The Last American Man Read Online Free

frontier. Which is to say that Eustace Conway believes that he is a Man of Destiny.
    Eustace created Turtle Island—the thousand-acre perfect cosmos of his own design—as the ultimate teaching facility, a university-in-the-raw,
     a wild monastery. Because, after years of studying primitive societies and after countless experiences of personal transformation
     within the wilderness, Eustace has formed a mighty dogma. He is convinced that the only way modern America can begin to reverse
     its inherent corruption and greed and malaise is by feeling the rapture that comes from face-to-face encounters with what
     he calls “the high art and godliness of nature.”
    It is his belief that we Americans, through our constant striving for convenience, are eradicating the raucous and edifying
     beauty of our true environment and replacing that beauty with a safe but completely faux “environment.”What Eustace sees is
     a society steadily undoing itself, it might be argued, by its own over-resourcefulness. Clever, ambitious, and always in search
     of greater efficiency, we Americans have, in two short centuries, created a world of push-button, round-the-clock comfort
     for ourselves. The basic needs of humanity—food, clothing, shelter, entertainment, transportation, and even sexual pleasure—no
     longer need to be personally labored for or ritualized or even understood. All these things are available to us now for mere
     cash. Or credit. Which means that nobody needs to know how to do anything anymore, except the one narrow skill that will earn enough money to pay for the conveniences and services of modern
     living.
    But in replacing every challenge with a shortcut we seem to have lost something, and Eustace isn’t the only person feeling
     that loss. We are an increasingly depressed and anxious people—and not for nothing. Arguably, all these modern conveniences
     have been adopted to save us time. But time for what ? Having created a system that tends to our every need without causing us undue exertion or labor, we can now fill these hours
     with . . . ?
    Well, for one thing, television—loads of it, hours of it, days and weeks and months of it in every American’s lifetime. Also,
     work. Americans spend more and more hours at their jobs every year; in almost every household both parents (if there are two parents) must work full-time outside the home to pay for all these goods and services. Which means a lot of commuting.
     Which means a lot of stress. Less connection to family and community. Fast-food meals eaten in cars on the way to and from
     work. Poorer health all the time. (America is certainly the fattest and most inactive society in history, and we’re packing
     on more pounds every year. We seem to have the same disregard for our bodies as we do for our other natural resources; if
     a vital organ breaks down, after all, we always believe we can just buy a new one. Somebody else will take care of it. Same
     way we believe that somebody else will plant another forest someday if we use this one up. That is, if we even notice that
     we’re using it up.)
    There’s an arrogance to such an attitude, but—more than that— there’s a profound alienation. We have fallen out of rhythm.
     It’s this simple. If we don’t cultivate our own food supply anymore, do we need to pay attention to the idea of, say, seasons?
     Is there any difference between winter and summer if we can eat strawberries every day? If we can keep the temperature of
     our house set at a comfortable 70 degrees all year, do we need to notice that fall is coming? Do we have to prepare for that?
     Respect that? Much less contemplate what it means for our own mortality that things die in nature every autumn? And when spring
     does come round again, do we need to notice that rebirth? Do we need to take a moment and maybe thank anybody for that? Celebrate
     it? If we never leave our house except to drive to work, do we need to be even remotely aware of