Charles Fort, Wilderness
I'm reading The Book of the Damned, by Charles Fort, and it's pretty cool. It echoes a sentiment I'd expressed some time ago to a friend when we were talking about nonduality. I said that the fact that species differentiation is very blurry at the edges is one indicator that the desire to attribute things to neat categories is unfounded.
Fort acknowledges that at towards the center of these categories that don't really exist, it can be easy to draw boundaries, and I would say that for practical purposes, it can be useful. But in the end, it's all intermediate, and he sees it as importnat to keep that in mind. It's kind of hard to wrap one's mind around, and it comes and goes for me, but I dig it.
I also recently read "The Trouble with Wilderness, or Getting Back to the Wrong Nature," by William Cronon. It's pretty interesting, and definitely useful to me, but I feel like I've come to terms with a lot of the shortcomings of romanticizing the wild already on my own. He makes some really great points, though, such as pointing out that wilderness has often been constructed as a place of refuge from the urban or suburban, and that experience of the wild is often very tied up to tools of the civilized (cars, camping gear, etc.) He says wilderness is the stand-in for a Judeo-Christian godhead that many environmentalists reject, environmentalists who then project those feelings of awe and grandeur to the pristine wilderness. I think he writes this off, failing to consider that perhaps the feelings of awe and grandeur were on wilderness in the first place, then projected to a Judeo-Christian god, and then re-projected on nature. He criticizes, rightfully, the idea of wilderness as a place of nature absent of humans, but that's an idea that I think primitivists don't hold- we want to get back out there and re-establish a place for humans in the wild.
Maybe I'm partial to the idea of wilderness, and I am still romantic about it. I recognize his criticisms, and do think they are a much-needed counterpoint. I also think his suggestion to place value in other elements of the natural world, no matter how humanly manipulated. is important. But you know, diversity of tactics- not everyone has to do the same thing, or even agree on the same principles or tactics, and doing so may be more effective than debating about the one right way and trying to get everyone behind it.
Fort acknowledges that at towards the center of these categories that don't really exist, it can be easy to draw boundaries, and I would say that for practical purposes, it can be useful. But in the end, it's all intermediate, and he sees it as importnat to keep that in mind. It's kind of hard to wrap one's mind around, and it comes and goes for me, but I dig it.
I also recently read "The Trouble with Wilderness, or Getting Back to the Wrong Nature," by William Cronon. It's pretty interesting, and definitely useful to me, but I feel like I've come to terms with a lot of the shortcomings of romanticizing the wild already on my own. He makes some really great points, though, such as pointing out that wilderness has often been constructed as a place of refuge from the urban or suburban, and that experience of the wild is often very tied up to tools of the civilized (cars, camping gear, etc.) He says wilderness is the stand-in for a Judeo-Christian godhead that many environmentalists reject, environmentalists who then project those feelings of awe and grandeur to the pristine wilderness. I think he writes this off, failing to consider that perhaps the feelings of awe and grandeur were on wilderness in the first place, then projected to a Judeo-Christian god, and then re-projected on nature. He criticizes, rightfully, the idea of wilderness as a place of nature absent of humans, but that's an idea that I think primitivists don't hold- we want to get back out there and re-establish a place for humans in the wild.
Maybe I'm partial to the idea of wilderness, and I am still romantic about it. I recognize his criticisms, and do think they are a much-needed counterpoint. I also think his suggestion to place value in other elements of the natural world, no matter how humanly manipulated. is important. But you know, diversity of tactics- not everyone has to do the same thing, or even agree on the same principles or tactics, and doing so may be more effective than debating about the one right way and trying to get everyone behind it.
posted by Archangel at 7:57 AM
4 Comments:
You wrote: "I think he writes this off, failing to consider that perhaps the feelings of awe and grandeur were on wilderness in the first place, then projected to a Judeo-Christian god, and then re-projected on nature."
Yeah, I think you're right. Look at how long humans practiced animism(And were quite content, I might add)compared to practicing any one of our civilized religions. Salvationist religions just don't do it for most people, IMHO.
Curt,
Thanks for writing! I'd agree that most people see civilized religion as inadequate. That's why I was an atheist for a while. I think Thomas Berry said that the great tragedy of western religions is the separation of creator and created, that is, theism. because once god is somewhere else not here, god may as well be nowhere at all, and thus atheism is only one step from theism.
So sad! There's so much wonder and awe and beauty in life that ascribing all holyness to a creator we can never experience with our senses seems like theft.
I read this recently in a book I randomly picked up here at TD, "How to shit in the Woods". Thought it was interesting, and I've been thinking about it since.
"We did not think of the great open plains, the beautiful rolling hills, and winding streams with tangled growth, as "wild." Only to the white man was nature a "wilderness" and only to him was the land "infested" with "wild" animals and "savage" people. To us it was tame. Earth was bountiful and we were surrounded with the blessings of the Great Mystery. Not until the hairy man from the east came and with brutal frenzy heaped injustices upon us and the families we loved was it "wild" for us. When the very animals of the forest began fleeing from his approach, then it was for us the "Wild West" began."
- Luther Standing Bear, of the Oglala Sioux
I have my own critiques of so-called "wilderness" as well. A quick example: most people when they think of the wilderness only think "forest", when wilderness extends to every biome imaginable. And don't get me started on how wilderness is romanticized. What people don't get when I tell them that I'm interested in living primitively and in the wilderness, is that for someone like me it's very uncomfortable and highly inconvenient. I'm not romanticizing it at all, so to be accused of this romanticization really misses the point.
- Devin
Yeah, Ran makes a similar point and calls visions of forest wilderness eco-porn that sets aspiring greenies up for unfulfillment because the expectations are unreasonable. he defines wilderness as any place where order comes from the bottom up, rather than the top down. Like when I think about those rebuilding ecologies- all the players on the ground engage one another and set the terms of the ecosystem, and any order we see from afar comes from those interactions, rather than some edicts from a non-existent ruler.
Thinking about it that way, wilderness is everywhere! It's just that the centralized control system still has lots of power that it tosses around. But wilderness, order from below, is the path of least resistance, and when we stop trying to impose order, and let things be, wilderness emerges and civilization/control recedes. i think that's really cool!
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