Social Responsibility – The Force of Nature
June 11, 2009
Social Responsibility – The Force of Nature
by Will Marre, author of upcoming book Save the World and Still Be Home for Dinner
Nature is good for human judgment. Nature. The green kind. The flowing river, tall trees, bright blue skies. Big nature gives us perspective that we simply lose without it. Why do I think this? I was in New York recently. I was there as an author attending the Annual Book Expo where all the publishers and hundreds of their authors show up selling their upcoming books to thousands of booksellers. But that’s another story. What really struck me was New York and its overwhelming impact.
The famed Guggenheim Museum was hosting a retrospective on Frank Lloyd Wright, the architect who designed that spiral museum and its natural light dome. Wright was one of the most revolutionary architects of the 20th century. He designed homes, office buildings and even cities (Broadarce). He was a mad genius type who insisted that form and function must always be fully integrated. He tried to make his buildings blend or even disappear into the terrain. Most of all he loved nature and disdained the dehumanizing aspects of big cities. So his design for cities of the future included residential areas of modest, eco-friendly, very cool houses each occupying an acre of land. Commercial centers were pods of elegant buildings clustered like islands of commerce floating on a sea of prairie. Inspiring, idealistic…yes. Economically attractive…not so much.
Since developers can, for the most part, ignore the social responsibility of the toxic effects of suburban sprawl and the brutality of urban density, the vast majority of our cities are congested hives of concrete and glass. And of the best of them is Manhattan, the core of New York City. This past weekend was spectacular. Warm 75 degree days, cloudless blue skies and tens of thousands of New Yorkers and tourists swarming all over the city. We walked through Rockefeller Center to Times Square. And later from the Guggenheim up on 86th Street through Central Park to Columbus Circle (where CNN has studios). We also walked down Madison Avenue from 65th to 50th. Everywhere there were people, sunbathers and Little League teams in Central Park and hoards of shoppers carrying packages baring names ranging from Polo to Diesel. My wife and I kept saying, “We see tent cities in the news but as we travel we see relatively few empty stores.” Yes we know things are tough in places like Michigan and Ohio. We know millions have lost their jobs and homes, but we still seem to be open for business. We are very resilient people.
What struck me in a sudden flash as I was walking among the noisy skyscrapers of New York was the spiritual contrast of a lonely hike my wife and I took last August in the Redwood Forests of Northern California. The redwoods are the earth’s oldest living organisms. Some have lived over 1000 years. A fallen redwood takes up to 400 years to fully decay and in the process becomes a hyper-fertile bio-farm sprawling scores of new trees, scrubs, mosses, grasses as well as serving as a luxury hotel for every forest insect and creature imaginable. Redwood forests are nature’s cathedrals. Their sacred stillness penetrates the human soul with a quiet insistence that we are in some profoundly mysterious way, one. Life has an intrinsic reverence.
The buildings of New York also shout an unspoken but clear message. At their best they are monuments of human ingenuity and magnificent engineering, but unlike redwoods, most buildings today are built to be torn down in 40 to 75 years. Disposable buildings. Many carry names of their tenants or developers that look down on us in a roar of self-promotion and chest-thumping self-importance. But most of all what I felt from my flash of insight was an alienation from nature’s reality. It struck me that if I lived in New York City it would be very difficult not to become absorbed in making and spending money as my primary activity. Even Central Park is no match for cold economy of such a huge concentration of concrete, glass, steel, ego and commerce. As I felt seduced by New York on a sunny weekend, I wondered, who would I become if I were disconnected from the grounding I feel from the natural world? No wonder the brains of Wall Street concocted a scheme of fake wealth. Wall Street, the very street, ripped their souls as well as their good judgment right out of them.
So what’s the best thing we can do? Never, ever let go of nature. Fully immerse. In it, we will find ourselves, or even more importantly…what’s important. Not long ago I asked one of my granddaughters, “What is your dream?” She replied, “Save nature.” Then with her dark brown eyes fully focused on mine she whispered, “The trees are dying.” Save nature. Not bad advice.
So what do you think? Is destroying nature an act of self-destruction? Is nature a “centering” force, or is this simply a recycled romantic notion? Is nature a resource to be responsibly developed and positively exploited? Can it be? Is my critique of Wall Street too simple to be true?