The idea of progress : can we reconcile the preservation of nature with its exploitation?

NOTION I                                                                IDEA OF PROGESS

Introduction

The idea of progress can be defined as an improvement, a development or a change; a technical, scientific or social advance, which contributes, to making the world a better place. Notwithstanding, any progress has a counterpoint: what we take, most of the time, we cannot bring it back. Therefore, to live, we have to use natural material, and in our societies, we have a little forgot nature in our lives.

Problem statement

For this reason, can we reconcile the preservation of nature with its exploitation?

Plan announcement

To answer this question, I will analyze how minds haved change during the lasts centuries.

Documents

• “The Sierra Nevada Mountains” by Albert BIERSTADT (1968)

This painting is an advertisement for the conquest of California, which joined the US in 1850. This wild landscape offers everything humans need to survive: endless water, abundant game and dense forest. Even if though some parts looks menacing (high and dark cliffs), the general impression is of an inviting place to conquer and to settle. It reminds us the lost Garden of Eden, with its endlessness resources.

This artwork serves a political motive, to justify the conquest of the West and to invite settlers to go there. Preservation of nature here is not a factor taken into account since nature seems to be limitless, and because of this is an advert, settlers are not encouraged to be aware of its exploitation.

• “Manifest Destiny : American Progress” by John Gaat (1872)

A white blond woman carrying a book and holding an electric cord flies westward, along with settlers rushing in the same direction, with the train, to the natives Americans almost invisible. She represent civilization, which is connected to technology, European knowledge and whiteness. She convey the image of a peaceful maternal figure, bringing a positive message to the conquest of the Wild.

This painting bring several messages, to the Native Americans, but also to the settlers. Firstly, it under hear that American people are “naturally” destined to conquer, because they are assimilated to an elected, a special people with a direct connection with god. Infact, they come from the puritans, which is a little group in protestant who think that they had to purify the Christian Church of the darkness of corruption. Then it implies that they are allowed to accumulate wealth and lands, only because they are an elected people. Therefore, this is a capitalistic approach of the conquest. This art means too that Americans can have a limitless expansion and influence, even outside of their country: like when they controlled Latin America with the MONROE doctrine, in the end of the 19th century.

Finaly, this painting is a reflexion of our conception of civilization: technology and knowledge always in progress with occidental (means the “whites”) expansion limitless.

• “Sacramento country” by John PFAHL (1983)

This photograph features the sunlight coming from the background, but we cannot identify if it is the sunrise or the sunset. However it look like the end of the day or the world, because the presence of nuclear plant at the center. All natural resources are gone: there is neither animal nor plants. The water is invisible, in the plant, and this landscape is transformed: it is man-made. The result is apocalyptic, desertic and drastic compared to the first painting, lush, with endless resources: a land for the taking.

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