Journal 5

I think a utopian society would offer an equal and broad education to all citizens which would empower them to think analytically for themselves.  Citizens would have a mutual respect and acceptance for the differences of others.  There would be universal health care and no privatization of any resources.  Anything considered a necessity would be given to all people.  There would be less emphasis on consumerism and therefore less exploitation of resources.  A greater focus would be placed upon the arts.  There would be less dependence on technology, and as a result, more personal interaction between people. 

I believe people’s values can be broken down into the nature/nurture question.  Of course some personal traits are genetic, but I believe that people learn their values.  People can be taught (and brainwashed) to believe most anything.  I believe that people are neither inherently good nor bad, and their nature depends heavily upon education.  This heavily defines people’s interactions with the environment. 

If people are taught to care for the well beings of one another, they will.  If they are taught to ignore other’s needs, they will.  The idealistic side of me wants to believe that when seeing another person suffer, even if taught to ignore his or her pain, a person can feel his or her pain.  This is a question I ask myself yet cannot prove either way.  For the most part, however, I believe a person’s education will influence their actions.

Because we have been taught (our whole lives, by 1,000s of advertisements) that we need material comforts to be ‘happy’, we often feel like we need to buy things to be fulfilled.  We have instincts within us make us always want more.  Whether it be food, safety, etc., we have learned that in order to survive, more is better.  Today, in a society where it is possible to always get more (for less – money, energy, effort, etc.), these instincts have done more harm than they have helped.  With education given to everyone taught to question everyone and everything, people would stop accepting what they are told by the television and magazine advertisements, and start to think for themselves (while still respecting the opinions of others).  We will always want more, but what we want more of will change (from a culture which values material goods to a culture valuing education and empathy).

If people are educated in this way, they will not be expected to think or act in any particular way.  Incentives or coercions would not be needed (or used) to control anyone.  People themselves would understand the problem of an exponentially increasing population.  With a wide range of educated, and differently opinionated people, ideally, they would seek and find solutions to problems that we cannot find today due to inabilities to negotiate with others of differing opinions.  A government would have to ensure all people are given this broad education.

Journal Entry 4

In A Conservationist Manifesto, Scott Russell Sanders is attempting to demonstrate the importance of conserving the environment.  Sander’s objective is to share with his readers why they should care about the natural world and ways they can save it.

He states that readers should care about the world because “we are driving to extinction countless other species" (8). "Already, the amount of fossil energy, fresh water, arable land, and food available per person is declining.  As a consequence, the number of people suffering from malnutrition today is greater than the number of people alive a century ago" (9).  Statements like this are meant to shock the reader and inspire them to change.

Sanders encourages the reader to save the world little by little by “grow[ing] food,” "build[ing] shelters", "make[ing] clothes", “avoiding fashions” and buying food from “farmer’s markets” (7, 17).  He wants us to revert back to our origins and shows the roots of words to demonstrate our origins. Resource is defined as “something that rises anew, like grass in a meadow or water in a spring” (47).   Community “implies a mutual dependence and trust, as among neighbors who swap tools and seeds and stories”.  Conserve is “to watch over, protect, or guard” (53).  Economy means “management of a household”  (54).

I think Sanders raises interesting points, but as an environmentalist myself, I did not buy into many of his arguments.  Although I realize the roots of the words listed above have specific origins, they do not matter if the person using the words defines them differently.  I do not believe this was a strong argument, yet it was a whole chapter in his book. 

The essay particularly made me mad when it stated that there are only two narratives that reflect how people view environmentalism.  Those who believe in the Warehouse Story believe the universe is an accident, and “two legged creatures arrive on the scene with no more purpose, meaning, or mission than any other parcels of matter” (78).  Sanders says that “according to this view, the world is a chance collection of materials and forces, and we are free to exploit, reassemble, and consume them to satisfy our appetites (78).  Those who believe in the Wilderness story, on the other hand, believe that “we dwell in a cosmos, not a chaos; the unfolding of the universe is meaningful, orderly, and beautiful from beginning to end” (80).

First of all, I strongly disagree that there are only two ways to view the world.  He breaks environmentalism into a black and white concept and leaves no room for other belief systems. 

If we are going to continue to categorize every person in the world into one of these two groups, however, in my experience, it is those who think believe in the Warehouse Story are more conscious of their impacts upon the environment than those who believe in the Wilderness Story.  Sanders had some interesting points, but his religious beliefs were too much in the forefront of his argument to be effective.