Urban ku # 112 ~ wilderness is a bad thing
Wednesday, October 3, 2007 at 08:34AM 
Autumn ground cover and fence post • click to embiggenIn response to yesterday's entry, Kent Wiley mentioned an essay, The Trouble with Wilderness, or Getting Back to the Wrong Nature, by William Cronon, a professsor of environmental history at the University of Wisconsin.
In essence, the essay is similar in its point to the one in a book, Down To Earth - Nature's Role in American History, that I have mentioned here before. A quote from the essay;
"... 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 ... then also by definition it can offer no solution to 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.
Worse: to the extent that we live in an urban-industrial civilization but at the same time pretend to ourselves that our real home is in the wilderness, to just that extent we give ourselves permission to evade responsibility for the lives we actually lead. We inhabit civilization while holding some part of ourselves—what we imagine to be the most precious part—aloof from its entanglements. We work our nine-to-five jobs in its institutions, we eat its food, we drive its cars (not least to reach the wilderness), we benefit from the intricate and all too invisible networks with which it shelters us, all the while pretending that these things are not an essential part of who we are. By imagining that our true home is in the wilderness, we forgive ourselves the homes we actually inhabit. In its flight from history, in its siren song of escape, in its reproduction of the dangerous dualism that sets human beings outside of nature—in all of these ways, wilderness poses a serious threat to responsible environmentalism at the end of the twentieth century ..."
Cronon goes on to write; "... Wilderness gets us into trouble only if we imagine that this experience of wonder and otherness is limited to the remote corners of the planet, or that it somehow depends on pristine landscapes we ourselves do not inhabit. Nothing could be more misleading. (an aside: visit any of the online nature photography sites and take note that they all strictly forbid any signs of man in their landscape forums. Pictures with any sign of man, which must be kept to an absolute minimum, are relegated to a 'ghetto' forum which has far less interest, participation and activity) The tree in the garden is in reality no less other, no less worthy of our wonder and respect, than the tree in an ancient forest that has never known an ax or a saw—even though the tree in the forest reflects a more intricate web of ecological relationships ..."
Photography-wise, here's what this means for me - (again from Cronon) ...If wilderness can ... help us perceive and respect a nature we had forgotten to recognize as natural—then it will become part of the solution to our environmental dilemmas rather than part of the problem.
This will only happen, however, if we abandon the dualism that sees the tree in the garden as artificial—completely fallen and unnatural—and the tree in the wilderness as natural—completely pristine and wild. Both trees in some ultimate sense are wild; both in a practical sense now depend on our management and care. We are responsible for both, even though we can claim credit for neither. Our challenge is to stop thinking of such things according to set of bipolar moral scales in which the human and the nonhuman, the unnatural and the natural, the fallen and the unfallen, serve as our conceptual map for understanding and valuing the world. Instead, we need to embrace the full continuum of a natural landscape that is also cultural, in which the city, the suburb, the pastoral, and the wild each has its proper place, which we permit ourselves to celebrate without needlessly denigrating the others. We need to honor the Other within and the Other next door as much as we do the exotic Other that lives far away ...
To wit: a preoccupation with pictures of 'pristine wilderness' - as exhibited by the overwhelming majority of nature/landscape photographers (romanticists) and as exhibited by a vast adoring throng of viewing admirers - primarily serves the purpose of instilling and perpetuating the problematic 'dualism' in which the human is entirely outside the natural'. By their (the romanticists) overt omission of the 'Other next door', they indulge (in all probability, not intentionally) in a not-so-subtle denigration of the 'commonplace', or, as Cronon writes; "...my principal objection to wilderness (as a cultural invention - ed.) is that it may teach us to be dismissive or even contemptuous of such humble places and experiences ... Idealizing a distant wilderness too often means not idealizing the environment in which we actually live, the landscape that for better or worse we call home." I couldn't agree more.
