Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2011 3:18 pm Post subject: living dry holy water
I liked both the readungs, finding both more 'artistic' than others we have read. Especially Holy Water.
I already believed that where one lives affects his or her character and life, but Stegner bases everything that shapes the place one lives is shaped from its water resources or lack of. That was a confusing sentence, sorry. What I mean is, I think he meant that the amount of fresh water a place has shapes the land and environment, therefore shaping the community that lives there, therefore shaping each of the individuals in said community.
and here is my question:
Quote:
...for better or worse, the West is in my computor, the biggest part of my software
What do you think Stegner meant by this? I read it over a lot, but I still am having trouble seeing the metaphor (?) that he is using.
So, I'm gonna start of with the Joan Didion reading which I did first and then I'm gonna try to come back later about the other reading (I'll try to answer Knaid's question!). So I thought the Didion reading was really fascinating and I kept thinking of what Rachel (Levinson) said in the forum yesterday about "romantizing" water and it's power. This is one of the first readings I think we've done that havent been stone-cold thesis driven--this was more Didion trying to make the reader understand her story from a deeply personal relationship with water. The best quote I found was on pg 220: "Water is important to people who do not have it and the same is true for control." This sums up a lot, in really nice concise way. Since I can turn on a tap and get an unlimited supply of clean, fresh water its hard for me to think of this as something "holy" but it totally is when you dont take it for granted.
I wonder if anyone would have the same intense fascination with a resource, like Didion had with water, if it wasnt a luxury/scarce?
Here are some ruminations on questions so far. Back in a sec with my own Qs.
Knaide- I took it as Stegner’s way of saying that there are parts of us that are created by our environment- and the #1 contributor to that part of him is the idea of the West.
Olivia- I think that while you can have an intense fascination with an abundant resource, it’s difficult to parse out what part of Didion’s feelings come from the desire to control something scarce and what part comes from the inherent fascinating-ness of water. I can imagine somebody from the East being equally passionate about and hungry for control over forests because they are part of a cultural identity. Part of it, as Didion says, is the power rush you get from pushing a button on a remote control and having a reservoir drain- I think that’s mostly about having the power to vacate huge spaces, or maybe that inexplicable fascination some people have with running water**. But yes, I suppose she’s most passionate about water because it’s scarce, and a luxury….
**(For example I know kids who could spend HOURS at that exhibit in the Children’s Museum where you get to float things down a flume and create currents that affect them)
More Comments:
Everything I wanted to say about Stegner can basically be boiled down to: aridity shapes culture (as well as economy, identity, use of space, history, etc). How cool.
Also, I think it’s interesting that the settlers best suited for Desert life (Mormons, according to Stegner) can have the most disruptive effect on the land.
My Question:
“Acreages of… national forests, parks, monuments, wildlife refuges, military reservations, dam sites…. Were locked up from developers who, given a free hand, would make the West rich and prosperous”. I wrote in the margin, “and what else”? It seems like everywhere the West is opened to development, somebody starts mining molybdenum and building casinos. I’m curious to hear if there are large-scale cases of land being opened up to private interest and benefiting from it? Or if there is any way to open land up to development without risking that it end up as, say, a nuclear waste dump?
I liked both readings very much because, as Knaide put it, they were artistic, almost personally meaningful yet relatable in their facts. Ill start with a quote from Stegner, "Aridity, and aridity alone, makes the various Wests one." In picked this because it it shows a great uniqueness the west has, wether for better or for worse. The east is unique in its own ways as well. This is solely because the two climates are different. Aridity seemed to play a large role in the uniqueness, and the consequences that came with it. Stegners passage mainly talked about the different uniques attributes and consequences.
To answer Knaide's question, i dont have a completely straightfoward answer because i to am completely confused by it. The only thought as to what it means is that the West, to Stegner, is considered to be the main part of his life, or "software"
And to ask a question about POOLS (weird right?)
In Holy Water, Didion briefly talks about pools and the connotations that come with them. She states that pools are often considered to be closely related to affluence but in the west, its commonly symbolic for "order" and "control of the uncontrollable" It is useful and "infinitely soothing to the western eye"
SO my question is:
What do you think of when you see a pool? Does affluence come up in you connotations of pools and do your thoughts agree with Didion's beliefs? More importantly, why do you think this?
In response to Will’s Q: I don’t really know if there are any privately owned lands where the land benefits. I highly drought it, because the prime goal of a private business is to benefit themselves. Making the world rich and prosperous is not always the best idea. Sometimes one should think of the richness of the environment, but economic business giants do not think that way.
For my Q: I was thinking I have never heard about (or thought really) how hard it would have been to irrigate in the dry lands. Yet the Americans had tried to convince the Indians that they should be planting and growing their food. How can they say “you should do this”, if they are not even about to do it themselves? This boggles me!
