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Nature, Place and Silence
I disagree with the idea that “Many urban dwellers develop a sense of place around purely manmade landmarks, and the links between place and nature are then broken” (Meaning in Technology, 118), because the construction of manmade landmarks, such as bridges and skyscrapers, serves as a tangible representation of the human connection between place and nature. According to David Nye, there is some “continuity between (American) attitudes to the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls and responses to great bridges or skyscrapers” (Meaning in Technology, 87). In that he means in American culture, it is acceptable to celebrate the aesthetics and social function of a naturally created spectacle, like the Grand Canyon, in the same way one would show appreciation for the aesthetics and social function for a manmade landmark, like the Golden Gate Bridge. He goes on to explain that since the inception of our country, “There was a strong belief among United States citizens in ‘our manifest destiny to overspread the continent’” (87). Again, in relation to expanding our cultural through physical presence, in chapter five Pacey says, “an impulse to mark the landscape seems an integral part of the sense of place…there have been peoples who modified places important to them by leaving marks that alter the earth” (119).
Nye’s reasoning that American’s strive to fulfill their nation’s destiny by occupying the entire continent, considered with Pacey’s view that humans may show respect for, and emphasize importance of their environment, by physically altering it, provides evidence that for urban dwellers, the link between place and nature may actually be stronger than those who reside in rural, less architecturally developed areas. In further applying Nye’s beliefs to people who live in unpopulated areas, they are then viewed as unpatriotic because they do not attempt to fulfill America’s manifest destiny and expand the development of our...