Blogs

Hedge fund managers and CEOs,
Captains of Industry, Masters of the Universe
Walk their little dogs down my street
Clutching
little bags 
of dog shit.

Does economic prosperity equal environmental destruction? Waring seems to think so. She talks about how CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) are actually counted as economic growth, not environmental degradation, and about carbon trading as an economic activity, much more like a service than an action that might impact various ecosystems. However, I think that her outlook on our relationship with nature (as humans wishing for economic prosperity) is quite dismal and I'm not so sure I completely agree with her. Granted, economic growth has taken its toll in the natural environment in the countries where it has been most apparent (Japan, USA, China, Germany, etc.), but to say that a country must be environmentally destructive in order to be economically productive is a little far-fetched. I'm thinking of Norway when I say this. Norway has fared quite well economically; while it has never been a global (or even European) economic superpower, it has certainly had one of the most stable economies, as well as highest life standards. Additionally, they have exploited very little of their natural resources when compared to other global economic powers of the same strength. Indeed, they have extracted a lot of petroleum and natural gas and have one of the largest global timber industries, but they also have vast expanses of untouched nature, a percentage of "natural purity" that countries such as the US can only dream about.

I was very interested in a particular allusion that seemed too often invoked in the conversation to be coincidental: the discussion revolving around “the void.” It is described as “not something created by patriarchy, or racism, or capitalism…. It is beyond personality; beyond who loves us or hates us” (191). The conversation creates the feeling of something not quite describable or fully explainable; something that lies just beyond and outside of words.

Today was a beautiful day to be outside, and yet, I couldn't really enjoy it. I woke up much later than usual, and I felt as if I had already lost half of my day (which, technically, I had). Everything felt rushed, cramped into a time frame that couldn't allow me to truly enjoy the benevolent weather. I felt disoriented and stressed, and then frustrated because I felt disoriented and stressed--you can see how this quickly became a vicious cycle. My spot behind Rhodes, which usually provides a much needed hiatus from my day, became another chore on a long to-do list. I was trying to force myself to immerse myself in the quiet, trying to connect with a more peaceful version of myself. 

In doing so, I realized that I couldn't make myself feel a certain way. The frustration I was feeling was a natural part of being me, and if I wanted to connect with nature, then I needed to be in tune with those feelings--even if it made me uncomfortable. Sometimes I feel like I will myself to feel certain ways, a very mechanical process; so today I let myself feel frustrated, and acknowledging that made it a lot more easier to deal with than having is fester in the corner of my mind. The experience was almost like a detox, getting all of the "bad stuff" out of my system. The trick wasn't to ignore those feelings, but to embrace them--and then I could enjoy the warmth of the sun on my back for a little while. 

Today the moon bench and Perry House collided. You all can very well see from the time stamp on this post that it is waaaay past the deadline, but tonight I shall blame the event held in the campus center this evening with "The Big Cheeses." Or otherwise known as the administrative heads of Bryn Mawr. This event was a great opportunity to get straightforward answers to questions that had been circulating among the students. One of the most prominent topics was the subject and status of Perry House. The administration was looking at it purely from the perspective of money. The future of Perry House as a residence was being called into question due to the staggering amount needed to renovate it and bring it up to code. The students had to enlighten the administration to the fact that Perry House is so much more than a building. It is a cultural and social center for Bryn Mawr's African American students, and while from a budgetary point of view the renovations may seem unnecissary Perry House's cultural significance must be taken into account when planning for its future. 

All that aside, I can't help but focus on the issue of the money needed to renovate Perry House and where it will come from. I believe wholeheartedly that it must be maintained, and I think that the solution could be found if other areas of the budget were reviewed. 

Earlier this semester, I had posted a short paragraph on "What boundaries?" in my Thoreauvian walk while comparing the implications of a wall separating the campus from "the rest of the world." Essentially, I came to the conclusion that these physical, "man-made" boundaries do little to separate "bryn mawr" from the rest of the world. Our world is not entirely physical - it is also energetic, interconnected, cyclic, and continually transforming. This idea of separation of physical, "man-made" boundaries in relation to the Earth is further expanded upon by both Waring and Laduke in their respective writings.

Waring writes in Counting for Nothing, "One of the things that nature could demonstrate was that it didn't know anything about nation-state boundaries...When the ocean was demarcated into 200-mile economic zones and fishing quotas, did cod carry passports to indicate that they belonged to North America or Scandinavia?"

Indeed man-made nation-state boundaries come in very handy during times of war, economic interaction, and for statistics of measurement (i.e. GDP, child mortality, HIV infliction rate, life expectancy - see www.gapminder.org) requiring distinct separation of pieces of land into their relative nations and governments. However, they do not come in handy during times in which a different worldview is absolutely required - such as during honest acknowledgement of the environmental circumstance at hand.   

The weather has been better these days and temperature rose somehow. The sun warms the world--the site I picked looked just the same as the first time I saw it. Grass was still green and the bench stood there, quietly, as if it had not experienced any wind, storm, or snow.

The Hurricane came and went away, leaving mess behind. It damaged trees, wires, houses, and hurt animals and people. However, it could never bring away the sunshine. When another day comes, everything natural grow back to normal, as if nothing big has ever happened.

For us, the hurricane is a disaster, but for nature, it is just a trivial event that brings nothing and takes nothing away.

Today I was thinking that Bryn Mawr is really a garden.  The nature around us is not really wild, but placed in certain ways to make it appealing to people walking on it.  It is a very natural garden, certainly.  It reminds me of the English gardens around the time Versailles was built.  Because Versailles was such a big feat all to make Louis XIV look powerful, the English responded to it by saying that their king did not need such a grand waste of money to prove himself to his people.  The English particularly seemed to despise the sculped, geometrical gardens as seen in Versailles.  So, they made their gardens extremely natural.  They were not wild, but designed to look wild.  I guess Bryn Mawr is not this designed wildness of the English, nor the unnatural sculpture of French gardens.  It is a happy medium.

In silence class this past week, my group seemed to be lured by the passage in Mazine H. Kingston's reading which read: "I remember telling the Hawaiian teacher, 'we Chinese can't sing 'land where our fathers died.' She argued with me about politics, while I meant because of curses. But how can I have that memory when I couldn't talk? My mother says that we, like ghosts, have no memories" (194). We discussed the possible meanings of ghosts and what they symbolize in terms of Kingston's personal silence as a female child of Chinese heritage. Our conversation reminded of a concept we read in Reading is my Window, that Sweeney described as silences in the home. Kingston was constantly being silenced or told to be silent by her mother. What continues to perplex me the most about the passage, however,is the disconnect and the silence that emerged thereof between the teacher and the student's understanding of Kingston's reluctance to sing "My Country, 'Tis of Thee". I think that it is in this interaction that another meaning of ghost is highlighted, for it is in the ghost like space, that is, the silent and dark space between cultures, where silence occurs. What's more, the lack of cultural understanding and the inability of Kingston to speak prevents that understanding from coming to light. How do we reconcile silence in the home and silence in the outside world?