Jared Free - "Wendell Berry, Unsetlling of America"

"One of the peculiarities of the white race's presence in America is how little intention has been applied to it. As a people, wherever we have been, we have never really intended to be. The continent is said to have been discovered by an Italian who was on his way to India. The earliest explorers were looking for gold, which was, after an early streak of luck in Mexico, always somewhere farther on. Conquests and foundings were incidental to this search = which did not, and could not, end until the continent was finally laid open in an orgy of gold seeking in the middle of the last century." I think Berry's reflections can be used to account for the way most Americans, or even people in general, interact with the environment. Everything we presently find ourselves immersed in, perhaps, seems like just a stepping stone to some on a path leading to something greater. These individuals may take advantage of the environment, abusing it and failing to recognize anything sacred because to them this is just temporary. They are seeking something farther down the road, what they are living in now is just the incidental. As such there is no reason to appreciate or respect their current landscape.