Non-Fictional Prose Course

In the Ecology of Wisdom we discussed some major issues with the wording and its connotation it has and the thoughts that are evoked based on that connotation. A good example of this is portrayed throughout the book in “deep” and “shallow” ecology. Those terms give a hierarchy to the terms and to the people who practice it. No one wants to practice shallow ecology because it seems to be superficial and self serving rather than a direct attempt to help the environment. It evokes the feeling that you only want to help the environment because you want to make life better for yourself and increase your quality of life, rather than doing it because it is right or better for the trees, plants, etc.

A possible course outline for the final 6 weeks should explore the multiple ways that non-fictional prose can be written. I think continuing our exploration of the different possibilities available to us will be beneficial because we have already seen such amazingly distinct methods of composing (Bechdel's tragiocomic to Shield's). I think that seeing more of this variation will broaden our horizons so I chose books that interest me, but are written differently and cover different topics.

 For the rest of the semester, I propose that we read a variety of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs in order to explore the experiences of people telling their own and other people’s stories throughout history. My suggestions for reading are:

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Our coursework so far has given us a smattering of samples across the nonfiction genre. We've dissected graphic memoirs, criticized criticisms of copyright law, tried to define the nature of reality in a genre that is (let's face it) not exactly real. In light of this, I think it would be interesting to look at reality from a scientific and psychological perspective. If something is a work of creative nonfiction but focuses on scientific "facts," what does that work become (faction? fiction?)? Or if a work focuses on a specific case or example - an isolated incidence - , can it be a "factual" representation of an illness or phenomena as a whole?

 Though I could easily nitpick the entirety of Naess' The Ecology of Wisdom, I am only going to do as much with his essay, "Population Reduction: An Ecosophical View." Naess starts with a true enough observation: that we, the human race, have overpopulated this planet to the detriment of our ecosphere. Logically he says, we must then work on reducing our population over the next few centuries, despite that current politics advocate doing otherwise. He states that "[o]n average, no very great population is required of each culture . . . [and that] huge numbers tend to reduce the manifold" (304). So by increasing our population, we not only destroy the environment, but our cultures as well (more people lead to more fractures).

After Tuesday’s discussion, I read some more of Naess’s essays with the thought that he was writing with the idea that his environmental outlook was better than everyone else’s, or that he was trying to indoctrinate people into his way of thinking. However, while reading the essay about Tvergastein I found that he was simply expressing his own profound respect for nature and sharing his ideas about why this respect is important.

      One of the most confusing topics that came up in discussion on Monday was the disagreement in how different readers felt when they read "The Ecology of Wisdom".  Is there a didactic strand to Naess's argument or is he simply revealing one way to live.