Cait, yes wow that totally made sense, and thanks for sharing because I feel the same way: the more we read, the less I feel we know about what nature actually "is." I had never really considered it until taking this class; I always just thought "nature" was that stuff that grew outside, you know, the trees and grass and anything green or flowery or any creature that made its home "outside."
Yet at the same time I knew that we, too, were a "part" of nature, although I had never taken the time to consider how we quite "fit" into our "environment," whatever that is.
I've come to realize just how ambiguous all of these terms really are, and that the definition of them seems almost completely individualized. We can look at how Thoreau defined "nature" and compare/contrast it with Leopold's definition, and compare/contrast that with Emerson's, and compare/contrast that with Abbey's, and compare/contrast that with "Wise Use", and com---- you get the idea. Its so nuanced! There are parts where they overlap and parts where they differ. So what is "nature?" And how can we be the best stewards of this nature?
I think its hard to be a steward of something you don't completely understand or know how to define. If you don't understand the goal, then you won't care about working toward it. Perhaps some of our abuse of the land has been because we don't truly understand what we are supposed to be preserving or how we are supposed to be 'working with' it.
And on a totally random side note, when reading deTocqueville yesterday, I came across the passage that we alluded to in class - the one where Tocqueville criticizes the Indians for not using the land because they were merely "hunters." Um, didn't they plant corn? I mean, what about that Traditional Thanksgiving story we all heard again and again as children... where the Indians brought us corn to eat since we were so very starving ... the corn and crops that the Indians taught us how to plant?
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