In her essay "A Fable for Tomorrow", Rachel Carson condemns society's pitiable attempt to tame the all mighty force of nature. She encourages us adopt a different attitude towards nature by taking an alternate road which would not destine us to destruction. Carson thoroughly describes the discoveries of technology and science, such as nuclear fusion and radiation, synthetic chemical compounds, and insecticides to prove that man is using the treasures of nature to better destroy it. Carson states that "the rapidity of change and the speed with which new situations are created follow the impetuous and heedless pace of man rather than the deliberate pace of nature". In other words, men's countless interventions on the flow of nature's mechanisms do not take account of any possible consequences, which could be fatal because the pace of man is too fast for nature's natural response. Carson foreshadows pandemics, the discontinuation of life and reproduction, and perhaps a complete retreat of nature. Nature's gifts of intelligence to man will ultimately backfire if he doesn't use it in an intelligent manner.
Carson's essay breathes the notion of time. Evolution and adaptation take place over time and humanity is disrespecting this reality, accelerating every process with a massive exponent. In the text of Walden, Thoreau makes many radical judgments on humanity's use of time. "Our life is fritted away by detail". He asks questions such as "why should we live with such hurry and waste of life". He strongly suggests that the way we live is not in harmony with the way nature wants us to live. Our life is not inspired by life itself but rather is the summation of countless impertinent concerns. Like Carson, Thoreau refers to technology; "Men think that it is essential that the Nation has commerce, and export ice, and talk through a telegraph and ride at 30 miles per hour". From this we understand why Thoreau disagrees with the contemporary way of life. Those are the details which strip us away from any genuine connections with our surroundings and impede us from living. We are so concerned with gossip, numbers, money, and inventions that we forget to truly look around and live according to nature's laws. The sources which gave birth to the judgments made by Thoreau are simultaneously the cause of Carson's concerns about the future of the planet. While a man is wasting his life, he is also tampering with his prosperity's chances to experience life.
In his essay 'Nature", Emerson condemns society's way of life in a similar way and also encourages men to turn to nature to find peace. He states that men are blinded by "impertinent griefs" and that "few adults can truly see nature". Those griefs are inevitably the same as the ones described by Emerson and condemned by Carson. He says that in nature "all mean egotism vanishes". This logically implies that when not in nature, man is filled with egotism. Would this be the source of his concerns? "Nature" is an outreach to society; Emerson is trying to guide it to peace by pointing it to the great outdoors. His description of common human behavior goes hand in hand with Carson's judgment of the contemporary society. The accumulation of years of torment over superficial issues and of "egotism" could contribute to transforming Carson's dark visions into reality. If only men knew how to fully appreciate nature, Carson's statements would be irrelevant. Men wouldn't be concerned with money and numbers and try to find happiness by tampering with nature. They would rather find happiness within it's confines.
Thoreau and Emerson encourage men to turn to nature to find contentment. Carson, years later, demonstrates how men's use - and disregard - of nature will lead to its destruction. The three authors would agree that the pace of life is inappropriate and that the time frame we are given on earth is terribly misused. The declarations made by Carson on the future of nature illustrate the consequences of this same pace of life and use of time. If men could truly stop and see the world for the world itself, Carson's warnings would die away. In nature, men would discover that they are apart of something greater then themselves, something which should not be tamed by them.
You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
Never has a man left the embrace of nature once he found himself enamored by it; this infatuation is found in both John Muir’s and Aldo Leopold’s writing, a sense of wanting to protect this deity they call Mother Nature, a moral and ethical responsibility which every human being has to this Mother. Both John Muir and Aldo Leopold recount their almost romantic encounter with Mother Nature in their books Our National Parks and A Sand County Almanac, respectively. However, in both books it is notable that each man carries instilled in the very fiber of their being a sense of dissatisfaction toward the process of mechanization and industrialization; processes which unfortunately…
- 1225 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
Into the Wild is a movie based on the adventure of Chris McCandless as he breaks away from his civilized life and travels across the country to live in Alaska. Chris bases his journey off the core beliefs of the novel Walden by Henry David Thoreau. The novel is a description of Thoreau’s life as he exiles himself from society and returns to nature, living in the woods surrounding Walden pond. Thoreau expresses his beliefs about the negative aspects of civilization, money and the importance of self reliance and simplicity. Having a troubled life, Chris is intrigued by Thoreau 's concepts and seeks to incorporate them into his own life. The movie displays the path Chris takes as he tries to follow in the footsteps of Thoreau, but there are many differences in the life Chris leads and the one captured in Walden.…
- 1643 Words
- 7 Pages
Better Essays -
It is a reoccurring problem that whenever an individual sets forth to do something they solely think in the present, rather than the future. This becomes a conundrum because in the end other people, or things, might be negatively affected. Rachel Carson, noted biologist, published "Silent Spring", a book that pertained to the environment and was written to change American'a attitude toward the environment around us. In "Silent Spring" Carson targets the hostile actions committed towards birds which result in other animals also being negatively impacted. Carson uses an array of rhetorical strategies, ranging from creating a serious and justified tone, to exaggerating the situation, and lastly by using rep it ion to get her point across. To begin with, the start of…
- 670 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
Nature being important part of everyone’s life is something both Emerson and Muir can agree on. Emerson shows how nature isn’t there to judge or influence one’s…
- 241 Words
- 1 Page
Good Essays -
in nature beg for humans to do something to eliminate or lessen the foreseen calamities. Caroline Fraser, in the essay…
- 4011 Words
- 17 Pages
Better Essays -
This entry focuses mainly on the chemical DDT, which is over consumed on various vegetation, however, the overall idea is regarding our environment and how human actions are abolishing it, although it may be unintentional. To be more specific, the central idea consists of the environmental actions that are backfiring on our population in a negative way. Furthermore, in my opinion, Rachel Carson desires to spread awareness about the harmful deeds that are destroying our environment and our society’s health.…
