Can we see the future
that clearly?
Copyright 2022 Iony Smith
Green, before the Green Movement - what environmental consciousness were some
embracing to raise awareness on the man/woman
v. nature dynamic ...
From Act I Uncle Vanya, Anton Chekhov (1897)
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1756/1756-h/1756-h.htm
SONIA. No, the work is thrilling. Dr. Astroff watches over the old woods and sets out new plantations every year, and he has already received a diploma and a bronze medal. If you will listen to what he can tell you, you will agree with him entirely. He says that forests are the ornaments of the earth, that they teach mankind to understand beauty and attune his mind to lofty sentiments. Forests temper a stern climate, and in countries where the climate is milder, less strength is wasted in the battle with nature, and the people are kind and gentle. The inhabitants of such countries are handsome, tractable, sensitive, graceful in speech and gesture. Their philosophy is joyous, art and science blossom among them, their treatment of women is full of exquisite nobility——
VOITSKI. [Laughing] Bravo! Bravo! All that is very pretty, but it is also unconvincing. So, my friend [To ASTROFF] you must let me go on burning firewood in my stoves and building my sheds of planks.
DR. ASTROFF. You can burn peat in your stoves and build your sheds of stone. Oh, I don't object, of course, to cutting wood from necessity, but why destroy the forests? The woods of Russia are trembling under the blows of the axe. Millions of trees have perished. The homes of the wild animals and birds have been desolated; the rivers are shrinking, and many beautiful landscapes are gone forever. And why? Because men are too lazy and stupid to stoop down and pick up their fuel from the ground. [To HELENA] Am I not right, Madame? Who but a stupid barbarian could burn so much beauty in his stove and destroy that which he cannot make? Man is endowed with reason and the power to create, so that he may increase that which has been given him, but until now he has not created, but demolished. The forests are disappearing, the rivers are running dry, the game is exterminated, the climate is spoiled, and the earth becomes poorer and uglier every day.
The forests are disappearing, the rivers are running dry, the game is exterminated, the climate is spoiled, and the earth
becomes poorer and uglier every day. (from last sentence above)
Why do I sense where we are in 2022 with climate change, and DR. ASTROFF describing a national disaster in Russia one-hundred
and twenty-five years ago, was the good doctor (Chekhov's persona) seeing this change before it had a name ... can we see
the future that clearly?
And when the doctor says "... men are too lazy and stupid to stoop down and pick up their fuel from the ground ..." what fuel is
he suggesting ... that which has our future in existential mode and Dr. Astroff's beautiful vision tripping over what was almost
perfect?
