In The Presence of Fear it talks about how all these things have happened in our life, but how little we have learned from these conflicts. Something in the book that I agree with is
"XXVII. The first thing we must begin to teach our children (and learn ourselves) is that we cannot spend and consume endlessly. We have got to learn to save and conserve. We do need a “new economy”, but one that is founded on thrift and care, on saving and conserving, not on excess and waste. An economy based on waste is inherently and hopelessly violent, and war is its inevitable by-product. We need a peaceable economy."
I feel that this was one of the best quotes from the book. If you wanna see change within our world you have to start with yourself and the people that surround you. Trying to change isn't any good if you don't practice what you preach; yes telling a child to do A is wrong but you can't go a long living and still doing A. Another thing I agreed with is
"We have an 'environmental crisis' because we have consented to an economy in which by eating, drinking, working, resting, traveling, and enjoying ourselves we are destroying the natural, the God-given world."
This stood out to me because Berry is right we only have one world and we should do what is best in our power to make sure is last as long as possible. We always try to blame something else for our wrong in our environment for example global warming. We like to blame our world for warming up own it own, but it really us an our everyday activities.
Something I look at that is seriously 'true' is the statement
"XXIII. We must not again allow public emotion or the public media to caricature our enemies. If our enemies are now to be some nations of Islam, then we should undertake to know those enemies. Our schools should begin to teach the histories, cultures, arts, and language of the Islamic nations. And our leaders should have the humility and the wisdom to ask the reasons some of those people have for hating us."
I believe this to be true, because sometimes we let the media take over our thought and how we perceive things to be. If we really took the time to learn about the different culture of other maybe people would stop hating the US people. Keeping a open mind is the best way to learn in today's age.
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I agree the first quote is very moving. Our normalized view of endless consuming that perpetuates the cycle of production furthering the destruction of our environment.We must also realize the fragileness of our ecosystems and the consequences of production in their livelihood. That the individual must make the first few steps to make a small difference in their community.
ReplyDeleteI do completely agree that the quote you shared is a very moving quote. I don’t think we will ever get to a point where we will ever have an economy like he talks about in the book but he makes a good point. The second quote to me is the most loving because it’s very true. The world we live in is if you have money to do it then do it and it’s not always the best for the world even though you are happy you can do it.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the first quote is one of the best in this book. I think it is time that we as a society need to start thinking of more drastic changes in preserving our environment.
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