The Plowboy Interview
(Page 3 of 18)
PLOWBOY: Using the natural materials that
were available ...
RELATED CONTENT
SNYDER: Yes, and these interests and
activities led me toward anthropology and American Indian
studies when I got into college.
"...if we had political boundaries more appropriate to the
regions in which we live-following watersheds or mountain
ranges, following plant zones and soil types-that would be
a step in the right direction, both ocially and
ecologically ..."
PLOWBOY: That was at Reed College, in
Portland, right? SNYDER: Yes. While I was
there, I combined anthropology with the stud of literature
and ended up concentrating on oral literature and
mythology. I was fascinated by all of the problems
associated with the stylistics of oral literature and by
the question of what is implied for us, internationally and
culturally, by the presence of mythology and folk tales,
worldwide, that have similar motifs and themes. That made a
profound impression on me and pushed me in the direction of
poetry. Then another factor began to influence my
intellectual development: the study of China.
PLOWBOY: How did you become interested in
that?
SNYDER: Well, first by picking up Ezra
Pound's translations of Chinese poetry. And then, later, by
reading Arthur Waley's translation of the Tao Te
Ching and his many translations of poetry. I was
amazed to discover that China had a high civilization, with
centuries of literacy, which has a different view of nature
than that commonly held in the West.
Essentially, I came to realize, there are at least
three ways of looking at things: the primitive or
indigenous ways of seeing the world ...the Occidental
civilized way ...and the Far Eastern civilized way. There
are three or more positions, rather than just the civilized
and the uncivilized.
The indigenous or "old ways" philosophy assumes an implicit
oneness and kinship with the whole of nature and sees
nature as process, rather than as a collection of
commodities. It believes in a nonlinear, nonsequential
causation that links apparently disparate events: "I didn't
get an elk this week because I spoke rudely last month." It
has no fear of wild nature and hence no thought of taming
it.
The Far Eastern view (and here I'm skipping the Middle East
and India, which I see more as mystical subsets of the
Occident) is both secular and animistic. It sees all nature
as a process (Taoism) into which a complex civilization can
fit if it practices proper etiquette on a massive scale
(Confucianism). The Occident had similar prehistoric roots
but developed a more intense urbanism, theism, and thirst
for expansion of power that lead to mind/matter dualism and
to the elevation of humankind to a totally different
category outside of nature.
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