1992 graduate of SJHS and a graduate of the Great Books program of St. John’s College
There’s
a whale about to be dropped on the desert of Utah. Not a live animal, but a
system, a mindset. Since Thomas Hobbes wrote his famous book in 1651,
“leviathan”—the word means “whale” in Hebrew—has come to signify anything
large, unwieldy, and dominant. The beast in question here combines government
regulation, mass tourism, and modern disenchantment. It is a proposed national
monument, bigger than the state of Delaware, and once it plops onto this
fragile terrain, people in the surrounding communities fear what the splash may
bring . . . .