Reading Response to Braiding Sweetgrass                           
Sabina Arias

This reading made me think about how children are mended at such a young age to pledge allegiance to a system they do not understand. The idea of asking the them to comply with a political system far beyond their comprehension seems a little bit unethical. 

The Western World can learn about non Western cultures, especially Amerindian ones, to practice gratitude. This is a way of appreciating what you have and recognizing the cyclical structures of time and nature.

I deeply agree with the authors notion that “recognizing abundance rather than scarcity undermines an economy that thrives by creating unmet desires” (111). I also like the idea about receiving gifts and in turn giving something back. I feel like our consumerist economies creates a false image of the resources of the Earth as infinite and doesn’t take into account this idea of cyclical co-existence.

The only critique I would add to this is the use of the word democracy to describe our relation to the animals and the living world. Democracy implies horizontal equality, reciprocity, mutuality and exchange. This word can not be put into the context of animals because it doesn’t correspond to the humanity’s history of violent consumption of animals, Western or not.