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B. In "Nature at the Mall" Jennifer Price asks: "Is it possible that people in our culture have become so estranged from nature that their only avenue to it is consumerism?" (195). This is a pretty dire statement--do you agree? Are we too estranged or segregated from nature? How can we overcome that division?
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Shopping is the 2nd most popular leisure time activity for American's with the 1st being watching TV, and why wouldn't it be? Shopping as a teenager is a right of passage of being allowed to go to the mall and hang out with your friends as you buy things with money you made. Shopping is the reason why we save money and work hard for our money. Shopping is also an act of giving, especially look at Christmas time and the holiday season, everyone is shopping for their friends and loved ones. I am not defending shopping but we must understand the consumer system we live in, "he who dies with the most toys wins!" Which isn't far off from the truth. Shopping is not something new to this country, going back to the westward expansion in the 1800's, mail order catalogs were in every home across the country. The need for goods was astounding and then came luxury items which could be delivered to your door. The blame is not on the "mall" building but it doesn't help when malls dominate our life. The only way this rampant consumerism can be slowed down or even possibly stopped is to connect more to consumers. People don't know where their products come from, if the connection was made from the product to the source and the consumer, people might be more wary of buying many items. In the text, "they have actively set out to erase connections-to encourage us to focus on the meanings we make, but not on our complicity in the economic networks through which people convert nature and human labor into the stuff and sustenance of everyday lives" (200). If the population knew where just a fraction of their goods came from in the world and what was needed to make them in the form of virgin materials and human labor, consumerism would probably go down rapidly.
Everyone has to go shopping for one thing or another to live. In the book, Looking for Nature at the Mall, by Jennifer Price, she states, "Even those of us who aren't thrilled about shopping still make frequent shopping trips and have filled our homes, offices and cars with necessities, luxuries, gadgets, equipment, art, decor, and knickknacks"(Price 195). I think that some people buy products from a nature store to make it easier to go out into nature and enjoy it. People who want to spend multiple days out in nature have to buy a tent and camping gear to be able to survive. You don't have to go buy equipment, but it makes the experience more enjoyable and as natural you can get without just going out there with nothing. It's different if you just want to go for a hike or spend the day out in the wild, then you can go out there with nothing and experience nature however you like.I think that stores that sell nature products such as posters, stuffed animals, and teloscopes can get people excited about nature and maybe inspire them to want to go out into it and learn more about nature. For people to get over the nature related material items, its takes the individual wanting to experience something more than just looking afar. I love The Planet Earth videos because they inform you about different species around the world and you get to see the different types of environments that exist. Even though I had to buy those videos, it has made me more interested and want to experience nature. People are going to continue to buy nature related products and either go out into nature or not. All we can do is to continue to encourage others to want the intimate experience they could have with the wild and show them how wonderful nature can be.
I cannot disagree considering I have an addiction to shopping. But I have never thought that consumerism has brought me closer to nature. Billy said that shopping is the second most popular leisure time activity for American's with the 1st being watching TV. I would think that television is the main avenue to nature. There are full television shows dedicated to nature, and whole networks. Look at the discovery channel or animal planet. Why do I need to explore the wilderness can I watch someone do it? Why research nature when Planet Earth will tell me all that I need to know? We live in such a developed society that if someone doesn’t want to experience nature they aren’t forced to do so. People can live in a city and never think about wildlife. Or they can choose to consume at stores like The Nature Company. Another choice is watching nature on your television. There are an abundance of shows, take your pick. Then of course there are the people who actually experience nature. But in the business world how much time do you have to enjoy the world around you? Therefore people choose other forms of enjoying nature.
I believe that our culture’s consumerism is not the only way to come in tact with nature; however, consumerism does make connecting with nature convenient and safe. Everything from shopping malls to grocery stores to out-door adventure companies enables our culture to connect with nature. Take hiking for example; being in the wilderness, high on a mountain, breathing in the fresh mountain air requires consumerism. In order to make this possible you’d need the proper equipment, clothing, food, hiking boots and more. And where does one go to get the proper hiking equipment? Shopping malls, grocery stores and out-door adventure stores. Sure there are some exceptions to experts in the field of survival, however, if the average civilian was thrown on the top of Mount. Everest he would not last a second without going to stock up on food or buying the proper clothing. I think that this is an extremely said site, it makes it very difficult for people to experience nature first hand, so they turn to planet earth, man vs. wild, animal planet, and other environmental t.v shows. But are acts such as these creating a better understanding of nature? Sure, these shows can give you a better understanding of how our environment works but does it portray the beauty of nature? Is standing on Everest the same as watching a special of Everest? You see this question can be answered with a variety of responses depending on how to interpret nature. To me nature is not sitting in my dorm room watching a television for hours on end. Nature is something that everyone must go out experience nature first hand, for yourself.
