Chapters 17 and 18 Ecology of Eden


“The Ecology of Eden” is a diverse book about religion, environmental studies, and urban studies. In this book, Eisenberg try’s to show mankind’s place in nature. He tries to summarize the ways that humans, over time, have altered the natural world. He also suggests ways for living more in harmony with nature.  The readings that I was assigned were chapters 17 and 18. These chapters talk about the “cloister and the plow” and “bringing a statue to life.” The discussions about the cloister plow and bringing and statue to life were very interesting. What I liked about these sections was that Eisenberg had both a positive and negative opinion on gardens. The positive part was that the cloister garden was seen as a safe haven where people could escape the real world and find what was considered heaven on earth. The negative part of this was when we wall ourselves in then we run into the issue of losing a relation ship and having a connection with the real world.  We are not to be afraid of the outside world, for the outside world is mankind’s place in nature. Overall I think that the idea of walling ourselves in is bad, for us to experience nature is to experience it in the real world.

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