Archive for March 27th, 2009

No, this is not a post about visiting Log Cabin Village, though I’ve heard that it’s great. This is a post on the ongoing discussion at Cowtown Chronicles focusing on sustainability.  And about my ancestors who homesteaded outside of Wells, Minnesota (not far from where Laura Ingalls Wilder and her family lived during the time of her book On the Banks of Silver Creek, in the vacinity of Walnut Grove.)  Since it was a 20 mile walk into town, my pioneer forebears had to live a sustainable existence. It was live sustainably or die! I wonder regularly what would happen to us moderns if we were put in a similar state. Would we kick the bucket or learn to be independent?

I think about pioneers not just on long car trips, when I muse over the difference between travelling on the interstate in a car and over the Oregon Trail in a wagon, but every day when I look at all the plastic stuff and the artificial entertainment devices we use, from PSP gamestations to DVD’s. Would my ancestors recognize me as their decendant? Do I still possess some part of whatever they had that helped them survive alone on the Minnesota prairie?

Since the inception of the TV we have been told that the new “pioneering” is being done via the creation of products — a pioneering new soap, a revolutionary vehicle.  What I want to know is, how did an adventuring, pilgrim people–us–ever get so attached to manufactured things? These bits of plastic, electric wire and decals have nothing to do with us as individuals. How did we, a deeply individualist group (think of the Revolutionary War era motto: live free or die) come to be a people who wanted tags on everything — from Harvard to Hummer — to broadcast to others that we were worthwhile? This very branding suggests that we are the creatures of someone else. 

Back to Pete Wann and the question of sustainability — I am going to throw out the idea that sustainability depends on recognizing our pioneering, self-sufficient and adventuring roots, and throwing out commercialism and what I guess I’ll call productism.  My question, and I’ve been worried about it for at least fifteen years, is are we equal to the task of backing off productism, which results in loosing our individuality and becoming shadows of our true selves–or are we doomed to become a lesser group of people than those we sprang from?

It’s a vexing question.