I am seeing a huge similarity from West dry states, to not just but including Uluru (airs rock) in Australia. They are very dry and you center your home, work, etc around the source of water. When I was there the modern town of hotels was farly far away from the rock. And I think that water was trucked in to the hotels. The environment of the hotels was lavish and had many waterfalls. I did not like this because I had come for the environment of Australia’s deserts, so I think that changing the land, to bring in water, is a bad thing. I would connect this to West American and say the same thing.
I'm choosing to address will's second question (is there any way to open land up to development without risking that it end up as, say, a nuclear waste dump?) because I'd be more interested in hearing somebody else's answer to the first.
While nuclear waste dumping is a good example of something that is harmful to both the natural environment and any human inhabitants in the near vicinity, i think its an excellent example of how state and the federal government(s) express a similar sentiment as stegner about the staggering amount of space in the west.
there's just so much..room, to put anything and everything because we don't need to/can't integrate with the land so things are PLACED. Like both didion and stegner's comments about mobility...nuclear waste dumps have a huge air of impermanence about it. YES we (government) know this is not a permanent solution to nuclear waste disposal but for now...why not? this land is here and it is vast and we can.
I think whats fascinating about reading about the west is for the first time in environmental history readings, there's no air of "poor, exploited, destroyed land" that is essentially pillaged for human use and gain. There seems to be a really strong vibe (to me) of "people have been trying to work in the west for a wild but it will always be wild..it IS unconquerable but darn it, Americans keep trying. It seems as if, under the premise its us (the human specie) vs. the land (nature), the West is the first example of nature really winning, maintaining. (or at the very least, not losing as hard core.)
A lot of this had to do with agriculture, which, as stegner points out, is really just a remnant of an Eastern mind set and an endeavor that, even for the most hardy community (i.e. Mormons,) didn't really work.
So my question is, if you can't really implement agriculture, erect a system that will enable permanent settlement, or else physically cope with the environment (dry nostrils, cracked skin, all that) what DOES/WILL it take for people to say, I CAN'T LIVE HERE, furthermore, as this is so evident, WHY AM I FORCING IT? (Unnatural, if you will.)
this question might have answers in the reading but i also meant it as a big-person, expansive-y kind of question. I dunno.
I agree, irrigating dry lands would seem to be a bit tricky. After briefly looking back over the reading, I'm a little confused about when the Americans convinced the Native Americans to farm. I think you're question about why the Americans were so hypocritical is really interesting, and I want to discuss it, but I'm not sure where you're coming from with it. So I guess I'm asking for a quote/page number please! I suppose I'll try and answer your question but in a different context, which may or may not be pointless, depending on the metaphor.
Ok, thought of one. A parent comes in and tells their kid to go wash a car. Car is already clean, but the kid HAS to go out and do it anyway, or face a punishment, because an authoritative figure told them to do so. Seems ish like the situation you were talking about. The motive behind sending the kid to do a pointless task, or asking Native Americans to farm, is to get them out of the way. Americans would/did kill whole cities (like Spaniards in Mexico, too) if they needed to, so I suppose it was nice to just push them out instead of kill. Kinda certain that made zero sense, but I hope the explanation behind it is more clear.
And for my question-
Why did the Westerners try and, "control the uncontrollable." ? (page 220/64) Why not move on to California, or even turn back? Sure it was a long way to go, but I'd think the journey would be worth it to not be stuck in the middle of nowhere. Thoughts?
To answer Zach’s question: What do you think of when you see a pool? Does affluence come up in you connotations of pools and do your thoughts agree with Didion's beliefs? More importantly, why do you think this?
Definitely when I think of pools or see one I immediately start thinking that the people who own the pool are very affluent. When I am in a plane and looking down I am always amazed by just how many pools there are in people’s backyards. In my mind it is pretty rare to have a private pool in one’s backyard but in reality having a pool is a lot more common. To be truthful after my first thought of affluence I get a little jealous of the people who own the pool because I think it would be nice to have one so convenient to swim in. In some aspects I do agree but in other aspects I disagree with Didion’s beliefs. I disagree that “a pool is misapprehended as a trapping of affluence” (220) because I am almost certain that I am not the only one who thinks of rich people when they see a pool in someone’s backyard. Also to build a pool, someone needs a substantial amount of money because first a huge hole has to be dug into the ground, then cement poured and then the water system and pipes need to be put in which is already very expensive. After all that the pool still needs to be filled with many gallons of water and a fence needs to be built around the pool. Therefore I truly believe that people are not misguided or incorrect when thinking about rich people when they see a private pool.
