What It Would Take to See the World Completely Differently

sense of wonder so indestructible it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strengths.2 • RACHEL CARSON

She wants readers to adopt and embody an ethos that makes room for the vitality of matter. In her view, it’s a useful attitude. “Without modes of enchantment, we might not have the energy or inspiration to enact ecological projects,” she writes. We might find it hard to “contest ugly and unjust modes of commercialization, or to respond generously t

Wonder, thus construed, helps us to see the world as valuable for its own sake, and thus helps us not only see it as a means to human ends. A person who sees the natural world as intrinsically valuable will not be tempted to use it as a mere means, and thus end up with very different attitudes and relationships to the environment.

What happens to a society that loses its capacity for awe and wonder at things to come?