From the Editors
In 2004 , an unnamed Bush administration aide famously derided New
York Times writer Ron Suskind for
languishing “in what we call the reality-based community.” “We’re an empire
now,” the aide went on to declare, “and
when we act, we create our own reality.”
The world has su=ered the consequences of that hubris for the past eight
years, and the social and economic
accounting of the damage and missed
opportunities will go on for years to
come. But soon—not long after this
issue of Orion is published—the television networks will declare the winner of
the U.S. presidential election and then,
with great portent, their commentators
will begin to decree what the new reality,
de>ned by the election and their interpretation of it, means.
Meanwhile, in a quiet corner of
Olympic National Park, rain will fall onto
the lichen-covered trees of that teeming
ecosystem. A beaver will reinforce its
lodge on Lake Umbagog in northern New
England in preparation for the oncoming
winter. And uncounted Americans will
gaze into the star-filled skies and reflect
upon the order of the cosmos.
Which of these realities is more real?
The voices coming from the television?
Or the trees and beavers and stars, and
the rhythms that have carried them
through history? Which matters more?
It is neither newsworthy nor particularly insightful to observe that Americans
live in an Orwellian world where language is twisted, culture is co-opted, and
many of us, to put it bluntly, are duped—
duped in part by the unremitting
Potemkin world of television and radio,
newspapers and magazines, blogs and
websites. But the reality of the natural
world and the intelligence manifest in
it—the world that lies behind the false-front constructions thrown up by political
posturing, greed-driven economics, and
self-centered gratification— is a profound
truth. Beyond being the source of our
sustenance and a wellspring of inspiration, the natural world today serves a new
function: it is a baseline of honesty at a
time when we desperately need honesty.
The ability of humans to perceive the
natural world as it is, and to embrace what
it can teach us, is central to Orion. In this
issue, Ginger Strand’s dissection of deceitful advertising (page 20), Erik Reece’s
canoe-borne meditation on “dwelling
rightly” (page 36), Kathleen Dean Moore’s
search for silence in a national park (page
64), and Brian Doyle’s description of the
perfect nature essay (page 80) are four
examples of people trying to >nd their way
between what really matters and what
really doesn’t .
The 2008 presidential election is by
no means inconsequential, but we are
on such a greater cusp than this single
decision—as individuals, as Americans,
as global citizens, as humans. Some
observers use the term “tipping point.”
Call it what you will. If we—all of us—
are to negotiate this moment successfully,
then we must understand that now is the
time for an honest reckoning with our
relationship with the planet. The lichen
and the beaver and their kind do not care
about what we think or how we feel about
the things we do. We humans are the only
ones with opinions and excuses, and set
against the world around us, they mean
nothing if they don’t take into account the
health of the Earth.
We can begin to set things right by facing the truth of the natural world—with
less regard for short-term responses and
deceiving rationalizations, and more
regard for the laws of nature and what
they can teach us. Only then can we possibly hope for the magnitude of change
necessary to reverse the destruction of the
people and places we hold dear. a
