I like that he is trying to stay in the middle of the argument. Because as he says this problem; "does not have what the nature romantic or the technocrat would regard as a solution." I completely agree with this statement because of the simple fact that both sides are offering solutions that are too extreme to work effectively.
ReplyDeleteBut my favorite statement of this piece was by far "The awareness that we are slowly growing into now is that the earthly wildness that we are so complexly dependent on is at our mercy." Berry really gets right to the core of things with this statement. we as a society are destroying the things we need to survive and if nothing is done to at least slow down the exponential decay of our environment then we as a species won't be able to continue to thrive on this Earth.
1. I do not agree with what Berry is saying about how we could not make this world perfect with out nature. I think with the technology we have we could totally make this world into what we want, or what we call "perfect. I think the biggest problem with my statement is that the idea of a perfect world is seen so different in multiple people's eyes that once one person got it to what they think is perfect the next man would try to change it in drastic ways. I don't want to believe that we will run out of natural resources sooner, or later, but i can see this happening.
ReplyDelete2.What does Berry mean when he say's, "But it is also a mistake to assume that there is no difference between the natural and the human?" This part of the essay confuses me because I don't completely understand what he means by the natural.
I like Berry's thoughts that "...it is a mistake to proceed on the basis of an assumed division or divisibility between nature and humanity...it is also a mistake to assume there is no difference between the natural and the human...Our problem, exactly, is that the human and the natural are indivisible, and yet are different." Berry is correct. Yet when reading the first two statements I felt confused as he was being contradictory in his thoughts, but the third statement completed it for me. We, being humans, are part of the natural. We help contribute to nature, we are nature, we create nature, we destroy nature, we surround ourselves in nature. However, unlike nature, we have a mind of our own. Nature is unpredictable and unknowing. We may live side by side with nature but that doesn't mean nature and humans coexist together in perfect harmony. Nature destroys us, we destroy nature.
ReplyDeleteI believe that we need to stop interferring with nature as much. We don't need chemicals for our crops; if we managed to go thousands of years on simple nonchemicalized farming then I don't see why now has to be any different. Everything in nature today we intake it seems has been enhanced by some form of chemicals, whether its crops or meat from a cow. Were never going to be able to achieve perfect harmony with nature; that is a dream. We can however reduce the defining line we have created between humans and nature.
I was so excited when I read Berry's comment "I would prefer to stay in he middle, not to avoid taking sides, but because I think that the middle is a side, as well as the real location of the problem". On many issues, including this one.. I find myself in the middle. It is great to hear someone else's view and to know that I am not alone in my thinking.
ReplyDeleteI believe a middle balance of both human good and wilderness can be achieved.
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ReplyDeleteThroughout the article, Berry talks about how we are depending on the one thing that will eventually destroy us. I find this very interesting because I believe that, as humans and extremely selfish beings, we tend to disregard all the negative effects we have on nature in order to "prosper". In fact, I believe what Berry says is true and that we are actually destroying each other.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe that we can fix the way that nature and humans effect each other. As Berry says, instinct plays a large role in what nature and humans will do. Some things just can not change, not because no one wants it to but because the human race will never be able to get everyone to agree and work together to change the way we live. Our instinct tells us to do right for ourselves and its not always a good thing when it comes to doing right for our environment or the creatures around us.
Berry trys saying that the only human good are the humans that believe everything in the biosphere is created equal and has the right to live, etc. I disagree with this however because it's obvious fact that humans are supperior in this world. In order for us to live, wether in caves or in 4,000 square feet houses, we have to use some type of resource on this planet. We shouldnt be called "bad" people because we kill animals, animals hunt other animals everyday. We're just the best at it.
ReplyDeleteHe keeps on referring to "economy" as if its a group population with a general consensus and feelings, however an economy is just more or less what you call the system of how the market interacts, trades, gains, loses, and uses resources. I would've found it more appropriate if he just refered to the population of this time or people of this time.
I found the Berry essay very interesting and the point that he points out that, and im paraphrasing here "we try so hard to preserve wilderness but in many ways wilderness is the main thing that is standing in our way of moving forward economically." this is very interesting because he raises a good point that it is hard to be in perfect harmony with the nature around us.
ReplyDeleteI also like that in his writing he looks at thing from multiple perspectives instead of just point a and point b. this shows in his neutrality to nature and the human world in the essay.