Throughout Nussbaum’s piece, she is constantly touching on worldly cultures and ideals, something that really made me think about my personal experiences. 4 years ago, I went on a private exchange to Germany, and also visited The Netherlands, Belgium, and Denmark. At the young age of 16, I was blown away by the different cultures and ways of life; a wonderful experience I was being constantly reminded of when reading Citizens of the World. Nussbaum doesn’t necessarily talk about sustainability, but since it is the subject of this course, it was a topic that I constantly paused and related her words to.
America is a comparatively young nation, and in my opinion we are making the same mistakes that our Eurasian peers made long ago. We are treating our land and natural resources like they are expendable and being overzealous in our consumption, something we are currently coming to realize. How this relates back to my experience abroad was that I could tell that these cultures had a lot more history than my homeland did, and it showed in their subconscious actions, beliefs, and how that acted as a society. The particular family I stayed with had one vehicle for their entire family, they composted all that they could, grew all the fruits or vegetables they were able to and bought locally the ones they couldn’t. If they didn’t need to drive somewhere, they took a train or bus, or even better, rode their bikes. They had a grass roof, rain barrels to water their garden, LED lights in every room that even had lights, and low flow plumbing fixtures. They didn’t choose to live this way, like many American households are starting to do, they lived this way because this is how their culture lives; this is what their society deems normal.
I hope that someday, in the near future, America will live like this, and learn from a mistake already made for us.
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