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The Trouble with Wilderness: Or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature

The purpose of the journal article titled The Trouble with Wilderness: Or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature by William Cronon is to explore if the possibility of the preservation of the world is through wilderness. According to the author, William Cronon, wilderness is not what we may assume it to be and as a result wilderness is a human creation that does not stand apart from civilization. In other words, wilderness is influenced by the cultures and histories of humans that has in one form or the other been contaminated by some type of human development. Wilderness is also made of all the memories that a person gets while walking through a natural path in a natural environment, which are also influenced by a cultural creation. In the late eighteen century the word wilderness meant to be a savage, deserted, and waste (Cronon 8). The word wilderness has also been mentioned in the bible to referrer to the place where Moses wondered for forty years with his people. Wilderness in the early years also referred to a place where a person went against their own will with fear. It was also a landscape where supernatural activities occurred. For instance, God seemed to appear in the most sublime places where a person was reminded of their mortality (Cronon 10). These sublime places are now located in The Grand Canyon, Yellowstone Park, and Zion because of the emotions that these places induced.

William Wordsworth, an early romantic writer and artist, described his sublime experiences in his poem The Prelude, which is based on the terror he felt while he crossed the Simplon Pass and climbed the Alps. Other writers, liked John Muir, captured the domesticated part of the sublime wilderness, which is extremely different than the writings of Wordsworth and Thoreaus. In Muir’s writings on the North Dome in Yosemite Valley, he describes the place as being a religiously connected without pain or fear. Although there are some differences in the way these writers chose to express their perception of wilderness, they all have one thing in common and that is that they are participating in the same cultural tradition of mankind’s myths. Mankind’s myths have caused Americans to protect their wilderness and national parks for the preservation of the nation’s important sacred myth (Cronon 14). The protection of these landscapes was influenced from the vanishing frontier lands that sparked Americans’ fears of losing their history. The vanishing frontiers caused American leaders, like President Roosevelt, to protect the wilderness landscapes from becoming wiped out. The vanishing frontiers in America also created strong nostalgic emotions that lead to the creation of frontier gender myths. In the frontier wilderness, for instance, men were able to be real men without civilization threatening their masculinity. This impacted people to remember the frontier as the greatest place in the history of America.

The years that followed the wiping out of the frontier, the rich community saw the wilderness as recreation places and places to travel to. The developments of these touristic places for the elites lead the Native America Indian population to be forced to move to other locations. In the eyes of Native American Indians, the myth of the wilderness being a virgin uninhabited land is seen with cruel eyes because their land was taken away for touristic purposes. This lead to the concept that the American wilderness is truly a myth because it has all been invented. There is no uninhabited wilderness in America that was not previously inhibited by Indians. In order for the wilderness myth to be perpetuated Indians were removed from their homes, which had also been the homes of their ancestors. This is a reminder of how invented the American wilderness concept really is because the actual history of the wilderness is denied.

Wilderness is meant to be a place of freedom in which a person can find their true self and also a place to come back to after living an artificial life. In other words, wilderness is the ultimate place for authenticity where a people can come and learn more about themselves. The problem with wilderness is that it can also be used as a place where a person comes to escape responsibilities and not take accountability for the past. In the long run, I found this journal article to be genuine and well thought out compared to the ideas of other writers. The author, William Cronon, did an excellent job in explaining the historical myth events that have led humanity to become separate from the wild environment. For instance, Thoreaus has approached wilderness as a spiritual place where human beings can come and heal. Cronon on the other hand, remained emotionally indifferent towards the spiritual and emotional opinions of wilderness. He instead wanted humankind to take responsibility for the separation that exists between cultures and wilderness.

Sources:

Cronon, William. “The Trouble with Wilderness: Or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature.” Enviromental History Vol 1 (1996): 7-28. Print.

 

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