I disagree with Price's wondering statement about whether "Is it possible that people in our culture have become so estranged from nature that their only avenue to it is consumerism?" (195). It generalizes not only about people relation to nature, about consumerism but also about the perspective and choices people have regarding both.
On first grounds, the assumption that “people in our culture have become so estranged...” assumes that all people live in a bubble-like environment where they are away from contact with nature in any way or form. I don't think people have become too estranged from nature, mainly because we still are in contact with elements of nature, however small they are: We still walk on grass that grows from soiled, earthy ground. We still occasionally see birds flying above us or scurrying away before our eyes in areas like parks. Also consumerism is not all about man-made items or man-replicating-nature items. Consumerism is present to a small degree on the wild-natural world too: animals eat seeds or fruits, weeds or nuts from trees. That is a form or consumerism that is not commercial. In other instances consumerism help us remain close to nature. We buy seed from a store to plant in our gardens or parks and those seeds grow into trees or plants, something that does happen in nature. Also consumerism sometimes has helped us reconnect with nature when consumerism itself has pulled us away: this is cases like the when people realizes that using commercial chemically produced fertilizers are bad both for the plant and for the soil and they change to compost fertilizers- which are made from decomposed fruit or vegetables that came from the land but where produced and harvested by people. Overall, our relationship with nature is not set on a negative stone, and consumerism is not the all time negative factor against nature. We have to keep in mind that there is a grey area between the two, and being able to find is what will ensure our stable, healthy relationship with nature.
We are completely estranged from nature. Sure, there are exceptions to every rule, but most people couldn't care less about it. Nature is nothing more than aesthetically pleasing once in a while or a pain in the ass when you get stuck driving home in a rainstorm. Most people don't think about it any more deeply than that.
I don't know that we can solve this problem. The first thought that springs to my mind is education. However, I don't think we can change that feeling in everyone. How can we motivate an urban-dwelling single mother to think of nature as anything more but a means to an end (her commodities, of course)? It's a depressing mindset to possess as an environmentalist, but I really don't believe we can change this dysfunctional relationship people have with nature. A small minority will prioritize it, and that's it.
I think it is too generalized to say that people in our culture have become so estranged from nature that their only avenue to it is consumerism. I really agree with that statement because it’s true but I do not want to be included in it, which is why I think it should not be so generalized. There is a very large majority of people who, as Price says on page 170, “have marveled at the wondrous array of bird feeders, kites, telescopes, fossils and jewelry, and at the trademark bins of wind-up dinosaurs, rubber animal hoses and cow-moo noise boxes,” but there are also a great number of people who do go out into nature and would rather intricately learn about the stars rather than just look at them through a telescope without any knowledge about them. I do believe that as a society we are too estranged from nature and that can be ‘blamed’ on our lack of knowledge because of how much time our materialistic belongings take up. We can simply overcome this division between nature and us by reading about nature, learning about the world around us, and stepping foot out there instead of sitting around our rooms watching about it on the Discovery Channel. Although a great form of education, we cannot rely on these media-based nature shows to give us a real feeling/connection of/to nature.
For the majority of our population, I would have to agree with Jennifer Price when she talks about the only avenue to nature is consumerism. I look around and think that most of the time there is some sort of price to pay in order to enjoy nature. We have come to a point in which we have tamed and domesticated nature. We have taken it to fit our needs. Nature is here for our pleasure, and yes in a way nature has become another "thing" for consumerism. I don't think it is the only avenue to nature, but it sure is a popular one. We buy flowers for our gardens to make our house look more appealing, we hire home decorators to make our homes look "natural", we pay money to travel to destinations where we can escape to nature, we even buy clothes that support nature. The "being green" theme has become very trendy lately. All major clothes shops have jumped on the nature train, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I mean it has been raising more awareness about the problems and effects we as humans are putting on nature. But this is all marketing, I am curious as to know how many of these companies who support the whole "green" thing really are truly "green". I mean do these compnaies support the ideas behhind green or are they just using it for marketing. We talked about this in my environmental class today. A lot of companies who claim to support "going green" don't actually follow ideas associated with it such as recycling, emissions cut downs, and all that. Especially here in America where hypocrisy dominates our country, these ideas are just used to make us, the consumers, buy their products. I think at this point,we almost are forced to enjoy nature through consumerism because our country is so capitalistic. Even a simple action as going to the beach, one must pay for parking. I mean you could walk, but that is a long drive and indirectly we still monetarily pay for nature.
