Contemporary Environmentalism

According to William Cronon’s “The Trouble with Wilderness”, the main concerns with the wilderness term being humanly constructed and lack of concern with the local environments. Cronon emphasize much of the historical and philological meanings of wilderness as a human construct via spiritual and religious perspectives. He desired for people stop putting so much emphasis on the above and beyond that is out of our reach and focus on the present. He pushed this into the idea of one should start putting emphasis and care into one’s own environment rather than just focusing on environments beyond the local one. He believes change should start locally.

Sadie Stieff English 153 March 12, 2024 Connection Narrative The wilderness is something I have always loved, however, I do admit that my previous idea of the wilderness was expansive land untouched by humans in its purest form. However, after reading Trouble with Wilderness by William Cronon I have realized that humans have made the concept of the wilderness into these vast forms of dynamic, untouched nature when in reality the wild is a small amount of nature all around us. One of my favorite memories I had with nature was when I traveled to China and visited the Great Wall of China.

Throughout history, humans have had a strong reliance on nature and their environment. As far back as historians can look, people have depended on elements of nature for their survival. In the past few decades, the increased advancement of technology has led to an unfortunate division between humans and nature, and this lack of respect is becoming a flaw in current day society. In Last Child in the Woods, Louv criticizes modern culture by arguing that humans increasing reliance on technology has led to their decreasing connection with nature through the use of relevant anecdotes, rhetorical questions and powerful imagery to appeal to ethos.

‘The sheer popularity’ of stimulating nature or using nature as ad space ‘demands that we acknowledge, even respect, their cultural importance,’ suggests Richtel. Culturally important, yes. But the logical extension of synthetic nature is the irrelevance of ‘true’ nature— the certainty that it’s not even worth looking at. (Louv lines 9-19)

The modern Environment Movement began with the passing of the Wilderness Act of 1964. The act established a National Wilderness System and created 9 millions acres. The main influence and writer of the act Howard Zahniser, who felt that we needed wilderness as it takes us away from technology that gives us perspective of mastering the environment rather than being a part of it (Nash, 2001). With the passing of the act Americans questioned both preservation and conservation. A new culture emerged in America that rejected societal norms and praised independence and freedom. This culture developed in the youth of America and sparked change in preservation growth and the overall outlook of wilderness.

In “The Trouble with Wilderness,” William Cronon illustrates the paradox within the notion of wilderness, describing that if wilderness is that which lies beyond civilization -- beyond humankind, then so is the notion of nature outside the realm of the human... that humans are therefore, unnatural. Further, he explains that if our concept of nature (and ultimately our concept of God) is outside of humanity, then our existence is synonymous with the downfall of nature. That wilderness is purely a construct of civilization is central to this argument.  For example, Cronon asserts that “the removal of Indians to create an ‘uninhabited wilderness’---uninhabited as never before in human history of the place---reminds us just how invented, just how constructed, the American wilderness really is” (pg.79). Instead of in isolation from civilization, Cronon finds that his most spiritual experiences with nature have always been closer to home… a sense of wildness (versus wilderness) can be found in one’s backyard, gazing from a front porch, and in the melding of the human experience with mother nature. One of Into the Wild’s final scenes drives home this idea by altering the literal point of view that main character, Chris McCandless, has had of both himself and of the world since the beginning of his two year journey.  Into the Wild attempts to dramatizes Cronon’s argument to rethink wilderness; we will examine how the film succeeds, and where it fails, to support its premise.

This paper will begin with an exposition of the article, “Radical Environmentalism and Wilderness Preservation: A Third World Critique” written by Ramachendra Guha, a sociologist and historian involved in ecological conflict in the East and the West. In this article, he refers to American environmentalism as “deep ecology”, a modern theory founded by Arne Naess. Guha’s argues that based on a comparison of the concepts of deep ecology and other cultural environmentalisms, deep ecology is strictly rooted in American culture and thus, leads to negative social consequences when it is applied to the Third World. This argument will be achieved by first defining deep ecology and its principles.

