Reading Response week 6

My two favorite readings this week were from an excellent writter and about how the works of a unique geographer has changed the geographic world for many. What's Your Consumptive Factor By the acclaimed Jared Diamond, and Mr. Sauer and the Writers by Parsons ( a first name for Parsons did not make it to my notes, woops).

It was, in my opinion, high time that an article like Diamond's made it into our class readings and discussion. The extreem over-consumption of our nation is a problem not only for us,
the choices that we make affect so many more than we could ever imagine when we look at the new toy we just bought our neice or nephew, daughter, son, or neighbor... A toy that was made in China or some other developing country whose children will probably never have what our children have in terms of gadgets and toys. The people who've made the toys, that will no doubt break or be forgot in a matter of months, maybe even weeks, their lives are being affected everyday in both positive and negative ways as a result of our over consumption. I want to offer the suggestion of watching the movie The Manufactured Landscape to get an inside look at what kind of effect our mindless spending patterns have on other nations.
I will move on by saying that our spending is a pattern. There is a very good metaphor for that depicts the nature of our spening in North America. It is the idea of a treadmill, we go to work to make money, then we come home and are tired and want to sit in front of our TV's to "relax" and we see ads and shows that tell and show us what we don't have and what we need to have so we are now unhappy because we don't have those things, so we go shopping and buy the things that make us temporarily happy, and then we go to work so that we can pay for those things, then we go home and are tired and watch TV... the treadmill. It is one way that we are conditioned to spend money, to want, the wanting of things that will make us happy. Bullsh*t! Material things will only make one so happy.
It is not a wholesome happiness. Does that mean that I think that the Chinese worker who is without a lot of material possesions is happy, hell no! look at their lives; they are doing what we are doing, but for survival in most cases and are exposed to high levels of toxins to make crap for us and in others they are trying to be like us and are not happy because they don't have enough.
There is a cycle here, anyone catching it?

I have lived in the desert in the middle of nowhere in Utah on a sustainable farm with my boyfriends old hippie dad and step mom who had 49 acres of land which included a fresh water spring, small river, and a swimming hole the Grant, the dad, had blasted out of the sandstone to dive in and cool off on the scorching hot days.
I was there for 4 months and never wanted. I was away from all things commercial, went days without seeing another soul and it was some of the happiest times in my life. I believe that when all your needs are met, you are able to face your inner self, and are not exposed to the propaganda brainwashing you into buying and wanted things at the turn of every corner and the blink of every eye, then one can truely be happy, without being a burden to others in our country or one across the globe by our consumption.

A side note, I don't think that this means either that we will crash as an economy, although I am actually pretty naive when it comes to how economics work, I am in my first economy class now, but there are ways of profiting from this here at home, it would mean less globalization though.
If are actions and consuming took place more locally then our problems would be considerably less.


Mr. Sauer...
I wish that I could have gone to the Black Mountain School!
I loved this peice because it was looking at geography through the eyes of an artist, Sauer made geography an art, and that is great news for me.
I loved what the people had to say in responce to his work.

Geographer- as a guiding spirit...
artistic forms of cultural landscapes
there is much more but you all read it so you know what I am talking about, otherwise I would be quoting the whole paper.
I loved the morphology of Landscapes
a good deal fo the meaning of area lies beyond scientific regimentation. The best of geography has never disregarded aesthetic qualities of landscape, to which we know no other approach than subjective. -Sauer

This man had a soul for the arts and he found expression through geography, or the other way around : )