I was able to use a few of the things I learned in John Berger's About Looking. The best section of the book for my purposes was the story called "Lowry and the Industrial North." Lowry was a British painter who came to national attention after a London art dealer set up an exhibition for him. Berger says that Lowry's art does not belong to mainstream 20th century art because it fails to concern itself with interpreting new relationships between man and nature. I thought this was really important. The relationship between man and nature is the purpose behind my public policy. The change is needed because in the current system man is abusing nature by the way we use energy.

To a lesser extent I was able to use the section "Why Look at Animals?" The point I focused on is how man is losing his closeness to animals because of our developing capitalist societies. I extrapolated this out to how we are also losing our closeness to nature in general by damaging it without much concern.

These themes were useful in guiding my public policy and enabling me to have a better understanding of how to look at the problem behind my public policy. The understanding I developed was critical in helping me decide what kinds of images to select and what type of language to use to invoke these themes.

Cornell's Vision of Spiritual Order