Philosophy and Ethics

I wasn't familiar with the writings of Wallace Stegner, John Hay, or Lewis Thomas. In Wallace Stegner's introduction, little is revealed about his childhood as his introduction is only one paragraph, so that wasn't enough to get a good reading of Stegner's character. Stegner was an "English Professor and Director of the writing program" at Stanford University, which is interesting. His writing subjects were "pioneers, mountain men, and settlers" and his themes were about "Western identity," which are relatable subjects for someone who lives in Utah. Stegner wrote while asking questions "while looking at landscapes," which I'm sure is what a lot of writers do in order to have a unique experience. In Lewis Thomas' introduction, we find out he was a doctor like his dad in New York, and was the president of "The Memorial Sloane-Kettering Cancer Center," which makes a pretty impressive expert on nature and how cancer develops out of cells. Thomas won a National Book Award for his collection of essays on cells, which is an impressive accomplishment. He wrote about "the biology of cells, as well as "compassion and concern for the earth and its creatures," which were related to his career. Thomas's writings on his subjects were humorous, optimistic, taking "challenging ecological positions," and "accessible," which is good because a lot of people don't understand tough medical terminology. They call him, "one of the most innovative and important writers in the field," which is a pretty remarkable honor. In John Hay's introduction, we find out his center for writing is Cape Cod, which he first came to in 1942 "to study with poet Conrad Aiken." He wrote about "migration, global connections, landscape potential, Maine, New Hampshire, Greenland, Coast Rica, and the inner and outer environments of humans and other lives." I wondered how the other places matched up to Cape Cod.



In "Glen Canyon Submersus," Wallace Stegner writes about Glen Canyon, before they closed the dam in 1963, and it became known as Lake Powell. The Glen Canyon he remembers, was full of animals, silence, rubber rafts. The canyon which was "a great recreational resource," is now dwindling down to nothing, nature wise, thanks to human interference. Stegner is sad to see that the Lake Powell after the dam closed has no wildlife "on the main lake," and has noisy "power boats and water skiers." In "Coda: Wilderness Letter," Wallace Stegner writes a letter to David E. Pesonen about "wilderness preservation" in 1960. He quotes Charles Darwin, Sherwood Anderson, Mark Twain in his argument. He says our current way of life, cutting down trees, our machinery, and not recycling our used goods, "threatens now to become the Frankenstein that will destroy us." Stegner reveals he grew up in Montana and Utah, which wasn't mention in his introduction. In "Death in the Open" Thomas writes about "animals dead on the highway". He also talks about cells multiplication, and how they vanish "into their own progeny." He tells us elephants carry the dead carcass of a fellow elephant to a proper burial place. He puts things in perspective by saying, "there are 3 billion of us on the earth and all 3 billion must be dead, on a schedule within this lifetime." In "The Common Night," John Hay describing an experience during an evening with nature. He writes about the hatching of herring. Hay watches the gulls and heron waiting for the tide at Paine's creek one night "in the middle of May," so they could catch fish. He also saw a "ghostly green eel" in the seaweed. He also sees fisherman as he is walking back, "without much hope of a strike."



In "Glen Canyon Submersus," Wallace Stegner writes, "they have diminished [the canyon], they haven't utterly ruined it. It isn't Glen Canyon, but it is something in itself," making me glad to see there is still something worth visiting. Stegner writes about his feeling of seeing the Lake Powell as feeling, "even in my exhilaration, with the consciousness of loss. In gaining the lovely and the usable, we have given up the incomparable," arguing for no human interference of nature and how it is supposed to be left. In "Coda: Wilderness Letter," Wallace Stegner writes his main argument for nature, saying, "Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last virgin forests to be turned into comic books and plastic cigarette cases; if we drive the few remaining members of the wild species into zoos or to extinction; if we pollute the last clear air and dirty the last clear streams and pus our paved roads through the last of the silence, so that never again will Americans be free in their own country from the noise, the exhausts, the stinks of human and automotive waste." These sad events will destroy our humanity and our souls if we use and abuse nature until it is gone. In "Death in the Open" Thomas writes, death "is a natural marvel. All of the life of the earth dies, all of the time, in the same volume as the new life dazzles us each morning, each spring" which is his main point of his essay. In "The Common Night," John Hay asks, "Who will see more than that is his short life, with its many meetings and separations?," urging us to take some time to appreciate what nature does when we are busy.



I have never been to Lake Powell, but I know some people who have a house boat down there. I usually drive through Saint George when I am travelling down in Southern Utah. I have been to Moab, but it's been seventeen years. When I was there, I did go river rafting like Stegner did in Glen Canyon. It's always refreshing to read essays and stories about something so close to our hometowns and feel inspired to travel close to home to see what Wallace Stegner was talking about. While reading "Glen Canyon Submersus," I felt Wallace Stegner gave enough description that I could picture it, before and after the dam closed. Stegner mentions the Hole in the Rock pioneers of 1880 and I know a little about them, having just read a historical fiction book about them, called "Fire of the Covenant" by Gerald Lund. Thomas tells us in "Death in the Open," that Elephants carry the dead carcass of a fellow elephant to a proper burial place, which I thought was really interesting to have a species who takes care of their own like humans do. I used to live up by highway 89 in Layton, and one day when I got off the bus, there was a dead deer lying next to the sign. It's a pretty somber experience to have and know something that used to breathe, has ceased to exist in a short amount of time. I also realize death is a part of life, since I have had twelve family members and three friends die in the past nineteen years. I had to look up the "Alewives," because I had never heard of the type of herring before. I agree with John Hay's wanting to experience nature in the dark, can be as awarding as in the daytime.