Mark Twain said in 1905, on the subject of war,
"There has never been a just one, never an honorable one — on the part of the instigator of the war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so many as half a dozen instances. The loud little handful — as usual — will shout for the war. The pulpit will — warily and cautiously — object — at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, "It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it." Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity. Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers — as earlier — but do not dare to say so. And now the whole nation — pulpit and all — will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception"
Is change an illusion?
Monday, June 29, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
Book Review: Into the Wild
Into the wild is a strange book in many ways, and one is in that the first things it tells you is that the main character will die at the end of his journey. That it will be a sad and inglorious death, and will cause him disrespect and contempt.
It is also strange in the sense that it is hard to classify. Is it fact or fiction, novel or biography? As a novel it is poorly written, as a biography it's light on facts, heavy on speculation. It leaves itself somewhere in the middle, and strangely, this doesn't seem to hurt it.
I think it’s good of the author to start with the death of the protagonist, to help dissuade those who might become wrapped up in the romanticism of the character, and pursue the path he did. It is good to confront the reader quickly and harshly with the folly of the man. Not that his path was a contemptible one, but the book helps show where blind romanticism leads.
The man the book follows, Chris McCandless, is portrayed as a very intelligent, well read, and charismatic child of an upper class family, the father of which was a high government official. He played the good little student and went to college at Emory University to and graduated with honors, then disappeared off the map. From his college graduation and through the next two years to his death, he never once communicated with his family, pursuing a life of freedom.
When he left his family behind he also left his car, gave all of his savings (somewhere in the neighborhood of $25,000) to charity, and began a life on the road and off, but never with more than, in his words, "he could carry on his back at a dead run."
A romanticist and an existentialist, he was a lover of Tolstoy and Thoreau, and he always longed for the Alaska of Jack London, the uncivilized wild, and eventually set out there, where he lived in the wilderness for several months before succumbing to starvation. He died scared, alone, malnourished, and possibly delusional. His body was not found until several weeks later in a state of rancid decay.
What you might call the tragedy, or the folly, depending on your view, of Chris's death was that he was in fact only a handful of miles from civilization, only barely off the map. That there were numerous means of escape at hand, cached food and supplies, a government testing station, and a road nearby, but Chris knew of none of them because he went straight into the wild with no preparation but the clothes on his back, a bag of rice, and a rifle. No maps, compasses, knowledge of the area, or means of rescue. No one even knew where he would be. And so he died alone, and it might be said, for no reason but the fulfillment of a longing to remove himself from humanity and experience life un-fettered by the hindrances of society.
If this all sounds interesting to you, I suggest you read the book, Into the Wild. Even if it doesn't I suggest you still do. The character of Chris McCandless is a highly interesting and engrossing one, and you’ll likely have a strong opinion of him by the end, either contemptuous, admiring, or accepting. I personally am not sure how I feel about the man, but the book about his life definitely does kindle a wanderlust in me, as it likely will in you.
Anyway, Into the Wild, by Jon Krakaur, is a book I suggest, if for no other reason as a warning to those who might try to go "off the map” unprepared.
It is also strange in the sense that it is hard to classify. Is it fact or fiction, novel or biography? As a novel it is poorly written, as a biography it's light on facts, heavy on speculation. It leaves itself somewhere in the middle, and strangely, this doesn't seem to hurt it.
I think it’s good of the author to start with the death of the protagonist, to help dissuade those who might become wrapped up in the romanticism of the character, and pursue the path he did. It is good to confront the reader quickly and harshly with the folly of the man. Not that his path was a contemptible one, but the book helps show where blind romanticism leads.
The man the book follows, Chris McCandless, is portrayed as a very intelligent, well read, and charismatic child of an upper class family, the father of which was a high government official. He played the good little student and went to college at Emory University to and graduated with honors, then disappeared off the map. From his college graduation and through the next two years to his death, he never once communicated with his family, pursuing a life of freedom.
When he left his family behind he also left his car, gave all of his savings (somewhere in the neighborhood of $25,000) to charity, and began a life on the road and off, but never with more than, in his words, "he could carry on his back at a dead run."
