Journal 9

Reflection upon Aldo Leopold’s “The Land Ethic”

After reading “The Land Ethic” I think that Leopold makes many valid points. I am not saying that he turned me into someone who is going to drop everything and change the way I live my life; I do think that his article made me think a lot about certain things.
The first thing that Aldo delves into is ‘The Community Concept’. He says that every individual is a member of a community and that his instincts prompt him to compete for his place in the community, but his ethic prompt him to also co-operate. Which is soooo true if you think about it! It’s almost when you ask someone their opinion on something that you already know you like. You’re not really looking to know if they really like it but you’re looking for their reassurance and for them to like and do what you want them to do.
      Leopold then points out a good contradiction that we have in our own Star Spangled Banner, when we say for the land of the free and the home of the brave, but we don’t love or appreciate our lands, waters, or our other resources. I had never ever even noticed that we sang that and that we pretty much did the exact opposite! Kind of comical, not in a mean way but really it is!
        Next Leopold talks about our ‘Ecological Consciences’, and says that “No important change in ethics was ever accomplished without an internal change in our intellectual emphasis, loyalties, affections, and convictions. The proof that conservation had not yet touched these foundations of conduct lies in the fact that philosophy and religion have not yet heard of it. In our attempt to make conservation easy, we have made it trivial.” Now when I originally read this there were a couple of important things that I took away. For one I completely and one hundred percent agree with what he said about how changes in ethics take internal change. When you want to change something that has been so ingrained, it truly does take and internal change. You, cannot just all of a sudden one day just wake up and say ‘Oh, yep, I think today I’ll change my political stance. Or the stance that I take on abortion, poverty, war, etc.’ Those are really big choices and decisions that we make through our life experiences. Those are choices that take thought and consideration if you want to change them.
       Next, he says that since philosophy and religion have yet to ‘hear’ of conservation then it is something that people are not going to want to change for the better. To me this means that since people put such an emphasis on their belief systems and personal outlooks, that until those areas of their lives are involved we conservation, then people won’t really take it seriously or put an emphasis on it. Which to me makes perfect sense; growing up I went to church a lot and what I learned there helped make up the things that I think are ‘important’. Since not once going to church did I hear that we are destroying our plant I never put it at the top of my ‘Important Things’ lists.