Ignorance is Bliss
"The oldest, easiest to swallow idea was that the earth was man's personal property, a combination of garden, zoo, bank vault and energy source, placed at our disposal to be consumed, ornamented or pulled apart as we wished" (Thomas 915).
In modern society, we take our environment and our surroundings for granted. As Lewis Thomas discusses in his essay, "Natural Man" he exemplifies the idea that humans don't understand their position and duty that they play in nature. He states that the easiest role that we take on as humans is dissecting nature in every which way we please. I believe that 40 years later, we are still following the same concept and it has deeply shown in our environment. We utilize nature for our pleasure and consume it, thinking that there is an endless supply. We need to start understanding, that this is not true.
Our world is deteriorating piece by piece and this problem is not getting enough acknowledgment. The problem is getting bigger and it continues to spread like wildfire across our country. We are dealing with constant issues of pollution, climate change, global warming, deforestation, and countless more. We turn our shoulders to these issues and think that it will get fixed by itself and this is where we begin setting ourselves up for failure in the future. By simply ignoring the issues that we are presented with and walking away from them, we will give the next generations to come no hope of our planet surviving. According to Lewis Thomas, we are following the path that is the easiest because as they say, ignorance is bliss.
This was very good! I really like the rhetorical devices that you used to strenthen your argument such as using the word "we" in order to create a connection with your audience. I also liked the link that you embedded which served as an allusion to a prominent figure who many people would listen to and agree with. I also think that as a society, we know that we are ruining the environment, but we choose to ignore it, hoping it will go away. Why do you think that most humans ignore problems instead of trying to solve them? How do you think we can get people to address the problems with the environment?
ReplyDeleteOur environment is such an important factor, but I agree that it is taken for granted. The appeal to emotion can clearly be seen in this blog post, because it is emotional to see how we mistreat our earth. I liked that there was a call to action at the end, and by stating that "the problem is not getting enough acknowledgment" is calling the problem out. Overall I really like this blog post, and I was wondering how we could enforce change in order to better our environment, what are your thoughts.
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