COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

Although different on many levels such as style, line of argument and

topic, “The Walling of Awareness” by Jerry Mander and “On a Greek Holiday”
by Alice Bloom share at least one conclusion, namely they both explore the
detachment of the western civilization’s citizens from certain facets of reality.
While Bloom comments on said topic only briefly, asserting that “having money
means being able to buy the end product […]; therefore, money replaces
knowledge” (349), Mander places the topic of the people’s growing
estrangement from nature in the central position of the first part of his essay.
“Human beings” says Mander “no longer trust personal observation, even of the
self-evident, until it’s confirmed by scientific or technological institutions”
(310); his work assumes that we are born into the state of ignorance and it
differs from Bloom’s assertion, according to which we tend to choose the
convenience of money over the nobility of knowledge.

By the way of exploring the aforementioned ideas, the authors of both

texts utilize numerous examples of empirical and foreign experiences alike.
More interestingly, both writers have decided to include—among dozens of
others—at least one instance of children’s opinion; in order to illustrate how the
young perceive modern world Mander quotes one of the conversations with his
own son during which the latter ponders on “who built Mt. Tamalpais” (310).
That very question, followed by Mander’s answer—“it grew up out of Earth
thousands years ago” (310)—are incorporated into the essay to show the
differences between, respectively, what we perceive as the truth and what should
actually be seen as such. To the same end Bloom’s work includes the comments
of her children on the masses of people swarming the streets of Greece; as the
young ones see the vast amount of “fat and slow and old”, “crippled and
maimed”, “feeble of mind and body”, “blind and begging” that wander the
roads, they seem to identify that fact with the greater toll of such “outcasts”
(348) in Greece than in United States, while the truth that they should have
observed is that Greek streets are simply “used by and for people” (348), they
are no less than a home to many of their citizens.

Personal observations of the authors’ are different to those of their

children, the conclusion that the writers draw out of them are, however, all the
same. Mander, for instance, clearly states that “when we see a forest, or
experience it in other ways, we can count on the experience being directly
between us and the planet” (311) which words can be interpreted as “the less
human creation surrounds us, the more truth we can perceive”. Similarly Bloom
asserts that “the less money you have to spend, perhaps, the more your chances
of getting a whiff, now and then, of what another place is like” (350), and so the
more of the true nature of the unfamiliar location is revealed. Similarity between
the above conclusions is rather clear, as both of them discernibly indicate that
being rooted in western mode of life leaves the people partially blind or ignorant
toward the truth behind certain phenomena, be it the authentic experience of
Greece or the mesmerizing touch of nature.

As stated above, despite sharing one conclusion the two texts are
essentially different in every single aspect: while “On a Greek Holiday”
explores the commercialized, untruthful face of modern tourism and comments
on the real nature of Greece, “The Walling of Awareness”—having already
encompassed the topic of humans’ detachment from nature—circles the topic of
artificial environments that that the citizens of the western civilization live in.
The style utilized in the texts differ accordingly; essay by Mander incorporates
ordinary line of argument with numerous examples used in order to reinforce his
key points, whereas Bloom’s work has been built around the description of two
women—one from Greece and one from unidentified foreign country—passing
each other on one of the numerous Greek streets.

Works Cited:

Bloom, Alice. On a Greek Holiday

Mander, Jerry. Walling of Awareness