Staying Put, Making a Home in a Restless World Essay Example

Staying Put; Making A Home In A Restless World Novelist Scott Russell Sanders in his informative essay response to “Staying Put; Making A Home In A Restless World” debates whether migrating to a new place or staying in one place is the best decision. Sander argues the pros and cons of each decision “… the belief that the movement is inherently good, staying put is bad; that uprooting brings tolerance, while rootedness breeds intolerance; that imaginary homelands are preferable to geographical ones; that to be modern, enlightened, fully of our time is to be displaced.” Rusdie is, in a way, saying that, in order to relevant, you have to be “up-to-date” with what’s going on in the world; if you stay in one place, that place will be the only thing you know. Also, he’s saying that migrating helps you to gain tolerance towards new things. If you move around, you’ll have to “adapt”, which will make you more tolerant to such things. On the other hand, staying in one place will make you intolerant to new things. If you’re not used to change, you won’t be able to when it’s necessary. But, Rusdie isn’t completely biased in his argument. He also lists some of the cons of migrating. He says “But migrants often pack up their visions and values with the rest of their baggage and carry them along.” When he says “baggage”, he doesn’t mean it in a literal way. By baggage, he means religion, economics, politics, slavery, diseases, foreign animals, etc. He makes migrating look glamorously horrifying in the same paragraph. In his eyes, migrating can be the best or the worst thing; or both. Rusdie doesn’t really make it clear what side he’s on, or which side he thinks is better. He leaves that up to the reader to