“Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of a wolf” Explain what Leopold (1981) means by this statement.
The paragraph from which this quote is taken begins by describing the ways in which various animals respond to the howl of the wolf: the deer, the coyote, the hunter. Each understands the howl in a different way, each associates it with different experiences relative to their ways of life. But, reads the sentence preceding the quotation, 'Behind these obvious and immediate hopes and fears there lies a deeper meaning, known only to the mountain itself.'
Leopold is obviously speaking metaphorically here, so its hard to determinately pin down what he is trying to say. I take the mountain to represent the land, the environment, while the wolf represents an organism living within it. His point is that only the land, the basis of every ecosystem, can appreciate the true significance of an individual organism playing its role in the complex whole. Of course, I'm still in metaphor here. I'm not sure how to translate 'appreciate' into non-metaphorical terms, but the idea, I think, is to stress the overwhelming complexity of nature and ecological relations within it. Invoking the idea of 'listening objectively' recalls the idea of the view from nowhere, the non-subjective view, the mind-independent true state of affairs.
With this image, Leopold is trying to humble us in the face of nature, to remind us of its overwhelming complexity and longevity. He presents a warning to those who blithely claim to have unlocked its secrets, asking them to try engage with nature in a more holistic fashion, one which goes beyond their narrow interests by careful use of the imagination combined with insights from the natural sciences.
[ + emotion ]
References:
Leopold, A. (1981) 'The Land Ethic' in A Sand County Almanac, (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp.137-41
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