Smithson, Williams, and Marx
“A Tour of the Monuments of Passaic, New Jersey” by Robert Smithson, is perhaps the most perplexing short story or article I have ever read. If forced to offer a summary of the article and its argument (as I am now) I would say that he is attempting to show the bleakness and entropy of modern, highly industrialized towns. The town he speaks of—and towns similar to them—has no past to note of, just a future. A future that is black and white and dreary to the point of madness. However, I will not feign complete understanding of this writing—I’ll just have to wait for the discussion tomorrow.
My response to this work is—confusion. Several times he goes off on small asides to express some thought, while I get thrown off his growing idea that is tenuous in the first place. This by far the most narrative and abstract of our reading so far, so comparisons are slim. He does, however, clearly get by the idea of alienation and distance that industrialized places can bring—too much machine and too little garden.
“Ideas of Nature” by Raymond Williams, is not surprisingly about our ideas and attitudes about nature. How they have varied, how they are flawed, how they have evolved; these all are important parts of this chapter. However the most important point, arguably, is whether or not man is a part of our ideas about nature. The “nature” of Nature has varied and is still varied today. For some Nature is wild and dangerous, others it is balanced and tranquil, it can be God or it can represent the primitive nature of early man. In an easy connection to Leo Marx, Nature can be an idealized fantasy where everything is warmer, easier, and more loving. In a brilliant statement, Williams describes this diversity: “And ‘Nature is’ any one of these things according to the processes we select…” We can make any assumption about Nature and have at least some evidence to back it up because Nature is so, so varied. As he says, “All at once nature is innocent, is unprovided, is sure, is unsure, is fruitful, is destructive, is a pure force and is tainted and cursed.”
This article is directly related to some of our previous discussions—such as ‘Is man a part of Nature or separate from it?’– and also to Marx. Although it does not focus on one preconception about Nature as Marx does, it has slightly the same feel as Marx’s argument. Williams general idea and his conclusion are close to an idea that I am finding to be more and more true I continue through my education; rarely is any one theory correct outright, often it takes the views from several different theories to get a complete picture.
“The Machine in the Garden” by Leo Marx. The main point of this excerpt is that humans in industrialized societies, more specifically the U.S., are almost obsessed with the pastoral ideal. The ideal is that nature is the place of peace and balance and wholeness, and that we have lost something by leaving it. Marx argues that this is present in both the general culture, and in the “high art” literature by some of the most famous Western writers of our time. Marx is disagreeing with this ideal, and throughout the chapter it was plain that he was upset that it existed. This is of course the work for which this course was named, but I feel it deals more with the transition to an industrialized society. He talks often of the intrusion of technology into nature, but now we have already intruded all but the most inhabitable areas. I do not mean to say that his work is now inapplicable—it was only written in 1964—only that the dynamic has changed. Now the whole world is aware and involved in the struggle of nature and machine. The “Green” movement could even be interpreted as the pastoral ideal gaining strength.
Three questions:
- Is the bleak and depressing picture that Williams paints an exaggeration of the state of industrial centers?
- What have we truly lost, if anything, to the transition to industry?
- If humanity is not nature, that what is it?