ECONOMIC ELITISM AND THE MYTH OF THE PASTORAL

"Pastoralism" can be found in literature, music, art and economics, going back to the earliest scratchings and squawks of man. Simply put it is the interrelationship between animals, the land and humans. The central character of the pastoral is the nomadic shepherd; a romanticized figure, sleepily populating painting, story and song, watching over the idyllic herd as they move in lazy unison across the landscape. In America the best known 19th century pastoral painters were of the Hudson River School, men like George Innes and Thomas Cole. They gave us our idealized view of the Catskills; of light streaked storm clouds, engorged waterfalls, fantastical crumbling parthenons of antiquity....and of course the tiny, gentle herdsman. Industry is a distant locomotive's smoke stack, cutting a straight line across the canvas. The "peaceable kingdom" is a lie.
   Tourism in the Catskills  started well before Cole picked up his first crayon. You could say the first tourist was Henry Hudson who landed in what is today New York Harbor on September 11, 1609,  proceeding up the North River to Albany. The Dutch, the English, the Germans, Irish, Italians, Eastern Europeans, Russians, Chinese, Jews from everywhere and finally.....the hipsters followed. This brings us to today.
     The Amazon is burning. It's not the first time, but it is one of the most blatant attempts by the herdsman to impose his vision of what the world should look like- flat vistas of grassland populated by livestock. The dark, beautifully obscene chaos of nature can easily be eradicated by fire. The aboreal residents of these ancient rainforests- mini as well as mega-fauna are barbequed as the trees are reduced to ash. All is lost forever.
   How does this effect us in the Catskills? It doesn't....yet. But it will. Capitalism and right wing politics, which is its greatest enabler, can wreak havoc from the poles to the equator in a very short time span. What took centuries to accomplish in the Catskills can now be "tamed" in a matter of a few short years. The pastoral is accelerating at an exponential rate. The straight line and domesticated meat, wool or hide animal unleashed by humans are the enemies of nature. But wait......wasn't it all put on earth for us (humans) to enjoy and exploit? And don't the Brazilians and Bolivians have just as much right to paint their delusional picture as we had? I smell smoke.