"The Longing for growth is not wrong. The nub of the problem now is how to flip over, as in jujitsu, the magnificent growth-energy of modern civilization into a non acquisitive search for a deeper knowledge of self and nature."
2006-09-19 14:44:17 · 5 answers · asked by Anonymous in Arts & Humanities ➔ Books & Authors
He means that the human desire for growth is not the problem. He feels that human culture's collective economic progress and material betterment needs to be inverted to a form of growth that is less material, spiritual growth. Basically he's just saying that instead of building large cities and trading massive amounts of goods and commodities, people should focus more on their own personal, spiritual search, in other words inner growth.
2006-09-19 14:51:16 · answer #1 · answered by mpaone12 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The first sentence is self explanantory.
The rest is saying that the trouble is how to grow without depleting (or destroying) the world. Instead, how can we grow in a different way, internally, possibly spiritually, with no material gain.
That's what I get from it but I'm no expert. I've never even heard of Gary Snyder.
2006-09-19 21:53:13 · answer #2 · answered by Amy T 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The longing for growth is not wrong, because growth is what all living things do. As mpaone points out above, Snyder believes that the problem is that our western and capitalistic culture has directed that growth in the wrong direction.
With so much of our energy and will directed towards acquiring growth and power, we fail to grow and develop as human beings. Or, as Ezra Pound put it: "Master thyself, then others shall thee bear / Pull down thy vanity!"
Heidegger posits that you cannot know and appreciate the essence of a thing until that thing is broken, because until then the thing's essence is always being obscured by the thing's utility. You can't appreciate a hammer as a hammer, because so long as it's working we are partially blinded by its use -- a thing to drive nails into wood.
In the same way, capitalism drives us to models of utility. We think of things (including other people) only as commodities to trade and horde as a means to the ends of power and wealth, or as obstacles blocking us from those same ends. Snyder hopes that we can redirect our growth impulse away from utility and towards things in themselves.
2006-09-19 22:07:15 · answer #3 · answered by Kip S 1 · 1⤊ 0⤋
what we feed will grow.
which one ya gonna choose, baby??
2006-09-19 21:47:11 · answer #4 · answered by sweets 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Huh???? How the heck am I supposed to know?
2006-09-19 21:46:09 · answer #5 · answered by xinnybuxlrie 5 · 0⤊ 2⤋