The American character since early in its history has been pulled in two directions and has been unable to commit itself to either. The first direction is toward the dream of the American sublime, to a virgin land and a life of peace, serenity and community. The second direction is the Faustian and rapacious, the desire for power, wealth, productivity and universal knowledge, the urge to dominate nature and remake the world. In many ways the American tragedy is that we want both these things and never seem to respect the contradiction between them.
Heavy stuff there. Very prescient though given the current state of society and that this was written about 40 years ago, before something was labeled as "green" even if it did not have a similar hue to a frog. Also interesting considering how the "duality" pops up even in my own interests, what with me wanting to enter a well-paying industry that pops out more pollution in a year than you could with your car in your lifetime, but at the same time not so much as taking a shit in a secluded forest without being concerned with where I'm going to put the TP.
It's a mad mad mad mad world we live in folks....
3 comments:
from where and who???
James Carey....actually a comm/journalism guy. We talked about it in engineering ethics. I think it's a pretty accurate description
Coincidentally, Americans historically have chosen the power, wealth, productivity, route for better and for worse
Yeah...I was going to throw up the "Citation Needed" sign as well...
http://xkcd.com/285/
Maybe in your career you could design the kind of TP that degrades without consequence...or bioengineer some kind of plastic consuming microbe that won't go all "I Am Legend" on our asses....
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