Environmentalism of the 1960s

Monday, October 3, 2016

Audience Analysis of "Silent Spring"

The audience of Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" is quite complex. While it most likely was intended for people involved in agriculture who used DDT, it proved far more popular than just this demographic. It was written to expose what was wrong with the pesticide and cause farmers to cease using it, it caused outrage among the population. People who never had put any thought into the actions of farmers read the work and had their eyes opened. Another key audience were the companies that make the pesticide. They had their dirty secrets revealed and had to be sent on the defensive. One of the companies that fought the hardest against Carson's work was Monsanto. The audience proved to be most of the US population. It opened eyes and changed the conversation in the nation, leading to a period of greater interest in the effects man has on nature.

Stasis Theory in Silent Spring

The stasis for "Silent Spring" is consequence/ cause and effect. Carson critically wrote about how the way we have been treating the world is unacceptable and will cause a lot of problems in the future. The use of stasis allows for a good connection of ideas influencing people to have an open mind and ultimately sparking the environmental movement. Mankind is contaminating the air, earth, water with dangerous man made creations. The consequence being that chemicals "comes to the earth in rain or drifts down as fallout, lodges in soil, enters into the grass or corn or wheat grown there, and in time takes up its abode in the bones of a human being, there to remain until his death." She clearly states what we are doing and the problem it is creating in that world. Another example being; because the world has been contaminated after millions years of changes to create a homeostasis with the environment, in time life can return to normal but since we have ruined it we ended up digging our own grave because "in the modern world, there is no time."

Ethos in "Silent Spring"

Rachel Carson's Silent Spring blew the lid off of the pesticide DDT and its effects on the environment. In terms of rhetoric the book relies heavily on logos, using very real logic and research to prove the point of DDT's harmful effects, and yet ethos also factors in. Before the book's release Carson was a marine biologist, as well as an accomplished writer. Her 1951 book The Sea Around Us won a national book award. With these things in mind her argument is far more powerful. Given that the subject matter regards animal life, particularly marine and avian life her expertise in marine biology makes her argument far more powerful. In addition being a writer, seasoned in conservationist work her point is also strengthened in terms of experience. In terms of intrinsic ethos, Carson establishes herself simply through her research. She makes it clear that she has dedicated years to the study of DDT and its effects. The work was not rushed, but rather drawn out, taking years to research the chemical and establishing herself as an authority.

Robert Dries

Stasis Theory in "Big Yellow Taxi"

In the song, “Big Yellow Taxi,” Joni Mitchell utilizes the Stasis Theory to present her support of the environmentalist movement, most strongly, the stasis of consequence/cause and effect. Throughout the song, Mitchell explains the impact certain events have had on the environment. For example, she writes, “Hey farmer farmer put away that DDT now give me spots on my apples but leave me the birds and the bees please!” This line describes a clear cause and effect relationship of how DDT usage as a pesticide consequently killed much wildlife. Additionally, Mitchell repeatedly sings the line “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” What this shows is the contrast between nature in its purest state, a sort of paradise, and the mundane and drab parking lots that are paved overtop nature’s beauty. This line is repeated at many points during the song, which successfully drives its message into the minds of the audience members. By expressing the consequences human actions have on the environment, Mitchell is able to form a solid argument for why society must pay more attention to environmental wellbeing. Using stasis theory, Mitchell presents the causes and effects of mistreatment towards the environment in her song “Big Yellow Taxi” with the intent to inform and persuade.

Sarah Neydon

Friday, September 30, 2016

Ethos in "Big Yellow Taxi"

Songwriter Joni Mitchell, writer and singer of “Big Yellow Taxi” appeals to Ethos, mostly extrinsically. Throughout and beyond her career, Mitchell served as an activist for the Environmentalist movements. Her passion for the environment is expressed explicitly in many of her songs as she presses for better treatment of the world around us. Joni observed the harm that humans were doing to the environment and lyricized those findings in order to spread her message across the nation. Aside from her observations, Mitchell’s education at Calgary’s Alberta College of Art provides further credibility to her arguments. This is important as, an educated author tends to be one the audience is able to trust more deeply. In the span of her career Mitchell wrote and performed a multitude of songs in support of the environmentalist movement including “Big Yellow Taxi”, “Woodstock”, and “Little Green.” The wide variety of songs on this topic lends credence to the idea that Mitchell was truly an educated and passionate member of the environmentalist movement. Joni Mitchell in the song "Big Yellow Taxi" appeals to Ethos extrinsically in the audience through her role environmental activism, prior education, and additional environmentalist songs.

