The views of the author on the pastoral ideal culminate in a stark contrast with those of other authors who contend that it is a culture blanketed in the false ideology. While the truth about the pastoral ideal and design emanates in different patterns that are happily illustrated by the use of poems and locomotives, the whole idea melts into nothing but mere conjecture. However, the true meaning emanates in the author’s discourse of the pastoral ideal that is defined by using the larger structure of thoughts that are distinctly expressed in pastoral dreams and poems.
The author supports the statement that “Ortega uses the term “pastoral ideal” to describe the outlook of a new kind of a Naturmensch rising up amid a civilized world” (Marx 9). The author strongly opposes the claim supported by many authors on the pastoral ideal by arguing that it is a mass culture that is wrongly embedded in the minds and way of life of many Americans and the implications on society.
I agree with the statement because the authors who support the views, held by most Americans on the concept of the pastoral ideal, contend that it is inherent in the American thinking of sentimental pastoralism. Here, Meyers uses the term “Old Republican idyll”, Hofstadter refers to the term “agrarian myth” and Smith uses the term “myth of the garden” to describe the term “pastoral ideal” in a wrong way. Here, Ortega’s criticism is based on the true concept of pastoralism that is presented with a false meaning. Here, Freud affirms that the alternative views held about pastoral design indicate the epitome of the fantasy expressed in the abandonment of the application of modern technology and the complex technical order.
The author states that the “kind of pastoralism is the only kind evident in America today, we should have every reason to conclude that it is merely another of our many vehicles of escape from reality – one of those collective mental activities which can be taken seriously only for diagnostic purposes” (Marx 10). The author affirms that the American thoughts about pastoral design and ideal are illogical and incoherent.
I agree with the statement that there is a lack of discourse and clear patterns of thoughts to support the true meaning of pastoral ideal as held by the people. The most impressive element in this statement is that most of the ideals used to explain the reasoning lead to an escape from reality into the realms of falsehood.
Although “Theocritus is regarded as the first pastoral poet, Virgil’s Eclogues are the true fountainhead of the pastoral strain in our literature” (Marx 18). The position taken by the authors who support vulnerable the idea ideas the term “pastoral ideal” is in opposition to the pioneers of the true literature on pastoral design.
I disagree with the statement because the assertion of the author does not explain the distinct source of the true meaning of the statement and the reasons leading to the conclusion. Here, the author compares the true meaning of the pastoral ideal with the sound of a locomotive in the wilderness or the plight of a dispossessed herdsman trying to bring present the correct order of doing things in the world that could impinge upon the pastoral landscape with a clearer definition of the pastoral ideal.
References
Marx, Leo. “The machine in the garden.” The Green Studies Reader: From Romanticism to Ecocriticism. Edited by Lawrence Coupe. London: Routledge, 2000. Print.