Determining Wildness

I am working on my last paper, (at least for a while), and I can't say I am not ready for a break. I swear I have sustained a typing injury- and I think my right forearm muscles have grown slightly larger than my left, not to mention I am super restless and (can you tell?) slightly whiny. I am dragging my feet in my work, though I do (in theory ) find the subject fascinating. It is this: that our creation story introduced the world in terms of polarities- right/ wrong, obedience/ freedom, man/ woman, good/ evil, nature/ civilization- even dominion/stewardship. In order to transcend this dualistic thought, a third idea must be born. One plus one equals three.

So, I love the books- these quotes are from 'Uncommon Ground', the result of an academic seminar on the state of the environment, attended by scientists and literary types alike. Good stuff. These are from an essay called "The Trouble with Wilderness" by William Cronon.

“This, then, is the central paradox: wilderness embodies a dualistic vision in which the human is entirely outside the natural. If we allow ourselves to believe that nature, to be true, must also be wild, then our very presence in nature represents its fall. The place where we are is the place where nature is not. If this is so- if by definition wilderness leaves no place for human beings, save perhaps as contemplative sojourners enjoying their leisurely reverie in God’s natural cathedral- then also by definition it can offer no solution the environmental and other problems that confront us. To the extent that we celebrate wilderness as the measure with which we judge civilization, we reproduce the dualism that sets humanity and nature at opposite poles. We thereby leave ourselves little hope of discovering what an ethical, sustainable, honorable, human place in nature might actually look like."

“Learning to honor the wild- learning to remember and acknowledge the autonomy of the other- means striving for critical self consciousness in all of our actions. It means deep reflection and respect must accompany each act of use, and means too that we must always consider the possibility of non- use. It means looking at the part of nature we intend to turn toward our own ends and asking whether we can use it again and again and again- sustainably- without its being diminished in the process. It means never imagining that we can flee into a mythical wilderness to escape history and the obligation to take responsibility for our own actions that history inescapably entails. Most of all, it means practicing remembrance and gratitude, for thanksgiving is the simplest and most basic of ways for us to recollect the nature, the culture, and the history that have come together to make the world as we know it. If wildness can stop being (just) out there and start being (also) in here, if it can start being as humane as it is natural, then perhaps we can get on with the unending task of struggling to live rightly in the world- not just in the garden, not just in the wilderness, but in the home that encompasses them both."