Dear Marion,

Thank you for your letter with its account of the ethical-political 
controversies at the UMN (is that an acceptable acronym?)  about
industrialized agriculture and run-off, about industrially financed
pharmaceutical research. I was vividly reminded of Ibsen's "An Enemy
of the People", a play with which, given your interest in drama, you
are probably familiar. If not, you should read it.

Problems such as the ones you cite are obviously of great practical
importance in our culture. To me they are of immediate, personal
interest as instances of a new, latter-day ethics, the nature and the
parameters of which have yet to be recognized, not to speak of being
defined. We're no longer living in a world where ethics could be
summarized in God's question to Cain: Why did you kill Able? Of course,
if God had read Goethe, he would have instructed Cain: "Gegen die
grossen Vorzuege eines anderen ...", and saved Cain from much
embarrassment.

Although I am less sensitive to hot water than most bloated frogs, 
I am aware of the risks of incurring your displeasure for witholding
unqualified endorsement from ideologies congenial to you.  Behind 
the bumper stickers I see social, psychological, and economic issues
of complexities so great that they admit of no direct verbal, logical
resolution, issues on which each one of us stakes out her or his
position corresponding to myopic or hyperopic, but seldom to emmetropic
perception.

Of course, industrialized agriculture is not congenial to me. Neither 
is mountain top ablation mining, strip mining, clear cutting of forests,
nor is the production of textiles, shoes, furniture, machinery in
factories as distinct from homes and private workshops. But where does
one draw the line? Modern society is inconceivable without industrialization.
All human activity constitutes a threat to the environment.