Loss of Respect for Nature
Kevin Felts 02.10.17
There was once a time when families had respect for nature and what it had to teach. Our ancestors worked the soil, planted the seeds, tended the crops, and then reaped the bounty. They understood that life came from the soil.
That way of life is mostly gone.
There are people who have love and respect for nature. For the most part however, people have lost their love for the land.
Disconnection from Our Food
During the early 20th century, we saw the majority of people leave rural America and move to urban areas.
As a nation, we shifted from small family farms to large commercialized farms that grow most of the nation’s food. With the disconnection from our food came a loss of love for the soil.
We no longer work the soil to plant food, we let someone else do that for us. Rather than planting a seed and understanding it will take months for the plant to grow, we became a society of instant gratification. If you want a can of peas, go to the store and buy it.
The vast number of people in our society will never work the soil or plant a seed. They will never run soil through their fingers and understand how our society is wedded to it. They may never understand that the foundation of human society is dependent upon the soil.
Industrial Population
The development of urban areas came with a high price, and that price was love and respect for nature. Rather than planting gardens and being in tune with nature, we cover the ground with cement to build homes and asphalt to pave roads.
Awhile back I was browsing through the sideshows at Time.com when I came across an article – War on Poverty: Portraits From an Appalachian Battleground, 1964
The caption on one of the pictures caught my attention. It read, “The people are not country folk but an industrial population who happen to live in the country and have little feeling for the soil. “
The majority of people who live in rural areas are an industrialized population, just as the author in the article at Time stated, we just happen to live in a rural area. Most of us go to the store to buy our food, milk, cheese, and butter.
We rarely take time to work the soil and get our hands dirty. We go to work, go home and go to the grocery store to buy our food. There is no desire to work the soil and reap its rewards.
Trash in Rural Areas
Spread out all over the United States are small rural back roads where everyday trash is dumped.
Maybe you expect people who live in rural areas to care about nature? That somehow people who live in rural areas want to keep the land, streams, creeks, and lakes clean. For the most part there is little love for the soil or the land.
Respect for Nature
I have no explanation for the dumping.
Is it laziness? Maybe the people who throw the trash out did not want to spend the time to take it to a landfill?
Is proper disposal too expensive? Rather than paying to bring the trash to a landfill or recycler, just dump it on a back road?
Regardless of the reason, there seems to be little thought of what they are leaving to future generations.
One thing is for sure, there has been a loss of respect for nature.