Sarah Neydon

Kairos in Big Yellow Taxi

Joni Mitchell wrote "Big Yellow Taxi" in 1970 during the time people were starting to understand that we need to make a change in how we treat the environment. Mitchell wrote "Big Yellow Taxi" because she rode in a taxi to a hotel in Hawaii. When she looked out the window she was able to see the real beauty that our environment is, but when she looked down all she could see was a parking lot, a long seemingly never ending parking lot, "the paved paradise put up a parking lot." When she released this, this among other things were convincing people to look more closely at environmental issues.The song was a big success because people were paying special attention to environmental issues especially in the 1960's and 1970's. If Mitchell made the realization, that heart breaking moment when she looked out the window, decades earlier the song would not have made that much of an impact and would have most likely been lost in history. Mitchell made this realization along with a lot of other people and helped others make the realization when they listened to this song. Because of the perfect timing it was released the song made an impact in the future and was often covered and kept coming back in mainstream media.

Pathos in Silent Spring

Rachel Carson made sure to pay attention on logos and kairos but was heavy on pathos. Pathos is emotional appeal which for most people is very effective to persuade them toward a certain stance. Carson wanted to make a change in her readers by making them feel bad for these horrifying truths of our world and want them to make a change. Her purpose was to make us learn to coexist with nature instead of destroying it and to get people to understand her intent she use pathos. "Man can hardly even recognize the devils of his own creation." Carson makes sure we realize the common ignorance that man has, that we are destroying our beautiful earth with our own hands. This reminds me of picture with a similar message. Not understanding what we are doing we are destroying what created us. This picture encompasses a lot of the pathos of Silent Spring. "Strontium 90, released through nuclear explosions into the air, comes to the earth in rain or drifts down as fallout, lodges in soil, enters into the grass or corn or wheat grown there, and in time takes up its abode in the bones of a human being, there to remain until his death." Carson provides a graphic image of how what we created is killing us slowly. "New forms that kill vegetation, sicken cattle, and work unknown harm on those who drink from once pure well." Our water used to be clean our vegetation used to be safe, and our livestock used to be healthy. These quotes among many others are clear representations of pathos within Silent Spring. Overall Carson's message she got to us is not only are we killing our environment, we are killing ourselves and a change needs to be made.

Critical Introduction

Hello reader and welcome to our blog, “Environmentalism of the 1960s”! We are a group of freshman College Park Scholars at The University of Maryland, and all highly interested in the environment and the various movements to protect it. The Environmentalist Movement of the 1960s was one of the especially big motions in our history, and of the time and therefore many works were produced pushing the environmentalist agenda. Two of these works, which we discuss more thoroughly in our blog, are the book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson and the song “Big Yellow Taxi” by Joni Mitchell. These two works differ greatly on the basis of presentation, syntax, general message, and more, however both support the same general stance that human’s need to protect and stop inflicting such excessive harm on the environment. Our blog explores how the differences in these works enable each author to form concrete arguments backing the Environmentalist movement. In Joni Mitchell’s song “Big Yellow Taxi” and Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring, the ideas of the environmentalist movement are pushed onto the audience using strong figurative language in the former and concrete facts in the latter.

In “Big Yellow Taxi” figurative language, specifically imagery, plays an important role in expressing Mitchell’s opinions on the environmentalist movement. Using pleas such as “hey farmer farmer put away that DDT now. Give me spots on my apples but leave me the birds and the bees please” Mitchell creates a visual imagery ‘ultimatum’ for her audience, showing what is being given up for relatively unimportant benefits. Silent Spring appeals to logos and utilizes research-based statistics to instill credibility into the argument presented. The work is flooded with facts which are intertwined with Carson’s opinions on those topics. The major arguments of both works is that a greater public concentration on conservation is needed, and that without this we will surely lose things that can never be replaced. They use stases of action making it clear that unless society changes its ways and evaluates its actions, this planet and all that was once good about it will be lost.

The Environmentalist movement is one that has gained steam throughout the years, yet still has been unable to find truly effective solutions. Finding these solutions has become more difficult as society has grown and industrialization has progressed. A major issue in the 1960s and 70s was the usage of a chemical pesticide, DDT, which is explained further in our blog and the two main works referenced in our blog. Although DDT use is now largely banned, other, debatably worse, problems have presented themselves. We move closer and closer to these issues causing irreversible damage, making it clear just how essential modern environmentalist thought is. For example, air pollution is the world’s number one preventable cause of death, lending credence to the idea that the Environmentalist movement has much further to go before finding true success. With help from activists such as Mitchell and Carson and their works, this movement is able to progress and continue spreading awareness to the importance of protecting the environment.

After reading our blog, you will have gained a better understanding of this movement as a whole, and two influential pieces that supported the movement. We do not have a perfectly ordered approach, as we felt that a more piecemeal approach allows the topic to blend more efficiently and organically, with less of didactic nature. We prove our major arguments by thoroughly examining all the stases and rhetorical appeals from several angles and applying them to both texts with great efficiency and care. We hope you will appreciate the consequences of carelessness in the environment and the true impact mankind has on this one environment we have been given. A feeling that mankind is to blame for many issues should not be a rare feeling, and yet this should also be coupled with hope that we have time to fix it. Have fun reading and learning how together we can all conserve this planet!