The Cronon argues that individuals have to change the way of our thinking about wilderness. Cronon’s article Getting back to wrong nature or the trouble with wilderness describes that the wilderness, as individuals see, has no direct relativity to nature. He is of the opinion that people have excluded nature from their Western Culture. The main idea of Cronon’s text is that people can find a solution of their environmental disturbance if they stop thinking of wilderness as “a dualistic picture in which the human is completely outside the nature” (Cronon). The concept of wilderness in people’s mind was of an aggressive and horrifying desert.

The short story, “The Wild Parks and Forest Reservations of the West,” by John Muir paints a picture of the necessity of human interaction with the wilderness. In his story Muir pleads with his audience to gain more appreciation of nature and to understand their impact on it by using religion, pathos, and imagery.

Yet Americans in this period also revered nature and admired its beauty; the spirit of nationalism fed the growing appreciation of the uniqueness of the American wilderness

These are issues that I often ponder. I realize this consciousness is atypical of many of my compatriots. However, the roots of my compulsive musings are not wholly random because I was subjected to much similar thinking from an early age. Having grown up in a region where civilization and development were slow in coming, and where trees outnumber cornstalks and coal mines corn silos, we had ample opportunity to reflect on man’s relationship to nature. My parents are two well-educated, biologically trained individuals with an almost obsessive need to be outdoors. They met, so the story goes, in a graduate school class when my mother asked my father for his pocketknife to scrape moss from a tree trunk. It was love amongst the bryophytes. They spent several years trekking all over the U.S. on vacations to national forests and monuments and deserts and mountains, and my arrival on the scene did not cease their wanderings. Though I did restrict the locale. There are numerous pictures of one of my parents standing on some wooded ridge with the peak of my red hat sticking up over their shoulder.

Many people would find it easy to sympathize with the conservation of the natural, magnificent wilderness and all of its glory; and Subhankar Banerjee, the author of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and Land, A Photographic Journey, uses that sympathy to gain the reader’s support in his claims. While his article does offer a very compassionate viewpoint with vivid imagery to capture the reader’s attention, it lacks strong logos arguments to back up his claims and falls victim to a few major logical fallacy points that injure his stance.

White’s thesis in The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis states that in order to confront the expanding environmental crises, humans must begin to analyze and alter their treatment and attitudes towards nature. The slow destruction of the environment derives from the Western scientific and technological advancements made since the Medieval time period. “What people do about their ecology depends on what they think about themselves in relation to things around them” (RON p.7). Technology and science alone will not be able to save humans until we adjust the way of thinking and suppress the old ideas of humans power above nature. Instead, we need to learn how to think of ourselves as being

Through removal and technology, humans have started to become isolated from the wilderness and the nature around them. This view distinctly contrasts with Thoreau’s perspective. “Though he [Thoreau] never put humans on the same moral level as animals or trees, for example, he does see them all linked as the expression of Spirit, which may only be described in terms of natural laws and unified fluid processes. The self is both humbled and empowered in its cosmic perspective,” states Ann Woodlief. The technologies that distract and consume us, and separate us from the natural world are apparent. Many people and children ins cities have seen little to no natural-grown things such as grass and trees. Even these things are often domesticated and tamed. Many people who have never been to a National Park or gone hiking through the wilderness do not understand its unruly, unforgiving, wild nature. These aspects, thought terrifying to many, are much of why the wilderness is so beautiful and striking to the human heart. “Thoreau builds a critique of American culture upon his conviction that ‘the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality,’” pronounces Rick Furtak, quoting Thoreau’s Life

Throughout today’s society there are several different cultural perspectives which form theoretical and practical understandings of natural environments, creating various human-nature relationship types. In this essay, I will describe and evaluate different ways of knowing nature and the impact of these views on human-nature relationships. From this, I will then explore my own human-nature relationship and reflect on how my personal experiences, beliefs and values has led me to this view, whilst highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each and reflecting upon Martin’s (1996) continuum.