Jochen - It is interesting that you would have read "Mockingbird" and "Animal Farm" in school... do you mind sharing when/where that was?
This probably qualifies as a threadbender, but your reference to Steinbeck and implications for the 21st century struck me. On a recent pleasure/work trip I *re*visited Monterrey CA and Cannery Row which lead me to *re*read Steinbeck's Cannery Row which lead me to read something of a biography of the Doc character in his novel (and the movie) for whom the prototype was Ed Ricketts. Beyond the Outer Shores was written roughly 15 years ago, recounting Ricketts' life and career. I knew that Steinbeck was a good friend of Ricketts but I was not aware of how much work they did together, including a summer of kayaking in the Sea of Cortez which yielded the data for the book they co-authored by the name "Sea of Cortez". I was also unaware that Joseph Campbell spent his formative (adult) years in the company of both of these mens (and more to the point, Ricketts). The author of this biography credits Ricketts as being highly influential in the work of both Steinbeck (beyond Cannery Row) and Campbell, and credits him with leading the transition from traditional biology focused on taxonomic approaches to identification of collected specimens. Ricketts approached collecting and identifying (mostly marine) species as well as writing them up in his famous trilogy on the topic in the context of a newly emergent field of "ecology". He was simultaneously under-appreciated due to his lack of formal education, his lack of academic affiliation whilst also being a highly prolific commercial collector/supplier of specimens to the same community while identifying a huge number of new species (perhaps only recognizing the subtle differences based on habitat and foodweb relations) within his purview (the range of the Pacific coast along the North American coast from Bering Sea to Panama). Unbending the thread a *tad*, I don't know if there were earlier precedents (there had to be?) for the collision of the consequences of human's voracious activity with climate patterns, before the Dust Bowl (Jared Diamond's "Collapse!" offers a few candidates). Steinbeck's portrayal of these times and the humanity of the most basic of the humans impacted (Grapes, Cannery, Mice&Men....) provides both a cautionary tale and perhaps a hopeful review of the resilience of humans when faced with less than pleasant choices. Of course, the way the "Okies" were treated is not unlike how most climate/war/economic refugees are treated today, and perhaps for most of the same reasons. I was first made pointedly aware when I saw Sebastiano Salgado's *lifetime* collection of photographs of global refugees in a collection titled "Migrants" and was made aware that even at that time (20 years ago?) there were already refugee communities where children were born and raised in that context... just one step above (most of the time) being held in formal incarceration. On 10/23/19 3:39 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote: > I recently stumbled upon John Steinbeck's classic novel "The Grapes of > Wrath" and wonder if it is similar to the situation today. You will > all know it since it is often read in High Schools, right? (I had to > read Goethe in School. And "Animal Farm" plus "To kill a Mocking Bird" > in the English class). > > As you know Steinbeck describes how migrants from Oklahoma called > Okies look for a better life in California. They travel along the > Route 66, which Steinbeck helped to make popular, passed Albuquerque > and Santa Fe, and drove to the West until they arrived in California > where the locals disliked and rejected them. > https://www.nationalgeographic.org/news/grapes-wrath > > Today we have migrants from Cuba and Mexico looking for a better life > in the US and refugees from Syria and Afghanistan who cause a lot of > trouble in the EU. Many of these refugees and migrants live in camps, > just like the ones Steinbeck visited. > https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/feb/02/johnsteinbeck.socialsciences > > Steinbeck's novel takes place during the "Dust Bowl". Today the dry > regions in the South suffer from droughts and wild fires caused by > Climate Change worldwide. Everything sounds similar, as if history is > repeating itself. > https://www.history.com/news/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-dust-bowl > > -J. > > > > > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
