Still i don't have an explanation on why it is 'good poetry' Jim. The
answer lies into the scientific field probably, as it is getting i believe
more and more acknowledged that the very qualities that the 'romantics'
seek and appreciate in isolation with natural wilderness, are the
qualities that are good for better physical and mental health (are they
different?),better recovery from ilnesses etc.
My question is not on subjective values (good poetry), but on the
objective scientific truth behind them (biophilia?). I take it that you do
not dispute the healing and well-being properties of nature (even
Budiansky lives in a farm), and i take it that you can tell the differnece
between Illinois corn and soya agrochemical drenched fields to the -say-
John Foster's environment. If so, and in the case you prefer John Foster's
environmnet (even without John Foster himself there, ha ha!), you have to
explain why, on scientific terms (calling it just' poetry' would be a
cowardly reactionary avoidance of the whole issue).
After all, go and tell this to the ionizers' manufacturers, (that produce
machines to emitt negative ions as the ones found in nature), and you'll
get it!
Which corporations would you then support, the ones that try to immitate
the pure natural environment (even unsuccessfully), or the ones that try
to make it disappear?
Maria-Stella
On Mon, 7 Aug 2000, Jim Tantillo wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> Maria-Stella wrote:
> >This is a reply to Chris Purley that i have just read after a long storage
> >time
> >in my mailbox:
> >
> [snip]
> >After his condemnations and
> >his very interesting scientific bits (about mathematics, direction etc), a
> >catharsis is happening at around the middle of the book, and thereafter
> >Budiansky returns and beomes a naturalist, saying about what all
> >conservationists say today, but with different rationalle and much more
> >spirituality (this category he fails to describe).
> >This shows me that 1) he is genuingly looking the scientific reality which is
> >good 2) he is a good deal misleading in the choice of his extreme examples
> >3) he
> >tries to justify certain things with the same means that he condemns to his
> >opponents 4) he tries to counter 'value judgments' and 'prejudice' by
> >resorting
> >to science, which 1) is imperfect so far to explain many things and 2) in this
> >case it can be perceived to be nothing more than subjective (because we can
> >never be sure), and conveying a different type of 'value judgment' (that
> >science
> >is the key to study everything, and the things that cannot be studied by
> >science
> >better move out of our rational and clean way).
> >I repeat that i am not persuaded about his phrase 'good poetry, bad science'.
> >He does not explain why it is so good poetry.
>
> For what it's worth, I read his chapter by that title as suggesting that
> the Romantic literary writers such as Wordsworth, Thoreau, Muir, etc.
> produced "good poetry," but that as a basis for sound ecological policies,
> Wordsworthian or Thoreauvian nature writing is "good poetry, bad science."
>
> Jim
>
>
> >
> >
> >Maria-Stella
>
>
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|