Tutorial Questions : Week 4 (Rebecca Solnit “The Orbits of Earthly Bodies”)

Ecology, Landscape, Nature

Readings: Reading and Writing the Site by John Dixon Hunt, The Orbits of Earthly Bodies by Rebecca Solnit and an excerpt from The Ecological Thought by Timothy Morton

1. What is the great irony about living or holidaying in the countryside that Solnit points out in the first few paragraphs of her article?
   
   – You’re not closer to nature but you are closer to your car as you rely on it to get anywhere.
   
2. Solnit is trying to burst some of our illusions about the countryside. What are some of the common illusions that we have about living or holidaying in the countryside?
   
   – Peaceful, relaxing, easy going lifestyle.
   – Beautiful surroundings – “Get back to nature”
   
3. What are ranchettes? What does Solnit mean when she says that “ranchettes seem to preserve the frontier individualism of every-nuclear-unit-for-itself; they’re generally anti-ethical to the ways in which community and density consolidate resources”? (p. 334)
   
   – Ranchettes are small ranches or large home lots often on the outskirts of a major metropolitan area
   – 40 acres with a house. sometimes includes a barn or other buildings.
   
4. What is “new urbanism”? (p. 334 bottom) Look this up online and find out as much as you can about this movement. Why is Solnit ambivalent about the new urbanism?
   
   – Urban design movement promoting environmentally friendly habits, walking, range of housing and job types.
   – Developments have already been built are too car dependant and have created this problem. If it had of been done earlier then there wouldn’t have been the need for it now.
   
5. According to Solnit, how have we tended to define nature? What’s wrong with this way of defining nature? (p.335)
   
   – nature = something to look at
   – humans are a natural species so things we do can be considered “nature” or “natural” even if they don’t fit the brief of being visual ie: “natural instincts”
   
6. Why do you think Solnit compares city activities (shopping, people watching) to hunting and gathering in the wilderness? (p. 335 middle) Why do you think she says that New York City might be the most natural space in all of America? (p.335 top) What is she trying to do with the way we think of cities?
   
   – Those are natural activities for us as a species and those environments could be considered our “wilderness” or natural habitat. Those actions are for us a part of our survival in the city as hunting and gathering would be for those who natural habitat was a wilderness area.
   – People walk more and co-exist, not all one race/status etc. It’s a big city where people feel free to be themselves and there isn’t a need to conform or be a certain way.
   
7. What’s the problem with the term “pedestrian-scale”? (p. 335 middle)
   
   – pedestrian scale is human scale, we are naturally pedestrians if we don’t have the use of cars or other transport.
   
8. Why do you think Solnit included a found quote from a Pottery Barn catalogue as her epigraph? What does the epigraph tell us about the point she is trying to make in the essay?
   
   – Shows how widespread that “ideal” country lifestyle idea is. It’s spoken about in a catalogue and understood by many.
   – We have a preconceived idea about how we judge city or country against each other and what stereotypes belong to each place.
   
   Some key words/conceptual toolkit from Solnits article:
   Nature vs Culture |Country vs City | Rural vs Urban | Individualism vs Community (p. 334)
   New urbanism (p. 334 bottom)
   Democracy and democratic space (p.335 top)