Friday, September 30, 2022

Questions Oct 4

 PH -115 Land; Presentations continue: Tom, Gary... OCT 6 EXAM, drawn from texts referenced by the EVEN-numbered Questions.

  1. "Land is resilient, like people." 95 Are we as resilient as land? Would we be moreso, if we lived closer to it?
  2. Should industrial agriculture be allowed to get away with calling itself "regenerative"? 97
  3. COMMENT?: "Foods are enriched because they are impoverished." 99
  4. What do you think of Polyface Farm? 10
  5. COMMENT?: "It is not the land that is broken, but our relationship to it." 103
  6. Do you compost? What's been your experience with that? 104-5
  7. Do you feel like a supra-organism? 105
  8. What does it say about our bio-illiteracy that we have a stock expression denigrating "lowly worms"?
  9. How does shifting from seeing scarcity to seeing abundance depend on imagination? 109
  10. A Berry not Wendell says we've become an extractive species because we see ourselves as "transcendent"... 114 Do you see yourself that way? How do we get our feet back on the ground?
 

 

“The destiny of humans cannot be separated from the destiny of earth.”

“We see quite clearly that what happens
to the nonhuman happens to the human.
What happens to the outer world
happens to the inner world.
If the outer world is diminished in its grandeur
then the emotional, imaginative,
intellectual, and spiritual life of the human
is diminished or extinguished.
Without the soaring birds, the great forests,
the sounds and coloration of the insects,
the free-flowing streams, the flowering fields,
the sight of the clouds by day
and the stars at night, we become impoverished
in all that makes us human.”

From here on, the primary judgment of all human institutions, professions, programs and activities will be determined by the extent to which they inhibit, ignore, or foster a mutually-enhancing human/Earth relationship.”
― Thomas Berry

3 comments:

  1. "Land is resilient, like people." 95 Are we as resilient as land? Would we be moreso, if we lived closer to it?

    People, like land, are resilient to an extent. The more damage/traumatic events endured, the less resilient. Currently, I don't think either are very resilient. Our land is so damaged that, while it will eventually fix itself, humans may be around to see it fully restored to a healthy and nutrient rich system. As new generations of humans grow up into adulthood, like our land, they are left with exponentially less resources and the generations before. The same way commercialized farmers attempt to get the highest yield for the cheapest amount, our governments and corporations are trying to exploit the young workforce as much as possible. In fact, humans and land are actively in a parasitic relationship; humans leach everything possible from the land and subsequently, the land provides malnourished life in comparison to what it used to. It's my opinion that if we did get closer to land, put our hands in the soil, if you will, we would effectively be mending our relationship. So many individuals have no relation to the land or valuable interactions with the environment they forget that it needs to be looked after and cared for in order to best provide for us. It's supposed to be a mutualistic symbiotic relationship.

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  2. "Land is resilient, like people." 95 Are we as resilient as land? Would we be more so, if we lived closer to it?

    I think that we are similar to land in our resilience, but to say we are equally resilient is a bit of a stretch in my opinion. Our Earth is over 4 billion years old, and the land of this Earth has evolved, developed, nd maintained in different ways for a couple billion years so far. I think that humans have shown a similar resilience due to the longevity of us being the 'alpha' predator in the world, but we will always be the beta predator to the world itself.

    I do believe that if humans became closer to the land, the resilience of both would grow. While yes, land is resilient, humans have proved to be quite a thorn in the side of this resilience, and the same can be said about land to humans. However, I think if humans became closer with the land, and cared more for it, then a more resilient and powerful Earth would spring from it.

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  3. Should industrial agriculture be allowed to get away with calling itself "regenerative"? 97

    No it should not! Industrial agriculture has tarnished and ruined much of the land and environment in this world. The motto of these businesses is to gain profit and profit alone. They do not care about the land, crops, animals, water usage, carbon damage, etc. etc. etc. All these companies and corporations care about is how much money is coming in on the next paycheck. It is entirely disheartening and abhorrent to me that any person or corporation would claim the agro industries are regenerative.

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