A romanticist and an existentialist, he was a lover of Tolstoy and Thoreau, and he always longed for the Alaska of Jack London, the uncivilized wild, and eventually set out there, where he lived in the wilderness for several months before succumbing to starvation. He died scared, alone, malnourished, and possibly delusional. His body was not found until several weeks later in a state of rancid decay.
What you might call the tragedy, or the folly, depending on your view, of Chris's death was that he was in fact only a handful of miles from civilization, only barely off the map. That there were numerous means of escape at hand, cached food and supplies, a government testing station, and a road nearby, but Chris knew of none of them because he went straight into the wild with no preparation but the clothes on his back, a bag of rice, and a rifle. No maps, compasses, knowledge of the area, or means of rescue. No one even knew where he would be. And so he died alone, and it might be said, for no reason but the fulfillment of a longing to remove himself from humanity and experience life un-fettered by the hindrances of society.
If this all sounds interesting to you, I suggest you read the book, Into the Wild. Even if it doesn't I suggest you still do. The character of Chris McCandless is a highly interesting and engrossing one, and you’ll likely have a strong opinion of him by the end, either contemptuous, admiring, or accepting. I personally am not sure how I feel about the man, but the book about his life definitely does kindle a wanderlust in me, as it likely will in you.
Anyway, Into the Wild, by Jon Krakaur, is a book I suggest, if for no other reason as a warning to those who might try to go "off the map” unprepared.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Tree Farms and Forests
I am pro-forests. . .at least the naturally occurring kind.
In my part of the United States lumber is a big industry and as a result there are many "tree farms." Tree farms are just another form of totalitarian agriculture, but receive lots and lots of credit as being "green," and good, and wonderful, because hey, they're trees!
If you've never been to one, this is what they consist of:
The owner of a large portion of land will use bulldozers to obliterate the forest and vegetation from the allotted land, and burn all the detritus. Then the farmer will plant pine seedlings, all identical, in long, long, very straight rows a short distance apart. Then fire trenches will be dug around the "tree farm" so that the underbrush can be burned off every so often. The trees grow until they're tall enough to harvest, and then the process starts over.
The end result is a forest consisting solely of canopy. No undergrowth, just pine needles, and sometimes those are harvested too, so sometimes just bare dirt. Not a very welcoming forest environment. Especially compared to the plethora of life it replaced--the variety of oak trees, pine trees, cottonwood trees, shrubs, etc. The local animal population is severely stunted as well, by the initial loss of their forest, and the continuing lack of hospitality given by the trees maintenance. A few species flourish in this new "forest," but no where near the abundance of variety that existed before. It is a sad and boring forest, a depressing sight, and while better than concrete, it is not something I am for.
The tress may be producing oxygen, which I'm all for, but I'd much rather have a natural southeastern rain-forest. Unfortunately, these tree farms are going up daily where I live, and will continue with our unceasing consumerism. I seriously doubt that 50 years from now any natural forest will exist in the southeastern U.S. except for those in parks.
I am against this type of forest.
I am for natural forests, diverse forests, inhabited forests. I grew up exploring them, forests where bears, bobcats, deer, turkeys, coyotes, owls, woodpeckers, tortoises, alligators, snakes, and many other species lived.
They're disappearing, and it is one of the most depressing things in my life. Most of the forest I spent my childhood in has been plowed under for a subdivision, the rest for cattle fields. The swamp behind my parents house where I once went fishing is choked with refuse from a local farm, and no one cares.
I love forests. I seem to be the only one.
In my part of the United States lumber is a big industry and as a result there are many "tree farms." Tree farms are just another form of totalitarian agriculture, but receive lots and lots of credit as being "green," and good, and wonderful, because hey, they're trees!
If you've never been to one, this is what they consist of:
The owner of a large portion of land will use bulldozers to obliterate the forest and vegetation from the allotted land, and burn all the detritus. Then the farmer will plant pine seedlings, all identical, in long, long, very straight rows a short distance apart. Then fire trenches will be dug around the "tree farm" so that the underbrush can be burned off every so often. The trees grow until they're tall enough to harvest, and then the process starts over.
