The essay "The Etiquette of Freedom," collected in The Practice of the Wild (1991), reminds us of our ethical obligation that we are indeed connected to everything else. Snyder’s work, deeply informed by Buddhist practice, reminds us that human beings are indeed animals and that we share this "environment" with many other beings. Snyder has long demonstrated a commitment to political activism on behalf of the nonhuman world.
In Snyder's view, what is often missing in human behavior is graceful conduct. As Snyder puts it, "Learning the birds and the flowers is not just high school science or nature study-it's local etiquette. It's rude not to know your neighbors, you know? "This is a very strong ecological statement. He further concludes in this extract that "The lessons we learn from the wild become the etiquette of freedom." To know the wild is to be truly free.
Summary of the essay The Etiquette of Freedom by Gary Snyder
Gary Snyder
starts his essay asking the question, do you really believe you are an animal?
According to him, we are animals because we are mammal primates. It means that
we are evolved from animal, ape. Our forefather was ape so that animals and
human beings have many similarities.
Like us,
animal also can communicate extensively and like us, their bodies are also wild
in the time of danger and risk. For example, they make involuntary turn of the
head at danger; shout in the time of terror. Our bodies are also wild.
According to the writer, our head spontaneously makes quick turn at a shout,
danger and terror. Our body in quiet moments takes relaxing, reflecting and so
on. Here wild does not mean barbaric but in positive sense, wild suggests for
uncontrolled freedom. If we know the wild, we will be truly free. The lesson we
learn from the wild becomes the etiquette of freedom.
Many people think
that language we learn in school but the writer thinks that we learn language
at home and field. He further says that school only helps us to use the
language in specialized way and teaches us rules of formal grammar. Now he
connects wild with vocabulary learning. We learn vocabulary from the mind is
also wild because mind takes it automatically or freely. Snyder thinks that
social order is not only found in the society but it is also found in the
nature. Before the age of book and legal code, social order even can be found
in nature.
According to
the writer, as a human being, we have language and creative mind. So, we can
pass our free or boring time communicating with our friends. We can take coffee
with them. He writes, finally sitting down to have coffee with a friend'.
Frequently asked question from the essay The Etiquette of Freedom by Gary Snyder
1. How does Snyder establish the
vocabulary for a discussion of practicing the wild?
Ans: Snyder establishes the vocabulary for a discussion
of practicing the wild in the way we practice a religion or we practice Yoga.
Vocabulary we learn from the mind is also wild because mind takes it
automatically or freely.
2. Do you agree with Snyder that man
is an animal? Why?
Ans: Yes I do. Man is an animal because our forefathers
were ape or animal. Like us, animal also can communicate extensively and like
us, their bodies are also wild in the time of danger and risk. They make
involuntary turn of the head at danger , shout or terror.
3. "Our bodies are wild" (2).
How does the writer establish this Idea?
Ans: Truly our bodies are wild. According to writer, our
head spontaneously makes quick turn at a shout, danger and terror. Similarly,
the body in quiet moments takes relaxing, reflecting, thinking and so on.
4. What lesson do we learn from the
wild? Explain in detail.
Ans: We learn etiquette of freedom from the wild. The
term "wild," as used by Snyder, is a metaphor for the natural
processes within nature. Etiquette means to show respect to a person or occasion.
We see this attitude reflected worldwide in ancient cultures when someone asks
for understanding before taking a creature's life or before felling a tree for
a home.
By
exercising an etiquette relationship with nature, we can realign our sense of
place and in turn, we experience a greater correctness in a more responsible
relationship with nature. Snyder himself has come to personify a meme which
evolved out of the counterculture movement and has been absorbed into
mainstream culture; the way to a richer life is to settle in, to learn the names
of the plants and animals.
5. How does Snyder bring in the idea
of "Deep Ecology, a philosophy holding that responsible citizenship of the
world includes mindfulness with regard to humans and nonhumans alike?
Ans: Deep ecology is an environmental philosophy that
promotes the inherent worth of all living beings. Deep ecology argues that the
natural world is a complex of relationships in which the existence of organisms.
Snyder to bring that idea in ecology, he thinks that there is the system of
check and balance and everything are inter-related and dependent each other to
survive. Since deep ecology is grounded in a different set of philosophical
assumptions. Deep ecology takes a holistic view of the world human beings live
in and seeks to apply to life the understanding that the separate parts of the
ecosystem (including humans) function as a whole.
6. How, Snyder argues, do we get into
the depths of the wild unconscious'?
Ans: The world is our consciousness, and it surrounds us.
There are more things in mind and imagination than we can keep track of our thoughts,
memories, images, angers, delights, and so on. The depths of mind, the
unconscious, are our inner wilderness areas but later when show in outer world,
we make balance and reliable. In other words our conscious minds operate on top
of the medium of the wild.
For language,
Snyder thinks that it is fundamentally connected to the unconscious layers of
interaction with the sensuous world. Due to wild unconscious, we make spontaneous
gesture and posture, and body activities in the time of threat . In this regard,
wild unconscious controls the physical activities of the body.
7. Write an essay on the relationship
between nature and the organic world around us.
Ans: In organic world, each and everything has chain like
relationship. The organic world is made up of microorganisms, plants, animals,
and man. Organic world is part of nature because without nature, their
existence is nil. Organic world grows out of the seed, the earth, and we are part
of all that, but we are rapidly losing the sense that we are animals like the
others.
8. What is the tone of the essay The
Etiquette of Freedom?
Ans: The tone of the essay is informative.
9. Do you really believe you are an
animal? Or In what specific ways are human beings' animals?
Ans: Yes I do. I think we are like an animal. There are
many similarities between humans and other animals that we notice. Both humans and
animals eat, sleep, think, and communicate. We are also similar in a lot of the
ways our bodies work. Like an animal, we also feel pain and agony, joy and
happiness. We also cannot survive on the earth without oxygen. Similarly, we
use new drugs clinical test on the animals. We also become alert in danger and terror
and reproduce the babies.
10. What sorts of things do we do
that have their basis in our animal nature?
Ans: Like animal, we go to hide if there is terror and
danger. We also breathe. To survive on the earth, we also eat food. Sexual
feeling is also within us. We also take care our babies.
11. "No expectations, alert and
sufficient, grateful and careful, generous and direct "(9). Discuss the
philosophical import of this expression.
Ans: Gary Snyder provides readers with a multitude of
facts, yet can somehow have them strung together as if it is a piece of art. He
really has a way of making his readers just stop to think about everything. It
is amazing that we can turn our heads, relax, reflect, and breathe. It is
amazing that we can learn from yesterday and the day before that. It is amazing
that we are capable of loving other people too.
We can
accept each other all as barefoot equals sleeping on the same ground. The
writer, being a follower of Buddha, says, "no expectations, alert,
sufficient, grateful and careful, generous and direct that tells the value of
simplicity, generous that should be possessed effectively and earnestly".