Wilderness Letter By Wallace Stegenner Summary

I have grown up with a mindset common to most of humanity, that the world is our property to rule and therefore we must conquer and control it by any means. With this mindset I and most of humanity view the earth as a tool for our satisfaction and a stepping stone to our self-defined greatness. Having read Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, I have begun to challenge this belief as he explains this mindset through the concept of Mother Culture. Quinn describes a world of Takers and Leavers. Takers are people who mold the world around them for their own benefit, and Leavers are those who live in harmony with the environment, as part of the ecosystem. For the Takers, Mother Culture maintains a lifestyle that is proven to be unhealthy and self-destructive.

In Wallace Stegner’s “Wilderness Letter,” he is arguing that the countries wilderness and forests need to be saved. For a person to become whole, Stegner argues that the mere idea of the wild and the forests are to thank. The wilderness needs to be saved for the sake of the idea. He insinuates that anyone in America can just think of Old faithful, Mt. Rainier, or any other spectacular landform, even if they have not visited there, and brought to a calm. These thoughts he argues are what makes us as people whole.

Throughout time, many people have given up their normal lives in order to live simply. Whether it’s going out and living in the wild alone or giving up electricity and running water. “Sometimes the weight of civilization can be overwhelming. The fast pace ... the burdens of relationships ... the political strife ... the technological complexity — it's enough to make you dream of escaping to a simpler life more in touch with nature.” (Nelson) Some just can’t handle it, but some have too. Whether it’s criminal, religious, research reasons, or the world is just too much to handle living out in the wild happens for a reason and there are certain things that influence it.

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

Change make us feel alive because it is the essence of every living thing. Chris MacCandless and Timothy Treadwell desperately needed a change in their lives in order to escape from their past unpleasant experiences and problems and they found their solution in the wilderness. Leaving the human word of comfortable excesses and surrendering their fates to nature empowered them to gain back a feeling of control over their lives. When your life is under a constant threat and you push yourself to your limits trying to survive in the wild, you start looking at many things differently than in normal circumstances. Wilderness can be a perfect place to find a peace in your mind and help you find your answers, but it is also a dangerous place that you

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.

Berry’s mention of the farmer and an understanding of his farm is a constant theme in this essay. Agriculture, a distribution of products born from the earth and its entrance into our bodies as nourishment, describes an interdependence. The development of highways, industry, and daily routine of work and obligation, has caused a romanticization of wilderness. High mountain tops and deep forests are sold as “scenic.” Berry reminds the reader that wilderness had once bred communities and civilization, and that by direct use of the land, we are taught to respect and surrender to it. But by invention of skyscrapers, airplanes, we are able to sit higher than these mountain tops and this is his first representation of disconnect from Creation. Mechanical invention leads one to parallel themselves with godliness, magnifying self worth and a sense of significance. What is misunderstood is that through this magnification, because there is no control or limit, we “raise higher the cloud of megadeath.” Our significance is not proved by the weight of our material wealth, rather

Roderick Frazier Nash’s book, Wilderness and the American Mind, compiled contemporary debates about wilderness by outlining the changing positions concerning wilderness throughout history. In chapter 11, “Aldo Leopold: Prophet,” Nash discuses Aldo Leopold’s house metaphor. Here, Leopold refers to six vacant lots and what it would mean to build houses on all six lots. He describes how the first few houses might make sense; however once you build upon all six lots you no longer remember the meaning of the homes. He argues that they somehow the sixth house would become “stupidity.” Conversely, I disagree with this theory. I feel each house, so to speak, is built differently and suits different needs and wants. Just as in the wilderness,

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.

I confess, I all too well know that living in the digital age, I have hindered my opportunities to immerse myself in nature like Henry David Thoreau. There is rarely a day that passes by that I do not use my cell phone or computer. Too often I forget that the outside world is more enigmatic and dynamic than anything that can be found on the computer or in the concrete jungle I enter when I go back home. I crave the mesmerizing and reflective space that nature has always provided since the dawn of time. Nature allows me to feel alone, but also become a part of something at the very same time. Thoreau beautifully claims, “We need the tonic of wildness...At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all

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.

The use of technology in society today has drastically increased and has became difficult to comprehend. To the point where it started to consume people’s lives no matter how hard they strived to be individuals, and it drew a wedge between society and nature. In Richard Louv’s passage, “Last Child In The Woods,” he emphasizes how over time the relationship between people and nature has declined by using rhetorical strategies such as imagery, anecdotes, and hypothetical examples.

Imagine spending thirty days alone in a tent or a cabin in the wilderness with no technology, electricity, running water, and any form of communication. Every day you wake up to the sight of the beautiful, tall trees and the various wildlife living in the area. Most of the time, you can hear the many sounds of nature: the majestic songs of birds, the whistling in the wind, and trees rustling. But sometimes all you can hear is nothing but silence. Most of us would not be able to do this and we would most likely want to be anywhere but here. Not many people will experience living in the wilderness, but for those who have will have memories to treasure forever. Among those people who would choose this

The summary of Consumed Identity and Anxiety in The Age of Plenty talks about how our consumerism has affected our society. Instead of using our voice to tell people what we think or showing what our personalities are, we use goods to illustrate who we are. In the film, it says that the people in this generation are living in the golden age, but we have strange addictions which are becoming noticeable in our society. We all direct our attention towards our materialistic wants and don’t worry about the earth that we are destroying with our pollution. If we keep using these materials, our resources will run out. People haven’t noticed that our Earth doesn’t have unlimited resources. As a species, we put all of our needs and wants ahead of our Earth. As Dr, Warren Hern said “We are the cancer of the Earth and cancer kills”. This implies that we are the reason the Earth is starting to become destroyed. We all need to come together and find a way to stop this illness of wants and needs which is causing all of this pollution. If we work together we can create a better place for the generations to come.

Kurt Vonnegut fears that if the realization becomes late, it may destroy not only human race but as well his beautiful planet which is created for mankind to enjoy. Men have changed his notion of enjoyment. They think that artificial things would fill them with happiness forgetting the fact that nature has an immeasurable wealth. Nature is ready to give mankind