September 2009 River Ranch Diary

Throughout the 19th century, a phenomenon called “progress” moved nation after nation to equate technical and mechanical invention with moral and ethical improvement. During this period most of Africa was colonized by various countries from Western Europe. The western concept of “Progress” drove the colonization of Africa, India, both the Near and Middle East. The colonization effort was spurred along by the quest for or exploitation of riches: gold, diamonds, exotic hardwoods, minerals, petroleum, and natural resources of every description, including slaves. Here, in the Western half of the United States, that unquenched thirst for gold, natural resources and land generated and fueled that exploitation referred to as the “western expansion” and assisted in creating the reservation system for Native Americans.

Once the land was “settled” and relatively early in the 20th century, the general exploitation of natural resources began in earnest. [Pause for a moment and read Carl Sandburg’s “Chicago”] Timbering, agricultural production, mining, and industry were considered and in some cases are still considered to be the will of Divine Providence until such time that the land became nearly devastated by erosion, pollution and greed. Shortly after WWII the colonized world began de-colonizing itself. The process of de-colonization has taken many forms throughout the world, and often has resulted in horrific conflict. Witness Kenya in the 50’s, Viet Nam in the 60’s and 70’s, the Russians in Afghanistan in the 80’s, not to mention the Congo, Algeria, and the Union of South Africa, and here in the U.S.A. The Western Movement of the 19th century can easily be seen as a process of conquer and colonize; but in the latter portion of the 20th century and into the dawn of the 21st, we have become amazingly cognizant of some of the follies of our history.

Thus we have begun to conserve and restore, rather than exploit, our natural resources. We have become conscious about the quality of our air and water and land (whether or not we do enough to restore and preserve them) and the quality of our food. In that regard every effort the world’s population makes toward significantly restoring and preserving the quality of the food chain and concurrently the quality of life is rightly fashionable.

I sometimes try to think in large scale terms, and I believe that ecology and demography struggle to achieve equilibrium. Ecological effort tends to hold demographic expansion in check. Predators and prey adjust. The predator never exterminates its prey species populations. When in my thinking I arrive at this point, I often become aware of a line in T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral : “Where is the peace that lies between the hammer and the anvil?” (I trust I have remembered this correctly.) And here my mind leaps to Percy B. Shelley’s “The Defense of Poetry” in which he discusses the differences between the Reason, which “respects the differences of things” and the Imagination which recognizes the similarities in dissimilitude.” (Once again I am relying on my memory here) My point being that the “decolonization of nations” is identical and tantamount to the restoration and preservation of the quality of life.

Returning buffalo to the grass of the Great Plains and into the peoples’ food chain is another very small contribution to the improvement of the quality of life–hopefully.