Leviathan in the Desert

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.

 

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