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Aldo Leopold The Land Ethic Summary

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The Land Ethic Argument Outline Aldo Leopold’s “The Land Ethic” is an essay describing why we should not treat our land as our property. The first part of half of his essay is based on an anecdote that alludes to Odysseus returning from Troy to behead his slaves. His comparison there is that as once it was alright to treat people as property, it is now just fine to do the same thing to your land. Additionally, as ethics of the treatment of people changed as with the ethics of land treatment. He argues that we should treat our land with care and respect as we now treat one another, for we will be ushering a new era of change the is all for the better. The second half of the essay begins with "The Ecological Conscience". Starting off by stating “Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land” and going on to describe how our fight for land is improving it is moving far too slow. This transforms into the …show more content…

In politics a cross-cutting cleavage is when a particular group is expected to go one way with their vote, but a part of the population divots in another direction (causing a cleavage) unexpectedly. Here he argues that all of humanity is one population and there are two types, A and B, that cut across the expectation of caring and respecting the land. He argues that type A: “regards the land as soil, and its function as commodity-production” and “the basic commodities are sport and meat… Artificial propagation is acceptable as a permanent as well as a temporary recourse-- it its unit costs permit”. Then, he argues type B: “Regards the land as a biota, and its function as something broader“ and “Worries about a whole series of biotic side-issues“ the side issues range from management principles of wildflowers to the cost in predators of producing a game crop. This shows that while we are connected to our environment in one regard or another, we are never fully present and ready to

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