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.
I also do not like how Sanders breaks the approaches to the environment into "a black and white concept". It is something that is far more extensive than that and the process of simplifying an issue such as environmentalism is something that caused me to call into question his ideals. I do however believe that Sanders did this for a reason and that this approach was not to necessarily appease readers, but to serve as a call to action. It is so easy to fall into the expectations of society and allow them to dictate your day-to-day lives. It is necessary to take a few steps back and realize and reorganize our approach to living--an idea that I believe Sanders made apparent within his text. However, overall I believe you did a great job summarizing the points made by Sanders and are in the same boat as a lot of other group members in the sense that the ideas within Sanders' book seemed to be a little too exaggerated and extreme.
ReplyDeleteI had trouble articulating my thoughts in my journal entry, but I think I can strip my thoughts down to: 1. I support Sander's objective to stir people into action, but 2. I dislike his use of religion to support his thoughts.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that it is important to step back and reorganize our approach to living (and with his book, Sanders is challenging us to do so). Although extreme, I liked his call back to past ways of living. It may not be possible to revert back to this past lifestyle, but I think this technique should cause us to think of alternative ways of living.
My biggest problem with his use of religion was when he basically divided up the world into two groups: 1. people who believe in an orderly, beautiful world, which was put into place by a creator (the Wilderness Story). These people want to save the world. Where as 2. people who don't believe in a creator, and the world was spurred by accident. It is chaos, and therefore, these people do not believe in protecting the earth. He states that obviously, it is this group who is destroying our world.
While I understand your interpretation of Sanders's argument about the Warehouse and Wilderness stories, I don't think he was really claiming that all people who fit into any of these categories MUST exemplify every listed characteristic. He's simply painting you a picture, trying to help you to view the world within a narrative, stereotypical framework. After all, we live in an age where movies and television rule our lives, so people are used to thinking of the world in terms of extreme dramatizations of what exists in reality. I don't think he's arguing that there are only two types of people in the world, he's making a generalization to help people to understand the basic idea of the ideological conflict at play.
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