The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
How prescient Wordsworth's words are to our economic crisis. "Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers." Does that not describe what has happened to the United States over the past couple decades, as we devolved from the great post-WWII industrial power to one whose primary worldwide role is to buy the "stuff" that every other nation manufactures?
The third and fourth lines of the poem continue:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
Wordsworth spoke collectively about his society, and ours, in saying "Little we see in Nature that is ours." In modern phraseology, we might say that as a society, we don't identify with Nature. "We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!" As a society, instead of recognizing that our own human existence depends on Nature, i.e. that it is at the heart of our existence, we instead exploit Nature carelessly and thoughtlessly, with the expansion of materialism well described as a "sordid boon." A boon" is defined as "a thing that is helpful or beneficial."
Any one who doubts that Nature makes human existence possible has failed to think about it. From the trees that convert carbon dioxide to create the oxygen we breathe, and the wood with which we build, to the fuels derived from ancient forests, from the rains and snows that create provide water, to the bacteria and worms that are constantly at work to create soil that grows our food, to the bees and insects that pollinate to grow the food we eat, everything that sustains us physically comes from Nature.
Indigenous cultures recognize their interdependence with Nature, but Western cultures, to the extent they have done so, have only recognized it in the past 200 years, beginning with the transcendental and environmental movements that create a voice for Nature. Can we attribute our Western, and now worldwide materialism to the belief expressed in Genesis Chapter 1, Verse 28 (King James version):
And God blessed them, and God said unto them Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth, upon the earth.
Or perhaps it's the Cartesian legacy, "I think, therefore I am." But without a body, do I exist? And can the body exist without the support of Nature? Many of us now have our heads in cyberspace, but not yet being angelic, our feet are still rooted in Earth.
And so now it's become a vicious circle. How many of us grow our own food? How many of us weave our own cloth and make our own clothing? How many of us create our own warmth from firewood or peat? No one I know.
But we have begun the creation of an economic system that is less destructive to the environment and evolves past gross consumption. There are now the organic and "slow food" movements, more and more useful and attractive products made from recycled and renewable materials and the development of renewable energy is now exploding. And each of us has the opportunity to be more conscious in the way we live our day-to-day lives. We can take our cloth bags to the grocery store, bring our own cup for coffee, buy at thrift stores, recycle EVERYTHING we possibly can and buy recycled whenever possible. This can even have economic benefits for us as individuals, especially as we plant a garden, weatherize our homes to reduce energy consumption, walk, ride a bike or take a bus, save and plan to buy a hybrid car or solar panels. And I'll bet that many of you already have other things you do that also are designed to save energy and help create a better world than the one we find ourselves in today.
Many things are within our power as individual consumers, and in doing these, we reinforce existing trends that can, in time, redefine our country's overall role on the planet from thoughtless to thoughtful consumerism. Our marketplace determines what everyone else in the world makes. Let us then collectively demand, recycled, efficient, organic low-impact products. Are they more expensive? Not if you calculate in saving the planet, and a new version of the American economy, for your children.