With my pictures, I want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
PS - if you read the essay by Cronon (it's long and a little speed reading is called for), he takes a few interesting swipes at Emerson and Muir.
gravitas et nugalis
Featured Comment: Brett Kosmider wrote ; "... As far as photographs of pristine wilderness, I disagree, there's a place for them. If on the one hand you're saying its a sin not to appreciate photos of anthropocentricity, I say it's a sin to not appreciate a landscape that is seemingly untouched by man. I would like to think that photographs of today's Arctic, as an example of the 'pristine', would inspire future generations when seeing what they have lost."
My Response: I guess I need to clarify my position re: pictures of pristine wilderness.
Some pictures of pristine wilderness are good, probably even necessary for a variety of reasons (including for the pure pleasure of it all). My objection is based on the excessive preoccupation with such pictures (by both makers and viewers) to the exclusion of all else that is not 'grand and glorious'.
And, it is my experience with such picture makers that, not only are they totally addicted to the 'grand and glorious', but they also are not satisfied with what god/nature have wrought. In the words of Sally Eauclaire, author of seminal but now-out-of-print book, The New Color; "... Their lust for effect is everywhere apparent. Technical wizardry amplifies rather than recreates on-site observations. Playing to the multitudes who salivate at the sight of nature (in the belief that good and God are immanent), such photographers often choose such picturesque subject matter as prodigious crags, rippling sands, or flaming sunsets ... (which) they burden with ever coarser effects. Rather than humbly seek out 'the spirit of fact', they assume of the role of God's art director making his immanence unequivocal and protrusive."
Unfortunately, it seems that a preoccupation with the 'grand and glorious' and an addiction to wretched photo-effects go hand-in-hand. What the photographic results of these predilections have to do with 'pristine wilderness' or the 'beauty of nature' is way beyond my reckoning.
For an excellent example of nothing exceeds like excess, photography-wise, visit here. Warning: exercise optical caution. Retina searing is a possibility. Those with a known addiction to eye candy should beware.
gravitas et nugalis
Featured Comment: Matthew Cromer wrote ; "A low blow, Mark ... Can't someone else exercise their own creative interpretation of the landscape without being smeared by you as inauthentic?
My response: Sorry to hear that my critique upsets you. However, when any artist hangs his/her work out on the line in public, their work is fair game for a critique/review - in the best of cases, for one that is an informed critique.
Anyone who had followed the discussion here over the preceding days would know that there was lots of discussion on wilderness, how/what is portrayed and the effects of various forms of 'interpretation'. My opinions were made plain and the basis for those opinions - (respected writers, art critics, etc) was also expressed - hardly uninformed.
I don't like the photography that I linked to as an example of 'wretched excess'. I think that, at best, it is little more than sentimental dreck and, at worst, that is harmful to the cause of conservation and preservation. I would call my opinion, just that, an opinion and a crritique - not a smear.
Of course, opinions vary, and I always respect differing informed opinions. In fact, I encourage them here on The Landscapist.
Reader Comments (12)
Mark,
Thanks for taking the time to read this excellent essay. You've also pulled out some juicier quotes than I did. The piece has definitely got me thinking in new directions about how I see the world, and how we photograph it.
And I really like the accompanying image of a fence post - with the wire broken, and all the connotations it suggests.
Brett Kosmider wrote, but for some reason was unable to post:
I had the opportunity to interview Mr. Cronon for a doc I worked on for PBS. Some of his arguments bothered me at the time. His philosophy that the term wilderness is a fallacy; a term devised by man to create something that is not truely wild at all, really shook my understanding of 'pristine wilderness' to the core.
Since then I've done much reading by the likes of Cronon, Olson, Nash, Leopold et al. And coincidentally I've had to endure the Bushy views of some of my family members ("pave the planet!") as well as explain to my Siera Club friends why I disagree with some of their extremism (don't get me wrong, they do good work, but sometimes I feel their views put civilization lower on the rungs than it should be). My point is, I feel there should be balance, or shades of gray, when it comes to wilderness protection.
