Marshall Memorial Fellowship: The American Dream of Conquering Nature
When you approach the Maryland Foodbank, you don’t immediately think of the American Dream. It’s a huge grey warehouse in the outskirts of Baltimore. On the front side, truckloads of food come in every day. Large companies donate parts of their production, others send their leftovers, and some groceries are even bought by the Foodbank. Inside the building, dozens of volunteers sort and repack the deliveries. Meanwhile, behind the building, people come and load food boxes on smaller trucks to bring to those in need in the Baltimore area. Many think of Maryland as a rich state, but today one in seven of its inhabitants is still food insecure. There might be food for all in the U.S., but not everybody can afford it.
Food insecurity and hunger were two of the factors that led to a mass emigration from Europe to the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries. When the first settlers arrived in America after a long, dangerous crossing, they were determined to control nature in their new country. The land they arrived in was wild and vast but neither empty nor uninhabited. In order to tame nature, they decided to lay out their grid. Their aim was not to grow towns; they wanted to plan cities, with their capital as a square diamond at the Potomac River. Most towns developed according a structured grid, first on the eastern coast, then moving westwards. New states were formed accordingly, focusing on latitudes and longitudes to determine their boundaries.
Although much of today’s urban planning doesn’t stick to a rectangular system anymore, the structured grid remains and has formed a matrix upon which the United States functions. In addition, the idea of “conquering nature” has become part of the American way of life. While the forefathers conquered land, generations after subdued distance by new forms of transportation and communication, and tried to end hunger by growing yields on their fields.
But did they succeed? Today, 240 years later, nature seems to be conquered – once and for all. But has this led to the fulfilment of the American Dream? Heavy industry in Baltimore has destroyed agricultural soil in and around the city; the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland has lost 99 % of its original oyster population in the last 100 years, and the water close to the harbor is so toxic that swimming could be dangerous to one’s health. But that is just a micro level picture. The legacy of the industrial revolution and climate change affects people all over America – whether in the form of water scarcity in California, storms and floods in Louisiana and the southern coast, or drought in the Midwest.
The conquest of nature has been accomplished – but at what price? The American Dream has not failed, but America has failed insofar as it has not partnered with nature. But there is a growing understanding of the problem. For example, more than one hundred thousand children visit the National Aquarium in Baltimore every year. For many years, a group of dolphins in a tiny water basin was the most popular attraction. But that has changed. Today, young people and millennials are very concerned about animal health in “museums.” Thus, children now learn about ecosystems, habitats, and how they can protect nature and no longer focus on their “Maryland Flipper.” The new goal of the aquarium is to show children today what should become reality in the Chesapeake Bay in coming years.
The grey warehouse of the Maryland Foodbank and the blue aquarium in the harbor of Baltimore can be starting points for a growing understanding that the dream of conquering nature should be newly interpreted in America.
Hans Maria Heyn (MMF ’16) is Head of Strategy Development and Planning for the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in Berlin, Germany.