The Scientific Sublime by Gross Alan G.;

Author:Gross, Alan G.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press, Incorporated
Published: 2018-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Conclusion

Rachel Carson took time to mature as an author, to discover her strengths. We would not want to judge Dvořák by his first two symphonies, Jackson Pollock by his first sketches, or James Joyce by Stephen Hero. The Sea Around Us was her first success. Playing to her strengths, she created a vision of the forces of nature, one that endures to this day. The Edge of the Sea also embodies this vision. In this book, Carson sees nature in miniature, the world in a grain of sand. To dismiss The Edge of the Sea on the grounds of its narrow scope would be like dismissing the lapidary perfection of Mozart’s Adagio in B Minor because it is “not as good as” his Jupiter Symphony. The Edge of the Sea is also the book in which Carson developed her sense of the intricate interactions within and among communities of life, an insight central to Silent Spring, her enduring brief in favor of a future free from indiscriminate pesticide use.

Some of the science Carson relates in her books has been superseded; that is the way of science. What has not been superseded is her peerless evocation of wonder that the close scrutiny of the natural world can reveal, the natural sublime seen through the lens of science. It is her literary quality that makes her work endure, inspiring the environmental movement and teaching us all to respect and admire the natural world and to struggle against its enemies with the knowledge science provides. Silent Spring aims to change the way we behave, to change our future, person by person, industry by industry, government by government, society by society. Carson’s rising tide of indignation at our misbehavior has its source in her perception that some environmental policies are making our future dystopian. Have we not in two short centuries irredeemably poisoned the air, earth, and water? It is Carson’s optimism in the face of these unpalatable realities, an optimism tempered by realism, that has made Silent Spring the enduring classic it is, a sermon for her times and for ours. Like Revelation, Silent Spring gives us hope.

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