Unfortunately, we as humanity have lacked the good sense to see ahead, or are forced by hard times to liquidate Earth’s “resources” for the gratification of the moment. Humans fixated on their own welfare cannot help but be injurious to the rest of Creation. History shows that, rather than gratefully accepting the golden eggs, people have again and again killed the fabled goose for the best of all reasons: to make busy-work jobs, to make a minority rich, to satisfy frivolous wants far beyond the provision of necessities. The message is clear in the current economic system that discounts the future and encourages grabbing what you can, because "For me the world was made" and I want my slice of it right now.
Most of humanity falls into the trap of thinking that our relationship to the land must be one of either two choices: either we ruthlessly exploit it, with no regard for any but short term use, or we refuse to "meddle" in it at all, letting nature do what it will. I believe that Pollan explores the third alternative, that of working with nature respectfully to produce something that we intend.
Believing that our relationship with nature can not be broken down into simple nature versus culture arguments, Pollan explores the overlapping of nature and culture. We live in an extraordinary time when all of the world’s cultures, past and present, are to some degree available to us, either in historical records or as living entities. Pollen was able to use that to his advantage and discuss Americans' historical and contemporary ideas of what makes a garden a garden and attitudes toward gardening and wilderness and how that affects our humanity.
I believe that Pollan is trying to get us to see that nature and humanity must live hand-in-hand with each other in order for both to survive. He states, “This old idea may have taught us how to worship nature, but it didn’t tell us how to live with her.” (Pollan, pp. 25)
Culture might be seen as the effort to establish the basis of what it means to be human. Cultural institutions are expressions of our understanding of what we are and consists of all those things, including actions and beliefs which we learn. Our culture has been formed by our relationship with nature over the years and unfortunately we have developed, as Pollen states, a “laisez-faire” attitude toward nature and what we are doing to our world because of it.
William Cronan states, “To protect the nature that is all around us, we must think long and hard about the nature we carry inside our heads.” (Cronan, Foreward) With luck, we will do so sooner rather than later and come to our senses and preserve some small fraction of Earth and realize that humanity has no control over nature. With that realization comes the hope that we will also preserve and strengthen our humanity and culture.
Works Cited
Pollan, Michael (1991). Second Nature New York: Delta Gardening
Cronon, William (1996). Uncommon Ground New York: W.W. Norton
