A Comparison of Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael and Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring Essay Example

and the accumulation of the harmful chemicals in human and animal tissue) to persuade the reader. What Carson and Quinn have in common is that they both want to show us how to save the world from ourselves. Both authors are basically concerned with the current plight of humanity. Quinn argues that we can find ways to live with the earth and not just on it.

Quinn (as Ishmael) argues that we must get outside the “Taker culture” mentality (which we consider the “civilized” way). The Taker mentality is a human-centric, or anthropocentric, view, in which the earth belongs to man and where we are free to do anything we want with it, "which casts mankind as the enemy of the world. " The Taker mentality is so ingrained in us that we are no longer aware of it—it is simply an assumption, taken for granted about the world; it is already inherent in everything we do and how we interact.

As Ishmael says, "The mythology of your culture hums in your ears so constantly that no one pays the slightest bit of attention to it. " According to Quinn, part of the problem is that a Taker culture views a Leaver culture as primitive, and rejects it such. Ishmael successfully asserts that it is possible to view the earth differently, to take a different attitude—not one of possession, but of kinship, as the Leaver cultures have done. Ishmael points out that one of our greatest assumptions about how man should view the world is actually not essential to being human.

Quinn does an analogy: that humankind's assumption about the rest of earth is akin to Hitler's assumption

about the “other races”—it is a myth, and there is no justification strong enough to support it. Ishmael challenges the way we see look at the Earth. Quinn addresses a general concern about the attitude of humans towards earth. Ishmael mostly evokes inspiration to do good (positive emotion), as opposed to Silent Spring, which mostly evokes disgust and indignation at what mankind has been doing (negative emotion), although it certainly still inspires change.

Quinn claims that we can transform ourselves into a Leaver culture, arguing that it would allow for the survival of creatures other than ourselves, and would also provide for our needs that are not always provided in Taker culture. On the other hand, Carson details specific problems, using real-world examples that make her work convincing. The shock value of her facts effectively evokes disgust at what humans have done to their home planet. Silent Spring is a lot more focused and detailed, and centers on the effects of insecticides and other chemicals that are indiscriminately used, particularly DDT.

Humans have poisoned themselves, and Carson helps by offering solutions to existing problems, and shows that nature itself can be used to take care of itself. Carson illustrates the interrelationships of organisms. She effectively illustrates the “web of life” through these examples, and through these her reader realizes that he is very much interconnected and must take care of it. Carson also emphasizes the potential impacts of these chemicals on human health, pointing out that there has not been sufficient medical research to establish that the chemicals are safe.

She also sites opinions of doctors and medical researchers who have reason to believe that there is a

link between certain diseases and exposure to these chemicals, and that pesticides harm and kill organisms other than the intended targets. Still, Carson did not really advocate total abandonment of chemical pesticides, but called for extreme care when using them. She understood that using chemical pesticides results in a gross ecological imbalance. Carson explains in detail how these poisons eventually find their way back to us, in ways that we did not expect.

Carson also tells us that there are effective alternatives to poisoning, natural methods of controlling pests. She encourages biological solutions because these do not leave harmful residues that will continue harming the environment. In Silent Spring Carson also makes use of imagery to portray the possible future if harmful chemicals continue to be indiscriminately released into the environment. Her sincerity and indignation are clear in the book, and so easily wins the reader to her cause. Carson makes extensive use of examples.

She points out that pesticides (particularly DDT) are the cause of great environmental harm. Pesticides persist in the environment, so Carson states that the measure of the damage caused by a pesticide should be in the total amount of life forms it harms. She points out that since few pesticides affect only the target, beneficial organisms such as predators that naturally keep the pest population down are often also eliminated, resulting in the target pests actually going through a population explosion.

Organisms will also adapt, and once pests develop the inevitable resistance to a certain pesticide, the amount applied must be increased, or a stronger pesticide must be used, resulting in a vicious cycle that ultimately concludes as a tremendous loss for humans

and the environment. The most important aspect of this book is that it effectively promoted global awareness of these environmental issues. Carson helped us to realize that everything is interrelated. One “flaw” in Carson's work is her failure to show how humans have benefited from the use of DDT.

Her one-sidedness puts her credibility in check, although does not really detract from her obvious sincerity in her writing. Silent Spring has a narrower objective than Ishmael. It specifically targets the practice of indiscriminate DDT use. Both authors challenge the notion that an advanced civilization is necessarily anthropocentric. Quinn went for a more imaginative and unique approach to tackle the problem of man's anthropocentrism, while Carson uses the more traditional essay and builds her arguments on detailed factual evidence.