The end result is a forest consisting solely of canopy. No undergrowth, just pine needles, and sometimes those are harvested too, so sometimes just bare dirt. Not a very welcoming forest environment. Especially compared to the plethora of life it replaced--the variety of oak trees, pine trees, cottonwood trees, shrubs, etc. The local animal population is severely stunted as well, by the initial loss of their forest, and the continuing lack of hospitality given by the trees maintenance. A few species flourish in this new "forest," but no where near the abundance of variety that existed before. It is a sad and boring forest, a depressing sight, and while better than concrete, it is not something I am for.
The tress may be producing oxygen, which I'm all for, but I'd much rather have a natural southeastern rain-forest. Unfortunately, these tree farms are going up daily where I live, and will continue with our unceasing consumerism. I seriously doubt that 50 years from now any natural forest will exist in the southeastern U.S. except for those in parks.
I am against this type of forest.
I am for natural forests, diverse forests, inhabited forests. I grew up exploring them, forests where bears, bobcats, deer, turkeys, coyotes, owls, woodpeckers, tortoises, alligators, snakes, and many other species lived.
They're disappearing, and it is one of the most depressing things in my life. Most of the forest I spent my childhood in has been plowed under for a subdivision, the rest for cattle fields. The swamp behind my parents house where I once went fishing is choked with refuse from a local farm, and no one cares.
I love forests. I seem to be the only one.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Indian and European Ideas of Land Ownership
The argument I am about to make regarding Indigenous Americans and Europeans settlers runs a high likelihood of being dismissed as juvenile, or romantic. Of being called a glorification of a long gone lifestyle stemming from a dissatisfaction with current society. I say that is partly true, that my argument comes from a dissatisfaction with current society, and if it is called romantic, or distanced from the fact of the disappeared cultures, well, that is part of my point. There is no way now for either I, or the reader to view that culture, in action and determine what is fact or fiction. That culture is gone. Forever.
Edmund Morgan, in reference to the failures and starvation of very early English colonies in America as compared to these American Indian cultures, writes in his book "American Slavery, American Freedom":
"If you were a colonist, you knew that your technology was superior to the Indians'. You knew that you were civilized, and that they were savages . . . But your superior technology had proved insufficient to extract anything. The Indians, keeping to themselves, laughed at your superior methods and lived from the land more abundantly and with less labor than you did. . . . And when your own people started deserting in order to live with them, it was too much. . . . So you killed the Indians, tortured them, burned their villages, burned their cornfields. It proved your superiority, in spite of your failures And you gave similar treatment to any of your own people who succumbed to their savage ways of life. But you still did not grow much corn. . . . "
This is quoted from A People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn, on page 25. In this book, he mentions how many years after those colonies eventually began to thrive, in the mid eighteenth century, large tracts of land which were occupied by poor farmers, sometimes by families which had been upon that land since it was vacated by Indians a hundred years before, were arbitrarily divided amongst the wealthy of the English colonies. The new "owners" of the land then began to charge rent to the farmers which had previously inhabited the land, and were ignored. As a result, the local government stepped in with arrests, and revolts followed. Revolts followed because people then still understood that terms of ownership of land are arbitrary and imaginary. That to say "I own this land, which I have never seen, and have no intention to inhabit," is to say nothing.
Unless backed by enough other individuals who believe your authority to make such arbitrary decisions. As eventually became the case. As is still the case, though today broad land acquisitions are not made so arbitrarily. Land is still held by the wealthy who do not inhabit it, though it is inherited, bought, or sold. The principles are the same--it is still an imaginary idea which only exists because of people's allowing it to.
In Native American culture there was no such thing as ownership of land, inasmuch as we know it today. One might be said to have rights to land if one inhabited it and lived from it, but to say "I own that land over there, and you must increase my wealth in order to inhabit it," would be to utter insanity. Such ideas were completely foreign. Might this be part of why, in colonial America,
". . . Whites would run off to join Indian tribes, or would be captured in battle and brought up among the Indians, and when this happened the whites, given a chance to leave, chose to stay in the Indian culture. Indians, having the choice, almost never decided to join whites."