The point I agree with her though is a pool is symbolism for “order” and “control of the uncontrollable” and “a pool is water, made available and useful, and is, as such, infinitely soothing to the western eye.” (220) Water in many ways is hard to control but when put in a pool does not go anywhere and is beautiful to look at. For people seeking control over nature this is a nice way to show the control and many times adds something pretty to look at instead of a fountain that is less useful. Didion sums the control point up nicely by saying “it is easy to forget that the only natural force over which we have any control out here is water, and that only recently.”
My question is what did Stegner mean by “half its land is not its own. 85% of Nevada is not Nevada, but the United States…” (211)? Nevada is part of the U.S. so I really don’t understand. Does it have to do with Federal and State government? Someone please explain.
" SO my question is:
What do you think of when you see a pool? Does affluence come up in you connotations of pools and do your thoughts agree with Didion's beliefs? More importantly, why do you think this?”
Well when I see a pool, I immediately think of affluent neighborhoods and suburbs and the whole nine yards. When I was a little kid I lived in a house with a pool and several of my friends had pools as well. I do not however think a pool is a symbol of “control over the uncontrollable”. Water has never been a scarcity for me and being able to control water has no meaning to me at all. As a verbal association, when I hear the word pool, affluence is not the first thing I think of. I think of public pools in inner city areas as much as I think of backyard pools in suburban neighborhoods so it is a bit of a split.
My question was spurred on my this quote “Not many people I know carry their end of the conversation when I want to talk about water deliveries, even when I stress that those deliveries affect their lives, indirectly, every day” from the Holy Water reading.
My question is, how many people actually know where their water comes from, or have thought about where it comes from? I personally don’t really know. I have a general idea but nothing beyond that, and I didn’t even think about it until doing these readings.
The west, at least in the minds of would-be settlers, offered potential rewards that balanced out the risks. The capital potential for any land whose natural resources are nearly untapped (I doubt they considered Native American use to be very significant considering it wasn't profit based) is pretty large. The fact that the land was pretty inhospitable didn't detract from the potential for making money by raising livestock or trapping for fur or mining/panning for gold. It just added to the risk, and as Stegner put it, "Insofar as the West was a civilization at all between the time of Lewis and Clark's explorations and about 1870, it was largely a civilization in motion, driven by dreams. The people who composed and represented it were part of a true Folk-Wandering, credulous, hopeful, hardy, largely uninformed." So a lot their decision to try to stick it out was not necessarily to stick it out in one place, and also not really based on rational-fact based logic or whatever. Also I think with regard to the "I CAN'T LIVE HERE, furthermore, as this is so evident, WHY AM I FORCING IT?" part of the question, a lot (okay I don't know if it was a lot. but it seems like it probably was) of settlers realized that and returned east. I remember learning those pike's peak or bust people who wound up coming back having busted. Also I think in a very circular kind of way you can say that the permanent settlements in the dry west indicate that they were ultimately hospitable to, if not self sufficient, at least permanent, settlements. But maybe not.
My question is about Stegler's thesis. So he spends a good early portion of his writing defending the acquisition of public lands by the federal government and indicting the prevailing western pro-privatization attitude. But then later in the essay he goes off on an indictment of the emptiness that ultimately follows the rootless individualism of the western ethos. And he sees a manifestation of that rootlessness in the fact the the primary industry of many of the western states is tourism. So if he's against the privatization of public lands that would lead to settlement/development, but also against the rootlessness/emptiness that follows from an area marked by public lands and national parks
, what exactly is it that he wants? I don't know. I didn't do a very good job of articulating the opposition in those two ideas, but it confused me.
I like how all of the readings we have read lately are water related- lots of interesting content. I liked the contrast between issues revolving around water in the West, and issues revolving around water in the North East (or at least Boston).
To answer Ellie’s question: “Americans had tried to convince the Indians that they should be planting and growing their food. How can they say “you should do this”, if they are not even about to do it themselves? This boggles me.”
More injustices for the Native Americans. This relates to how when Americans were advancing on Native American lands, they forced them to relocate to the most arid, unusable, and undesirable land, and instructed them to make it work. They (Americans) were benefiting from forcing the Native Americans to relocate, so it did not really matter to them. Once Americans did start moving into bad and unusable land, their logic was foiled. It’s kind of a “do as I say, not as I do” type of reasoning, and it is unfortunate that this occurred.
Just realized that Dylan already answered this question, sorry.
My question is: What was up with the romanticization of the West? Sure it had a lot of potential, lots of land, a gold rush, new opportunities, but to me it ultimately seems like a let down. A lot of the land was terrible, most of the gold miners did not find any gold, and the journey was perilous. Why was it romanticized after all of this? Does it deserve to be?
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
