Here,
Mcphee presents another narrative that struggles with many of the same
conflicts as those we saw in the Atchafalaya reading. The polemical rhetoric is
just as prevalent if not more so. Many of the scientists and workers compare
trying to control the lava to going into a battlefield. This kind of language
influences the way we think of nature and its actions, as though as nature has
a personal vendetta against us and we therefore have to fight it. On Monday we
discussed how in some ways this rhetoric is justified because horrific events
can happen to us because of nature. I think that this connects more broadly to
the fact that we highly anthropomorphize nature, and by doing so impose our
ideas of morality on it. The polemical rhetoric forms because of this. For
example when Dora is talking about having to leave Heimaey, she blames the
volcano and says, “I couldn’t be angry at anyone else could I? (117 Mcphee). “
This kind of language leads to us trying go to “war” with volcanoes or rivers.
Does this mean that nature cannot be defined without us projecting ourselves
onto it?
When
finding the solution to the lava flow, Thorbjorn resorted to imitating natural
processes. I found this to be a bit ironic. Even though he wants to simulate a
nature, he is still performing a quite unnatural act by doing so. Once the act
is performed, the people must take responsibility for the results of it as
well, like when the lava started going towards the town.
Mcphee also
highlights the economy again as being highly infused into environmental issues.
When they were able to stop the lava flow from reaching the harbor they then
caused the lava flow to redirect towards the town. The harbor was significantly
important, not only to Heimaey but to Iceland. It was “producing a twelfth of
Iceland’s income”(97 Mcphee). For this reason, the most important and immediate
issue was to stop the lava from reaching the harbor and hurting the economy.
Magnus even said “There is no use of any town if we don’t have a harbor (129
Mcphee).” It becomes controversial whether protecting the harbor justifies
almost destroying the town, people’s homes, and putting humans in harms way. It
quickly escalated to a conflict between the economy and humanity.
A sense of
home also drastically affected this event and story. Mcphee presents many
instances of disasters in order to show the resilience of the people of
Heimaey. The people are so use to disasters and a harsh environment that the
threats of more or going through more does not faze them. I find it strange that they would not just
leave since it is such a hard place to live but it is their home and they have
become attached to it. Even to the point of cleaning their houses before they
know that they will be destroyed by the lava.
Another
tension that occurs is between religion and the environment or nature. Mcphee
mentions that the people of Heimaey are very suspicious because of all the
disasters that have happened. After a son of a bishop arrived and became their
minister, an eruption took place (130 Mcphee). Then in 1973 another man was to
become clergy and a week before he came an eruption occurred (130 Mcphee). This
made it hard for the people to embrace Christianity because of nature. The environment
and religion or faith has always had a great tension. Religion often influences
the way people see nature but in this case nature influences the way people
view religion.
Very interesting point regarding nature vs religion. I found myself deriding the engineers who were meddling with the waters of the Mississippi, but found my self fully behind the Icelanders fighting the lava/fires. I'm sure the religious metaphors that water is purity and fire(lava) is hell were at play in my thought processes. Kinda neat to see that the Icelanders experienced that process in reverse.
ReplyDeleteMary, you bring up some really interesting points. I like the economy one. Each of these readings has reminded me of a different Talking Heads song, and the idea of ecology and economy are both from oikos, or home. But the way McPhee puts policy and consumption of goods into his essays, like with the beer example in "Cooling the Lava" or the rarity and diversity of crawfish in "Atchafalaya", displays how culture and consumption can drive something that can potentially impact this idea of home and resources. Similarly, I think the idea of marriage, which is referred to a lot in "Cooling the Lava," shows an interesting tie to both economy and religion and how they play in the "home."
ReplyDeleteI think the economy issue is interesting, but I don't think it's fair to say that they were putting the economy over the welfare of the people, that it was a clear-cut conflict between humanity and the economy. The people in that town depended on that economy. The fishing industry was their livelihood, if not because they were fisherman, then because they provided a service or good to the community of fisherman. Protecting the economy was also protecting the people. If they had saved the homes but not the harbor, it would have provided people with a place to live but not a means of living, after the eruption ended.
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