- 221 Words
- 1 Page
Satisfactory Essays -
The main idea of the book was that the perceived split between man and nature isn’t real and that your body is associated to the world around you. In Rachel Carson’s time, nature was considered to be an “it” and also man had a dominion over animals which some people took as permission to kill them without any guilt. Rachel Carlson highlighted that “we” humans are not distinct from “it” and we were dependent on the world around us. Rachel’s Carson’s book was a success as it raised awareness of the social hazards of DDT As of now pesticides have been increasingly regulated, and also safety standards for pesticides have been improved with much credit to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. This paper is based on the thesis is that Rachel Carson’s Silent spring was not only prescient in 1962 when it was first published but it remains…
- 1228 Words
- 5 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
A Comparison of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson's Beliefs concerning Simplicity, the Value and Potential of Our Soul, and Our Imagination.<br><br>Henry David Thoreau tests Ralph Waldo Emerson's ideas about nature by living at Walden Pond, where he discovers that simplicity in physical aspects brings deepness to our mind, our soul to its fullest potential, and our imagination to be uplifted to change our lives. These two men believe that nature is what forces us not to depend on others' ideas but to develop our own. Nature is ever changing so we must keep searching for explanations about human life. They feel that nature is the key to knowing all.<br><br>Thoreau lives at Walden Pond to find the true meaning of life. He wants to experience things for himself. Thoreau says, "I wanted...to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion" (Thoreau 235). He takes Emerson's advice who says, "Let us demand our own works and laws and worship" (Emerson 215). Emerson tells how modern generations live life vicariously through the stories and traditions foretold. We do not experience things for ourselves. We take what our ancestors and others before us have said and do not think twice about whether we should try things for ourselves. Emerson decides not to conform to modern ways, but to be an individual.<br><br>Furthermore, in Nature, Emerson says, "Standing on the bare ground - my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space - all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball" (Emerson 215). Here, he is saying that being in such a simple environment he is able to see things more clearly. He has deeper thoughts. Like Emerson, Thoreau also wanted to live a simple life, in order to find deeper meaning in life. Thoreau says, "I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartanlike as to put to rout all that was not life, ... and reduce it to its lowest terms" (Thoreau…
- 772 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
Just like transcendentalists, modern society is beginning to see the importance of nature’s…
- 942 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
In the first chapter, the author talks about how most people’s attention is on eye-catching images, instead of what is going on in the world. People care more about murders, airplane crashes, etc. instead of the exploding populations or the growth in the amount of nuclear weapons that exist. Because of this, our environment starts to deteriorate. The environment will continue to deteriorate, and such events will be out of control until the human race realizes just how selectively the environment persuades the human mind, and how the biological and cultural history determines our comprehension. The book is about fundamental connections to our past and how the human race can “retrain” for a new world of the future. The book’s intent is to help people from all walks of life, educators, decision makers, physicians, businessmen, etc., change the way they make decisions. People might begin to change and secure the human future if they understood the fundamental roots of the many problems we face. At no point in history, has the human race had the power to destroy its civilization and ruin a lot of the planet’s life-support systems in a matter of hours. Over the past three decades scientific evidence developed many forms of the nature of both the human mind and predicament, and has now pointed to the way to the changes needed. The evidence of this has been from many different forms of studies, including neuroscience, evolutionary biology, climatology, geochemistry, and cognitive science.…
- 2059 Words
- 9 Pages
Good Essays -
In "The Obligation to Endure," Rachel Carson explains how man is destroying earth because of the advancements in science, along with the continuous use of numerous chemicals. During her essay, she points out to the reader that humans continue to use chemicals to produce our products since they like having the ability to manage the growth of the plants. Carson argues that the use of chemicals is damaging "poisoning" nature along with destroying our environment…
- 173 Words
- 1 Page
Satisfactory Essays -
Thoreau presented the philosophy that we blindly misuse the endowments of daily life in a frantic attempt to save time, although we never savor the time we have. He…
- 622 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
During the Transcendentalism movement there were hundreds fighting for different aspects of individuality, self worth, and self prosperity as well as many other things. Two main figures during this era of self righteousness were Thoreau and Emerson, their thoughts were filled with radicalistic viewpoints and idealistic assumptions. Their viewpoints were built on good morals and ideologies but in practice were taken too far and resulted in amalgamations of radicalists fighting over what they thought was right. So in precisely Thoreau and Emerson's ideas were built on good principles, followed a lifestyle of making your own choices and living off grid, but were taken too far and developed into radical ideologies that led to tyranny and wane.…
- 887 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
Just like the game “the name of the game is the game itself,” The End of Nature is a book written by Bill McKibben that talks about the end of nature. It is about the different destructions brought by the activities of humans towards nature. Although questions has been raised regarding the span of time that these effects will happen and the magnitude or the extent of which these effects will happen, the author argues that most have underestimated the factors on the nature’s end.…
- 529 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
In humans recent history there has been an increased noticeable mistreatment of the world around them. Humans need to know we are not the only ones living there, there are plants and animals and future offspring for all. Not only does the earth need to be treated well for them but it also needs to be treated well for us, because we rely on them for a healthy life. Many people may say that there is a connection between nature and humans theses thoughts are expressed in Annie Dillard's short story, “Living Like Weasels”. Both authors have their point of view on topics but both agree that human behavior needs to improve for a bigger better future.…
- 892 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays