My parents both worked for the Forest Service, and I grew up with their view point: they were not in service to the people visiting the forest, but in service to the forest itself. There is a pass road at the end of my otherwise dead-end valley, and Jeepers cloud the air with dust, speeding through town all summer. For me, it's an easy hike. Maybe 5 miles to the top? If that? And I loathe these people because when they hop out of their cars, they're fully capable. They just want to *drive* it. I understand using a car if hiking isn't an option, but they blare their stereos and turn into people's driveways and litter, and I struggle to relate to how they enjoy the outdoors — this precious wilderness sanctuary that they bastardize with noise and pollution. I don't get it, and my disdain clouds my vision for anyone who isn't stoically humbled by nature.
I get that, as someone who was raised with a similar mindset. I don't think everyone is going to react to nature the same way as us though. I'm working on a much bigger piece about this problem. I don't think it's a simple solution for sure. Thanks for adding your perspective!
As an outdoor lover who believes that time in the outdoors has the power to transform us, I'm torn. I don't want uninterested people crowding my own communion with nature, but I also want the experience to be more accessible for people. It's not an easy answer and it's full of nuance.
Thanks for sharing your perspective. That's how I feel as well. I was a bit torn when putting together this article too. It's certainly a tough balancing act.
My buddies and I once did a (fairly) rigorous hike up to Machu Picchu. It was great to spend more time in those mountains, get acclimated, rather than taking the train to a bus to arrive to the grounds. I have to admit I was pretty annoyed at how overrun the park was, given our three day hike to get there. Still, to your point, what I remember is the hike there, and forget most of what I saw at the ruins themselves. It was a special time.
I think you've tapped into the problem of the exploitation of our natural resources, in terms of recreation, that will forever be in contradiction and dependent on our moral character; and the only answer to it is to raise our flags high behind Wendell Berry and become a community of farmers once again. Because the problem is we have created a space of "civilization", and that we leave that space to go "out into nature", where we are expecting pristine (there's that word again!) landscapes that are devoid of humans. Our conservation associations don't help with this fallacy — pick up any junk mail from the Sierra Club and you won't find a single human or human artifice in any of the pictures.
That's a contradiction. It makes a commodity out of our natural resources, and if a thing can be made a commodity then it can be exploited however we (or the powers that be) want it. The only way I see for it to not be completely exploited out of our society is to stop letting that dichotomy exist. Acknowledge that we are in nature, we come from a place of empty landscape that we created civilization out of, that we should be in harmony. Then grow a goddam bean field.
This is all better said in Wendell Berry's book, "The Unsettling of America".
Great points. I hadn't considered your point that even taking a "pristine" natual place and showing pictures of it is inherently commodifying and exploiting it.
Perhaps I've posed a false dichotomy in this piece, and the real one is "Harmony vs. Exploitation?"
I like that better, for sure. And harmony emphasizes the natural give-and-take between our use of natural resources and what's best for our environment.
Great question and great post, Cole. I hope to make time to chime on on your discussion thread. To me, it's not how many humans see a particular outdoor wonder, but that the outdoor wonder remain as pristine as possible, for no other reason that it exists and we know that it exists—natural beauty for its own sake, not for what humans can get out of it.
Thank you for reading! This is definitely a tricky conclusion, I wrestled with this one for a long time. I have mixed feelings about getting up the mountain this way, but still wonder if experiences like these can create more passionate advocates for protecting the environment. Will that cause a net good? I don't think I have the answer to that question.
I certainly don’t have an answer, either! But it reminds me of the debate involving zoos— whether to take certain animals out of the zoo on ambassador trips like Jack Hanna of the Columbus Zoo did- I don’t agree with that idea. I also don’t I think wild animals should be in Zoos for people to stare at in hopes that some of those visitors would become animal activists. Yet, if being born and raised in captivity can save a species… It is a tough issue!
There's a zoo in Colorado that I think you'd like, then. It's a sanctuary for rescued animals like tigers an wolves. The whole place is just miles of catwalks super high above the wild space where they run free.
My parents both worked for the Forest Service, and I grew up with their view point: they were not in service to the people visiting the forest, but in service to the forest itself. There is a pass road at the end of my otherwise dead-end valley, and Jeepers cloud the air with dust, speeding through town all summer. For me, it's an easy hike. Maybe 5 miles to the top? If that? And I loathe these people because when they hop out of their cars, they're fully capable. They just want to *drive* it. I understand using a car if hiking isn't an option, but they blare their stereos and turn into people's driveways and litter, and I struggle to relate to how they enjoy the outdoors — this precious wilderness sanctuary that they bastardize with noise and pollution. I don't get it, and my disdain clouds my vision for anyone who isn't stoically humbled by nature.
I get that, as someone who was raised with a similar mindset. I don't think everyone is going to react to nature the same way as us though. I'm working on a much bigger piece about this problem. I don't think it's a simple solution for sure. Thanks for adding your perspective!
As an outdoor lover who believes that time in the outdoors has the power to transform us, I'm torn. I don't want uninterested people crowding my own communion with nature, but I also want the experience to be more accessible for people. It's not an easy answer and it's full of nuance.
Thanks for sharing your perspective. That's how I feel as well. I was a bit torn when putting together this article too. It's certainly a tough balancing act.
My buddies and I once did a (fairly) rigorous hike up to Machu Picchu. It was great to spend more time in those mountains, get acclimated, rather than taking the train to a bus to arrive to the grounds. I have to admit I was pretty annoyed at how overrun the park was, given our three day hike to get there. Still, to your point, what I remember is the hike there, and forget most of what I saw at the ruins themselves. It was a special time.
I think you've tapped into the problem of the exploitation of our natural resources, in terms of recreation, that will forever be in contradiction and dependent on our moral character; and the only answer to it is to raise our flags high behind Wendell Berry and become a community of farmers once again. Because the problem is we have created a space of "civilization", and that we leave that space to go "out into nature", where we are expecting pristine (there's that word again!) landscapes that are devoid of humans. Our conservation associations don't help with this fallacy — pick up any junk mail from the Sierra Club and you won't find a single human or human artifice in any of the pictures.
That's a contradiction. It makes a commodity out of our natural resources, and if a thing can be made a commodity then it can be exploited however we (or the powers that be) want it. The only way I see for it to not be completely exploited out of our society is to stop letting that dichotomy exist. Acknowledge that we are in nature, we come from a place of empty landscape that we created civilization out of, that we should be in harmony. Then grow a goddam bean field.
This is all better said in Wendell Berry's book, "The Unsettling of America".
Great points. I hadn't considered your point that even taking a "pristine" natual place and showing pictures of it is inherently commodifying and exploiting it.
Perhaps I've posed a false dichotomy in this piece, and the real one is "Harmony vs. Exploitation?"
I like that better, for sure. And harmony emphasizes the natural give-and-take between our use of natural resources and what's best for our environment.
Yes!
Great question and great post, Cole. I hope to make time to chime on on your discussion thread. To me, it's not how many humans see a particular outdoor wonder, but that the outdoor wonder remain as pristine as possible, for no other reason that it exists and we know that it exists—natural beauty for its own sake, not for what humans can get out of it.
Thank you for reading! This is definitely a tricky conclusion, I wrestled with this one for a long time. I have mixed feelings about getting up the mountain this way, but still wonder if experiences like these can create more passionate advocates for protecting the environment. Will that cause a net good? I don't think I have the answer to that question.
I certainly don’t have an answer, either! But it reminds me of the debate involving zoos— whether to take certain animals out of the zoo on ambassador trips like Jack Hanna of the Columbus Zoo did- I don’t agree with that idea. I also don’t I think wild animals should be in Zoos for people to stare at in hopes that some of those visitors would become animal activists. Yet, if being born and raised in captivity can save a species… It is a tough issue!
There's a zoo in Colorado that I think you'd like, then. It's a sanctuary for rescued animals like tigers an wolves. The whole place is just miles of catwalks super high above the wild space where they run free.
Sounds wonderful!