An essay on "The Land Ethic" by Aldo Leopold.

When one looks at their "property" they think of the land that they own and not the land that has been provided for them. In Leopold's concept, land is viewed as we would view our neighbors or family, as an entity that deserves respect, fairness and care. He compares an empty lot to our dieing mother's house with the question of "Would you tear down your mother's house to install a parking lot or another shopping mall, and therefore tossing your mother to the street?" instead of "If we install this parking lot or mall can we be that much richer?". Leopold looks at property as a gift and a blessing, also not as a never-ending resource to be taken advantage of no matter how much more money you can make.

Today's world has become the consumer's world, where everyone is competing for the bigger and better, whatever that may be. With this new age of greed and gluttony has come blindness to the consequences of our actions. Even in this day and age of technology where we can actually have the foresight to see what will become, we still choose to ignore. Either out of denial or ignorance, whatever the poison, we still choose to continue on our self-destructive path. Leopold states that the conqueror role is self-defeating and therefore is a guaranteed method of ending your existence, which history proves over and over. If people were to notice that our never-ending hunt for the "bigger and better" were a form of conquering, then they would maybe see that we are only doomed for the inevitable extinction that has occurred to all others in similar situations.

Like Odysseus, people are too quick to hang their land from a rope and let it die without a second glance to consider...