The Plowboy Interview
(Page 5 of 18)
SNYDER: No. The indigenous rice culture is
an agriculture that has prop c n itself sustainable through
the centuries. Of course, the Japanese have
employed a lot of herbicides and pesticides and petroleum
fertilizer in rice farming it-, recent decades. But they
still know how to do without them.
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PLOWBOY: These sorts of problems continue
to evolve. Would you say that your ideas on the most
effective courses of action toward environmental
concernsecological concerns-have evolved over the years?
SNYDER: Well, they haven't changed in
major degrees, but they have steered. you could say, by the
wind. I'm always looking for the most intelligent, the
clearest angle of approach. I'm not locked into a course of
action or a point of view. In short, I'm trying to keep
learning about the ways in which wt: look at these
questions and trying to understand what the dynamics of the
current industrial world culture and its self
destructiveness are. It's a huge undertaking to try to
figure out how it all works: One can only see a little of
this elephant.
Over the years I've kept applying myself to the study of
history and economics, just trying to understand how it is
that these few little European nations spread over the
world so rapidly. And, while doing so, I've tried not to be
too judgmental. It's not exactly as though we were
dealing with the force of evil against the forces of good.
It's rather more complex.
We have to understand how these huge economic and political
systems work and how to turn their energy-which is a real
and potentially useful energyin more healthful
directions whenever we can and wherever we can ...which.
maybe, is a point of view that-at least for some
people-takes too much patience. And maybe we don't always
have time for it. But it's certain that our effectiveness
would improve with a better understanding of all these
force; ...whenever we can get it.
To go back just a little bit, I'd like to say that although
it's true that I was among the first writers in recent
decades to focus on nature and the " wild mind," I'm not
the first, by any means. People who were very
important in helping me shape my ideas include Kenneth
Rexroth, who was writing very clearly on these issues, in
the late 30's ...Michael McClure, who started speaking and
writing along the same lines just about the same time I did
...Robert Duncan, in his own way, tangentially touching on
these questions ...and Robinson Jeffers, who made clear
statements from early on.
Then again, beautiful, precise, intuitive perspectives can
be seen in the nature poems of D.H. Lawrence ...and
Lawrence's essays on American literature are profound; his
insights into its problems and psychology are
extraordinary.
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