Hector S. Jean Crevecoeur, the Author of Letters from an American Farmer in the 1700's, wrote, "There must be in their social bond something singularly captivating, and far superior to anything to be boasted among us, for thousands of Europeans are Indians, and we have no examples of even one of those Aborigines having from choice become Europeans."
Of course, the Native American cultures were decimated, completely destroyed, and so there is no way to verify these statements completely, no studies to conduct on preference of Indian to European culture. The Indians were wiped out in order to continue to propagate this idea of land ownership, yes, but might this act of genocide also have been conducted to remove all alternatives to that system.? To remove the close and available proof of the inferiority of the system?
Or was it, as indicated by the statement from Edmund Morgan, an act of contempt? Perpetuated in hatred of the success of "inferior" people, not in sustaining their food supply, but in sustaining their psychological well-being? Retaining the right of each individual to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and at least the capability to support himself?
I think these are all the causes, and I think they deserve more thought.
Edmund Morgan, in reference to the failures and starvation of very early English colonies in America as compared to these American Indian cultures, writes in his book "American Slavery, American Freedom":
"If you were a colonist, you knew that your technology was superior to the Indians'. You knew that you were civilized, and that they were savages . . . But your superior technology had proved insufficient to extract anything. The Indians, keeping to themselves, laughed at your superior methods and lived from the land more abundantly and with less labor than you did. . . . And when your own people started deserting in order to live with them, it was too much. . . . So you killed the Indians, tortured them, burned their villages, burned their cornfields. It proved your superiority, in spite of your failures And you gave similar treatment to any of your own people who succumbed to their savage ways of life. But you still did not grow much corn. . . . "
This is quoted from A People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn, on page 25. In this book, he mentions how many years after those colonies eventually began to thrive, in the mid eighteenth century, large tracts of land which were occupied by poor farmers, sometimes by families which had been upon that land since it was vacated by Indians a hundred years before, were arbitrarily divided amongst the wealthy of the English colonies. The new "owners" of the land then began to charge rent to the farmers which had previously inhabited the land, and were ignored. As a result, the local government stepped in with arrests, and revolts followed. Revolts followed because people then still understood that terms of ownership of land are arbitrary and imaginary. That to say "I own this land, which I have never seen, and have no intention to inhabit," is to say nothing.
Unless backed by enough other individuals who believe your authority to make such arbitrary decisions. As eventually became the case. As is still the case, though today broad land acquisitions are not made so arbitrarily. Land is still held by the wealthy who do not inhabit it, though it is inherited, bought, or sold. The principles are the same--it is still an imaginary idea which only exists because of people's allowing it to.
In Native American culture there was no such thing as ownership of land, inasmuch as we know it today. One might be said to have rights to land if one inhabited it and lived from it, but to say "I own that land over there, and you must increase my wealth in order to inhabit it," would be to utter insanity. Such ideas were completely foreign. Might this be part of why, in colonial America,
". . . Whites would run off to join Indian tribes, or would be captured in battle and brought up among the Indians, and when this happened the whites, given a chance to leave, chose to stay in the Indian culture. Indians, having the choice, almost never decided to join whites."
Hector S. Jean Crevecoeur, the Author of Letters from an American Farmer in the 1700's, wrote, "There must be in their social bond something singularly captivating, and far superior to anything to be boasted among us, for thousands of Europeans are Indians, and we have no examples of even one of those Aborigines having from choice become Europeans."
Of course, the Native American cultures were decimated, completely destroyed, and so there is no way to verify these statements completely, no studies to conduct on preference of Indian to European culture. The Indians were wiped out in order to continue to propagate this idea of land ownership, yes, but might this act of genocide also have been conducted to remove all alternatives to that system.? To remove the close and available proof of the inferiority of the system?
Or was it, as indicated by the statement from Edmund Morgan, an act of contempt? Perpetuated in hatred of the success of "inferior" people, not in sustaining their food supply, but in sustaining their psychological well-being? Retaining the right of each individual to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and at least the capability to support himself?
I think these are all the causes, and I think they deserve more thought.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
