On how a few important and inspiring AmericanStudiers would suggest we
respond to the most long-term yet most pressing world crisis.
“Simplify, simplify.” Those words and that message are at the heart of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, or Life in the Woods (1854)—of
Chapter 2, “Where I Lived,
and What I Lived For”; and of the purpose and message of Thoreau’s time at
the pond and book about the experience. It’s true that Thoreau wasn’t
nearly as alone in his cabin as his book sometimes suggests—that he went to
town and received visitors from there, that he depended on some help from his
parents, that he was social as well as solitary during his Transcendental
sojourn. But far from making Thoreau or the book hypocritical, as has sometimes
been suggested, those facts make him and it more human and genuine and
inspiring—represent his lived experience and demonstrate his attempt to wed
that experience to ideals of simplicity and reconnection with the natural
world. If we’re going to change the way we live in this 21st century
moment, Thoreau would argue, it’s going to have to start with simplifying and
reconnecting for sure.
“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” So
pioneering naturalist, conservationist, and author John Muir once noted in his
journals (collected in this wonderful
1938 book, John of the Mountains).
Muir is often described as a founding
father of the National Park movement—or at least as sharing that honor with
Teddy
Roosevelt, since Muir died before the National Park Service was created—and
there’s a good deal of truth to that designation. But even truer would be the
recognition that for Muir, there’s no meaningful individual life, no communal American
identity, and perhaps no world period that doesn’t include engagement with,
respect for, and preservation of our natural spaces. Preserving, appreciating,
and venturing into the wilderness isn’t, by itself, nearly enough to reverse or
even impact climate change, of course. But the more we move into the wilderness
in our individual lives—and the more we allow it to move into all of our
perspectives—the more, Muir would argue, we can connect to the most universal
and crucial human questions.
“The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth
superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies
disaster.” So wrote environmental
activist, scientist, and author Rachel Carson in Silent
Spring (1962), one of the 20th century’s and America’s
most prescient and salient works. Carson’s
specific attention to the dangers of pesticides, and similar environmental
hazards, had in her era and have continued to have significant, lasting,
and very beneficial effects. But when it comes to her most overarching message,
her concerns over the path of progress and where it is taking us, we have been
far less able to hear and respond. Doing so won’t be easy, not only because of
inertia and momentum, but also because progress and development most certainly
have their own positive and beneficial impacts on the world and those who live
in it. But at the very least, Carson would insist, we must examine every aspect
of our world, and recognize that in a significant number of cases we will have
to move away from easy or attractive ideas (see: fracking) in
order to travel on the harder but more sustainable road.
All voices we
must hear, it seems to me. Next big issue tomorrow,
Ben
PS.
What do you think? Thoughts on this issue? Other questions you’d highlight?
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