The same doc I worked on where I interviewd Cronon I also spent some time in the Boundary Waters and profiled a man named Ernest Oberholtzer. As one of the founders of the Wilderness Society he was integral in establishing that area, but more importantly his views on wilderness included "Man" in the equasion. He saw wilderness protection as city planers use zoning to determine what type of development is appropriate in certain areas. Some lakes he saw as open to motor use, others only to paddlers. Some forests open to limited logging. This multiple use approach sounds a lot like the plan in place governing land use in the Adirondacks.
By the way, I think Cronon is brilliant, but as with anyone there's a few things I say, "I don't quite buy that", but on the whole, I dig what he's saying.
It bothers me that some conservation groups are unwilling to compromise and create an atmosphere of contemptuousness - this only bolsters the 'other side' and creates gridlock.
As far as photographs of pristine wilderness, I disagree, there's a place for them. If on the one hand you're saying its a sin not to appreciate photos of anthropocentricity, I say it's a sin to not appreciate a landscape that is *seemingly* untouched by man. I would like to think that photographs of today's Arctic, as an example of the 'pristine', would inspire future generations when seeing what they have lost.
From here it looks like the "autumn groundcover" is mostly poison ivy. Can't get the picture embiggened enough to tell for sure. Wonder if that is intended as emphasis on theme that wilderness is a bad thing.
It's fun to see Bill Cronon mentioned here; his work is certainly apropos. Growing up together in Madison, Wisconsin, we had a club called the Apple Corps. It never did much, but I think we finally got around to inviting someone else to join. He's having more impact these days.
Now, now Mark, be nice. I knew who the link was to even before I looked at it to confirm my suspicions.
We do everything wrong. We do farming wrong. We do transportation wrong. We do energy wrong. We do food wrong. We do trade wrong. We do election finance wrong. We do media wrong. We export democracy wrong. We do governmental spending wrong. We do housing wrong. We do urban and suburban development wrong and on and on. It seem that blaming this on one of the few things we do right on occasion is a load of bull. It's not that we have this land use ideas call wilderness that is the problem. It's that most of us don't give a damn about the future. All we care about is filling the hole in our souls with products and junk food. And making sure curtain among us make a great profit from it.
Mark,
Yeah, those landscapes on the site you call out there are a little *too* perfect. Speaks to the photographer-as-painter post a few posts ago. But, damn, I bet that guy is handy in PS!
I forgot to mention that Mr. Cronon was also the editor of Library of America's "John Muir: Nature Writings" assemblage of books, stories and essays. But I suppose the swipes were due to Muir and Emerson to back up his thesis.
A low blow, Mark.
Can't someone else exercise their own creative interpretation of the landscape without being smeared by you as inauthentic? I've witnessed many alpine sunrises and sunsets that match the kinds of images Adamus is portraying. Do corners burned in and blurred in photoshop somehow grant versimillitude in a way that bold and saturated sunrises and sunsets do not?
I write this as someone whose own nature photography often tends towards much more understated images than Adamus creates, but I also appreciate his own style and flavor.
I'm surprised to hear the questioning of the authenticity of the photography of Marc Adamus by those who profess to know something about landscape photography. I DO expect such questioning from amateurs who might not bother to get up at 5 am to see such displays or who don't otherwise have the patience or knowledge to understand that sometimes nature IS over the top in its beauty. Those amateurs are the quickest to suspect that something is enhanced in Photoshop because they simply haven't been fortunate to witness the real thing.
I agree that much 'nature' writing - particularly of the canonical North American variety - serves to intensify our sense of being something other than nature. Empathy usually arises becasue we feel that we identify with something - invest some part of ourselves in it (whether this is our car, or our cat, our neighbourhood, or our planet). Unless we can retrieve this sense of connection with the planet, I think we will have difficulty in being moved to save it. 'ValuingNature.org'