Myth of Progress by Tom Wessels

2) BRIDGE AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD by Speth

Choose one of the questions below and prepare a 5-6 page essay in response.  Your essay must be well organized, and you will be expected to craft a considered and sustained critical analysis, drawing on the texts in question.  This will require, in preparation for writing, that you engage in careful rereading of the selected texts.  Your essay will be graded on organizational structure, as well as on how well it represents your grasp of both text and context.  Be sure to cite your sources, in support of your analysis.  The essay must be in MLA format.

1)Bring Wessels and Speth into conversation with each other.  There are a number of ways you can approach this assignment.

a) One way is to select three of Wessels’ central terms (for example, dynamic equilibrium, positive feedback, and entropy), and examine how or whether those terms are reflected in Speth’s discussion of conventional capitalism’s inadequacies.  With this approach, Speth’s chapter, Modern Capitalism: Out of Control (pp. 46-86), might be a good match.  But the choice of terms and chapter is yours (you may use a chapter we haven’t yet covered in class, if you prefer).  One example:  How might Wessels’ understanding of the processes of positive feedback be reflected in (or perhaps challenged by) Speth’s discussion of capitalism’s reliance on growth.

b) Another way to approach the assignment is to select one of Wessel’s terms and perform an analysis of a sustained theme in Speth’s work, which might appear within different contexts in different chapters.  For example, Wessels explores at length the immutable Second Law of Thermodynamics.  What theme can you select from Speth’s book, which would confirm (or challenge?) that immutability?  Corporate power?  Pollution?  Biodiversity loss?

c) Any way that seems intellectually productive to you.

2) Bring either Wessels or Speth into conversation with Leopold.  Select three of Leopold’s concepts (for example, substitutes for a land ethic, the land pyramid, etc.) and discuss the ways in which Wessels (or Speth’s) ideas either reflect or challenge Leopoldian theory/understanding about the need for a land ethic.  Please

The purpose of this essay assignment is to have you work conceptually with the texts we have read, in order to arrive at a deeper understanding of the systemic blindness which has resulted in a compromised planet and future, as well as to explore the potential for enlightenment, and a safer future.

Remember:  Your essay must be in MLA format, and must include a Works Cited page, as well.