Industry Has Won. So Far.

           In Terrie’s Contested Terrain, the quote that most impacts me comes early in the book:

Developing in Europe during the last decades of the eighteenth century and responding to the wrenching cultural, social, and environmental changes effected by industrialization, romanticism found modern (especially urban) life to be inherently stressful, corrupting, debilitating, and spiritually enervating. The antidote to these widely perceived evils of modernity was a retreat to nature. Where the modern city seemed a pit of iniquity and woe, nature was a fount of divine virtue and regenerative power. (Terrie, 8)

When I read this excerpt, I was quite alarmed. Broadly speaking, the Industrial Revolution was during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Terrie mentions that the anti-industrial sentiment to which he refers in this passage was already prevalent during the “last decades of the eighteenth century.” I was shocked when I thought about the timeline associated with this statement, as it indicates that much of the Industrial Revolution occurred during a time when people viewed industrialization and modernity negatively. In fact, due to Terrie’s mention of modernity’s status as a “widely perceived evil,” it would naturally follow that modernization would not continue to occur. However, industrialization and modernization obviously did continue, and at a staggering rate no less.

            How exactly then, can people in this day and age be expected to protect the environment when previous generations elected to do just the opposite at such a crucial point in history, despite their desire to experience nature? How can our generation hope to be environmentally friendly when urban areas are often not seen as evil, but rather as birthplaces of opportunity? Before reading the aforementioned excerpt in Contested Terrain, I assumed that nature was undervalued during the time of the Industrial Revolution, and it was simply ignorance that allowed people to make decisions that degraded the planet to such a great extent. I thought that because people today understand the importance of protecting the Earth, we would have a chance at changing the course of history, and we would be able to start an environmental revolution simply because we are passionate and better informed. However, the fact that the Industrial Revolution occurred during a time when nature was valued so highly completely undermines my understanding of environmental history and the present state of environmentalism.

            I still do hope and believe that this generation can make a significant change in the way our world operates in order to protect the environment. I maintain hope that this will happen simply because it must in order to keep our planet habitable. We live in a starkly different world than the one in which the Adirondacks were discovered. Our world is degraded and on a path to becoming an inhospitable wasteland if changes are not made in the way humans live. I do believe that this generation will make significant progress in the realm of environmental protection, but after reading parts of Contested Terrain, I now feel that necessity will be the main driver of progress as opposed to good intentions. Nonetheless, progress is progress, and I hope to be a part of the environmental revolution that I am sure will soon be in full force.

Citations:

Terrie, Philip G. Contested Terrain: A New History of Nature and People in the Adirondacks. Blue Mountain Lake, NY: Adirondack Museum, 1997. Print.