I think as I write this that my view may differ greatly from anyone else, however I believe nature calls for not only evolution but for dominants in evolution. We all have to remember that at one point in time that we weren’t the dominant species on this planet. During the time of Pangaea nature revolved around instincts and hunger therefore the environment also reflected that need by producing creatures that breed fast and numerously. And while a large catastrophe wipe most of creatures out the pinnacle of that nature era was written in the genes of the survivors. It is my belief that after that point in time that human’s became the new dominant, not because of previous reasons, but for the extreme ability to intelligence and tool use. Herein lies the problem instead of looking to further our other abilities through the mind and tools, we just use mind for tool and tools for mind. I see no possible way out of our consumer lives without first breaking the limits we have put on nature.
In "Nature at the Mall" Price comments on the more modern development of marketable "nature products". The most interesting part of the article is how she discussed shopping at these nature stores makes us feel so uneasy yet we all still do it. The fact of the matter is that most people will never see a Great Whale or are too lazy. We are all somehow aware of this fact, and we feel guilty - and rightly so. The Nature store somehow gives us a partial out of some of this guilt. We can find something that attracts us in these stores, invest in it mentally and monetarily and feel a little better about ourselves and our perhaps lacking relationship with nature.
As Price says "The Nature Company connects us less to nature itself than to what Nature means," (Price 188). She repeats this idea throughout the article. Price believes that what we see in the mall is not really nature at all, but what we have made nature into - our ideas on nature. Obviously, many of the things we find in nature stores are not natural at all, but human interpretations of Nature - something easy to buy and relate to on some level.
Something should be said about shopping in general and why people shop. Although at times we go shopping because we need something, how often do we come home with five things we didn't, completely forgetting that one item we went to the store for? Everyone has done it. Although much shopping is based out of needs, even if it's on some subconscious level in some people a lot of shopping has stress-relieving qualities. Nature stores market on just that. You'll never need that little geode, but it might make a nice little knick-knack for your desk.
Billy talks about how the blame is not on the mall. He’s right – in a sense, but no doubt the mall has made the process so much easier for it is a world of things we don’t need but buy anyway. And in all honestly, there’s nothing really wrong with this. If people weren’t spending money on some of these things found in the nature store, it’d be on something else we don’t really need. Even if we do build our relationship with nature on the somewhat superficial nature store idea, at least we have some sort of relationship with nature. I really feel that if we didn’t have this marketable nature found in our malls, although it’s not the happiest thing to say – many people wouldn’t have much of a relationship with nature at all.
As I sit hear contemplating which position I should take on this blog assignment my attention is diverted to the loud laughter overpowering the soft rumble of the passing thunderstorm. I peer outside my window overlooking Kappa field and find 15 plus people running like wild in the rain. This was a perfect example of how society does not need material objects to enjoy all that nature has to offer.
In the book titled, “Looking for Nature at the Mall”, Jennifer price is right when she states, “America spends a tremendous amount of time buying things (195). However, I don’t believe that we have become so separated from nature that our only avenue to it is consumerism. This statement may only apply to those that are too lazy or uninspired to find ways of enjoying nature without being influenced through the consumer market. Any person rich or poor can simply walk outside, look up to the sky, and marvel at the splendor of nature without having to pay a cent. The consumer market wants us to think that we will be better off with their product than without it. However, we need to understand that material things don’t make us happy, but it is the intangible moments we share that put nature into a special place in our hearts.
As the article states, we are definitely a society defined by consumerism. There are many ways in which we have been sucked into consumerism; advertising is one of them.
But now to focus on the Nature Company. I think it is true that we might be searching for nature in the wrong places, namely the mall. The mall is associated with materialistic and superficial entities. However, the argument could be made that nature can be found anywhere. That we put ourselves at a mental disadvantage when we so drastically seperate the two notions. There is the belief that nature is a fluid phenomenon, ever present in all aspects of life.
The 'nature-fluidity' concept is just one possible way to view this question. Another way to think about the Nature Company is to say that the following: Yes, it is too bad and unfortunate that in order to reach the American people, nature must be shown in a mall. However, it is better than nothing. Would you rather have a society that becomes interested and aware of nature through any means possible (the mall) or say that the only 'right' way to get society connected to nature must be through a simplistic outdoor experience. I believe that the latter idea is shutting and closing the door on most Americans who might not be exposed to nature through any other way. Not everyone lives in Boulder, Colorado where nature (namely the mountains) are impossible to escape. There are people (many many people in fact) who live and maybe even grew up in large urban cities such as New York, LA and Boston. These people might NEVER have had a chance to explore nature but when they go to a mall with the Nature Company, they are that much closer to being interested and connected to nature. We must plant a seed, so to speak, in many Americans lives to get them interested and acclimated with nature. And if that means putting a nature store (with alot of tacky and cliche marketing and advertising flaws) in a mega mall, than so be it. We are better off giving people that kind of 'nature exposure' than none at all.
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