Dr. Seuss Was Right - Melaver, Inc.

Dr. Seuss Was Right

2006
Martin Melaver, CEO

            On the far-away island of Sala-Ma-Sond
            Yertle the Turtle was king of the pond . . . .
            “I’m ruler,” said Yertle, “of all that I see.
            But I don’t see enough, that’s the trouble with me.”

And so Yertle has his turtle minions eventually build a living stack of 5,607 turtles so that his view is total and unobstructed. And the turtle tower collapses. I’d like to say it’s one of my kid’s favorite stories, but the truth is, I’m the secret fan. So too with this one:

It’s a story of the Once-ler, a hermit, who as a young entrepreneur discovers a wonderful multi-use commodity called a Thneed which could be made from the seemingly inexhaustible supply of Truffula Trees. A local voice of moral conscience, the Lorax, protests this industry, but there is no stopping the Once-ler (the name is telling). There is a local population of Brown Bar-ba-loots that need the Truffula Trees for shade and the Truffula Fruits to subsist upon, but their needs take a back seat to the cottage industry the Once-ler creates. The cottage industry creates industry, and the industry creates smog, which chases the indigenous Swomee-Swans away. A silent spring ensues in the town where Grickle-grass grows. And the cottage industry creates Gluppity-Glupp, a toxic by-product that finishes off the Humming Fish population. And despite the dire warnings of the Lorax, the town where the Grickle-Grass grows is finished

No more trees. No more Thneeds. No more work to be done.
So, in no time, my uncles and aunts, every one,
All waved me good-bye. They jumped into my cars
And drove away under the smoke-smuggered stars.
Now all that left ‘neath the bad-smelling sky
Was my big empty factory . . .
The Lorax . . .
And I.

And finally there’s the one I was first introduced to, probably at the age of five, The Cat in the Hat Comes Back. You know it: the cat taking a bath, leaving a pink ring, then utilizing an escalating series of strategies to remove the ring, each strategy simply escalating the presence of the problem, until Thing 1 and Thing 2 resolve things with a nuclear-like explosion.

So, let’s think about the triad above: a despotic belief in the right to see all and rule all, an unquestioned hegemony of business over everything else, and a reliance on man-made inventions to solve a problem that the preceding technology escalated. Or in other words, an anthropocentric world view (substituting man for turtle), the unquestioned primacy of economics over ecology, and a religious faith in technology.

There probably isn’t a more thorough critique of modern culture than these three so-called children’s books. And there probably isn’t a more succinct prescription than the final words from The Lorax:

“But now,” says the Once-ler,
“Now that you’re here,
the word of the Lorax seems perfectly clear.
UNLESS someone like you
Cares a whole awful lot,
Nothing is going to get better.
It’s not.

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