the quiet crisis
"Henry David Thoreau would scoff at the notion that the Gross National Product should be the chief index to the state of the nation, or that automobile sales or figures on consumer consumption reveal anything significant about the authentic art of living. He would surely assert that a clean landscape is as important as a freeway, he would deplore every planless conquest of the countryside, and he would remind his countrymen that a glimpse of grouse can be more inspiring than a Hollywood spectacular or color television. To those who complain of the complexity of modern life, he might reply, 'If you want inner peace find it in solitude, not speed, and if you would find yourself, look to the land from which you came and to which you go.'"
--Stewart L. Udall, The Quiet Crisis (NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963), 190.
I have been reading through some 1960s and 1970s-era volumes on environmental issues as part of my historical work, and I was struck by this paragraph from the conclusion of Kennedy-era Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall's 1963 book. Elsewhere Udall reflects his era's deep and abiding faith in science and technology in the midst of his clarion call to conservation, citing atomic energy, for example, as "the supreme conservation achievement of this century" (174). Here, though, Udall--and Thoreau--seem prescient. I'm a little skeptical about Thoreau's privileged placement of solitude; I would argue that both solitude and community are necessary for the "authentic art of living," as Udall puts it. Udall, however, prefigures a narrative that occupies increasingly important contemporary social (and perhaps economic and/or political?) space.
Our debates about quality of life and authentic existence are not new, and goodness knows they long predate the administrations of Kennedy, Teddy Roosevelt or even George Washington, although they change and develop over time. The Psalms talk a lot about people who enjoy riches and power at the expense of others... and what happens to them in the end is not generally very appealing. Jesus talked a lot about the things that really matter in life, and they tended to involve fewer storehouses and more episodes of caring for others. Earth and heaven; land and those who walk (and fly, and slither, and swim) upon it. The healthiest conditions of the soul. All of these things are part of a larger expression.
--Stewart L. Udall, The Quiet Crisis (NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963), 190.
I have been reading through some 1960s and 1970s-era volumes on environmental issues as part of my historical work, and I was struck by this paragraph from the conclusion of Kennedy-era Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall's 1963 book. Elsewhere Udall reflects his era's deep and abiding faith in science and technology in the midst of his clarion call to conservation, citing atomic energy, for example, as "the supreme conservation achievement of this century" (174). Here, though, Udall--and Thoreau--seem prescient. I'm a little skeptical about Thoreau's privileged placement of solitude; I would argue that both solitude and community are necessary for the "authentic art of living," as Udall puts it. Udall, however, prefigures a narrative that occupies increasingly important contemporary social (and perhaps economic and/or political?) space.
Our debates about quality of life and authentic existence are not new, and goodness knows they long predate the administrations of Kennedy, Teddy Roosevelt or even George Washington, although they change and develop over time. The Psalms talk a lot about people who enjoy riches and power at the expense of others... and what happens to them in the end is not generally very appealing. Jesus talked a lot about the things that really matter in life, and they tended to involve fewer storehouses and more episodes of caring for others. Earth and heaven; land and those who walk (and fly, and slither, and swim) upon it. The healthiest conditions of the soul. All of these things are part of a larger expression.
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