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Aldo Leopold Thinking Like A Mountain Analysis

Decent Essays

Chances are you would react differently to seeing a puppy than you would upon seeing an axe murderer in a cornfield. Perhaps seeing your best friend and seeing your ex would elicit contrasting responses. In discussions concerning reactions, one controversial issue has been what causes response variations. Some psychologists argue that reactions are learned responses that we've been conditioned to utilize. By contrast, others contend that responses are governed by cognitive theory which states that emotions control how we respond. It is my own view that it is a combination of learning and emotion that decide our reactions. An example of this theory is the comparison of my responses to two separate essays on rather similar topics.
In his essay …show more content…

Leopold contends that the key to "peace in our time" (59) is letting nature run her course, unheeded by man. I agree with the idea of leaving nature alone that Leopold proposes, a point that needs emphasizing since so many people believe that by controlling the wild, they are making the world a better place. However, it is never just an author’s theory that makes an argument great; the way they present it has a huge impact on how well it is received. Leopold uses the unique strategy of personifying the mountain to improve reactions to his essay. He claims that the mountain “has a secret opinion about [the wolf’s howl]” (Leopold 57) and that it “live[s] in mortal fear of its deer” (58). By introducing the problems he’s addressing in this manner, Leopold is able to access the very human emotion of empathy. The combination of his intriguing and intelligent proposal and his clever rhetoric is the cocktail that led to my positive response while reading “Thinking Like A …show more content…

In her article titled “Animal Extinction: The Greatest Threat to Mankind,” Whitty emphasizes the drastic increase in extinctions and the rising number of endangered species by relating “the path of a dying species” (172) to death by dehydration. In the first paragraph, she explains what happens in the final stages of dehydration in rather gruesome detail; her objective is to swiftly grab the attention and sympathy of her reader. After the stomach churning hook, she writes about the history of extinction and how “today we’re living through the sixth great extinction, sometimes known as the Holocene extinction event” (Whitty 173). Whitty moves on to elucidate her point by including statistics and referencing other authors who have written about the environment in some manner such as Edward O. Wilson and Henry David Thoreau. Like Leopold, she praises the importance of biodiversity in the fight for species survival and included a study done by the University of New Mexico on how “extinctions lead to co-extinctions” (Whitty 176). Her solution involves maintaining predators and wildlife-linkages; she argues that when nature is tightly controlled, the danger of extinctions and other catastrophes mounts. Whitty’s proposed solution to the extinction epidemic is “rewilding,” which is restoring the land to its natural state. She emphasizes its credibility by reporting that “Wilson calls [rewilding] ‘mainstream

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