Good Ancestors Like Dandelions
Urban sprawl is not a new phenomenon, and the battle between environmentalists anddevelopers is well-known. But perhaps the issue is not that the land is being utterlystripped of life and replaced by cookie cutter houses or factories, which has been acontroversy for decades. Perhaps the fighting has exposed a deeper problem: theAmerican acceptance of a false outside, seen through lawns that mimic interiors. People often perceive that any green space is nature. As Michael Ventura says,"America is form opposed to content" (216). Contractors leave some existing trees onlots not because it may be costly to remove them but because those trees also serve asa selling feature for the houses built between. Most people would rather spend theirweekends at an official, regulated and landscaped park rather than hiking through someun-named forest track. While there is the standard human desire for new experiences,people often are only willing to try pre-tested experiences. Even when one realizes thesocietal manipulation, it still seems difficult to jump over the railings and really cut a new So if people are aware that they're being led by the nose through a sterile,pre-chewed and mocked-up environment, why
However, Ventura also says that "we have stripped the very face of America ofany content, and reality, concentrating only as its power as image" (216). Bibliography "Message Posting. Artificial images do not portray reality accurately, as "they aspire to be the imageand not the object" (Viola 226). Just as lawns speak for American views, bonzai can easily represent theopposite. Lawns are worse than simply aphotograph--which, if manipulated, is still an image. "The Visionary Landscape of Perception. Even the National Park Service doesn't seem to seem to be championing theplanet to simply safeguard natural ecospheres ("Mission Statement"). I'm so grateful to have never have livedin a sub-division of any kind--though I can see what the housing developers had in mindwhen they implanted this brain-washing into their customers. Instead of bringing the entiresurrounding environment "down to our level," bonzai helps the viewer realize theenormity of real nature. Since these variablesare highly subjective, land use law, which coversenvironmental takings and zoning issues, are among themost contentious issues facing local, state, and federalofficials.
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Acceptance Essays
