Response #3

I do think that Leopold’s statement is still somewhat relevant today because the majority of people still assume that food comes from the grocery and do not consider where and how those foods were prepared. In the article of “The Steer’s Life,” Pollan went in depth of how cows were prepared and the steps in which they went through to end up in a neatly packaged container in the grocery shop. I do not think that he is literally talking about owning a farm and leading an agricultural life. Instead, I think that he is stressing the importance of conserving nature and to truly respect and love it for the many resources that the land has given us, according to his concept that “when we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect. There is not other way for land to survive the impact of mechanized man” (Leopold, viii). Also, I think Leopold was thinking about the relationship to ones self and to the “Global Systems,” in which if there were more people living an agricultural lifestyle, more people would know where and how their food is produced as well as where their heat will come from. There are ways of interpreting Leopold’s assertion that two spiritual dangers are that breakfast comes from the grocery, and heat comes from the furnace for the 21st century. For instance, Professor Trumpey talked about the artificial insemination of chickens by the demand of people to having bigger breasted chickens is one of the spiritual dangers that breakfast comes from the grocery. People have no idea how these chickens are raised or what kinds of antibiotics, and etc. were pumped into them; what we are actually consuming when eating these big breasted chickens. I think what he means by “spiritual danger” is being vaguely aware of the dangers that we assume are not there. I do relate to this statement because before this class and the main goals that Professor Trumpey mentioned in lectures, I was not really aware how my actions, whether buying meat, or eating fish, really fit into the relationship between me and the “Global System.” Before this class, I was not fully aware how fish farming, meat production, or etc. affected the environment as well.