Contemporary Relevance of Rachael Carson's Silent Spring

Rachael Carson’s Silent Spring was a revolutionary work of literature that foundationally changed the way in which its readers and people inspired by it viewed the natural world and thought about their relationship with it. An aspect of Silent Spring that is relevant today more than ever is the decision-making by authoritarians temporarily entrusted with power that goes against the will of the very people that elected them and the experts that have scientific data to prove the blunder in these decisions. A broader context that this falls under is the corporate influence in government policy-making that had a strong lobbying power in Carson’s time and continues to do so today (85). Addressing this issue, Carson questions the rights of such authoritarian figures to make decisions on behalf of the masses. She writes “Who has decided – who has the right to decide – for the countless legions of people who were not consulted that the supreme value is a world without insects, even though it be also a sterile world ungraced by the curving wing of a bird in flight? The decision is that of the authoritarian temporarily entrusted with power; he has made it during a moment of inattention by millions to whom beauty and the ordered world of nature still have a meaning that is deep and imperative.” (127)

Carson ends the quote mentioned above by recognizing the inattention by millions of people in the shadow of which most decisions are made by the people in power. Not much has changed in this context, except the increased ease of access to information, the internet, and social media. One would assume that the invention of the internet and social media would be transformational in the path towards widespread and swift access to information, and to a certain extent, they have, however, governments and corporates continue to either hide or manipulate information that is mass distributed when required for things to function in their favor. Carson quotes the naturalist Walter P. Nickell in the discussion of Japanese beetles in Detroit, Nickell states that “The numbers have not shown any appreciable increase in all this lapse of years. I have yet to see a single Japanese beetle [in 1959] other than the few caught in Government catch traps in Detroit…Everything is being kept so secret that I have not yet been able to obtain any information whatsoever to the effect that they have increased in numbers.” (87) Such instances continue to exist.

Another consequence of such authoritarian decision-making is the ignorance or denial of scientific data or utilization of data that does not have a strong back-up or the correct approach, choosing corporate greed and industrial growth over the prosperity of nature, living standards, and the planet, and deceiving the public with manipulated data and twisted words. Carson emphasizes such an approach being used by the corporates and the government; she says that “The credibility of the witness is of first importance. The professional wildlife biologist on the scene is certainly best qualified to discover and interpret wildlife loss…Yet it is the control men in state and federal governments – and of course the chemical manufacturers – who steadfastly deny the facts reported by the biologists and declare they see evidence of harm to wildlife.” (86) Industries that polluted waterbodies used an infamous three-step approach - spill, study, and stall - to deal with the consequences. Evidence of industries using such an approach to deceive the public can be seen till today.

Authoritative decisions are continued to be made without public consultation or awareness. In Carson’s time, most of the public did not have the sources to obtain accurate knowledge that is unbiased and delivered in time, and most of this information was time-sensitive. Not much has changed over time but a drastic change, that we have witnessed, is the ease of obtaining accurate knowledge for most of the population and an advanced and convenient level of access to it. This essentially changes everything if utilized in a correct manner. In fact, we are observing the strength of this change happening before us. A movement like Sunrise would have never been possible without this technology that not only provides convenient access to a wide variety of data but connects the people mutually interested in studying it and using it to make a change. I wonder what steps Rachael Carson would have taken with technology this advance and social media at her disposal. Would she have rather started her own movement?

Carson continues to influence and motivate people to become more activist. She continues to make us question our alleged dominion as a species over the natural world and the role of authoritarian members who execute policies without public consultation and choose greed, power, and industrial expansion over the wellbeing of the citizens they serve and the environment that inhabits them. Her broader mission was to get us to rethink our place in this world, our impacts, our spatiotemporal characteristics, and impact, and the relationship we share with the natural world, and all of these are aspects that are still incredibly relevant today. Carson raises the question that “whether any civilization can wage relentless war on life without destroying itself, and without losing the right to be called civilized” (99) and I believe this is a question that defines our current situation. How far can we go without destroying ourselves and having the right to be called civilized or have we already gone too far?