Summary Of The Trouble With Wilderness William Cronon

1717 Words4 Pages

Journal Entry #16: The Trouble with Wilderness by William Cronon – April 1, 2018
Our Perception of Wilderness
“For many Americans, wilderness stands as the last remaining place where civilization, that all too human disease, has not fully infected the earth (Cronon). I think that his choice of words in this phrase – particularly “disease” and “infected” – is very interesting, and sets the tone of the essay.
We regard wilderness as “the best antidote to our human selves” (Cronon), but…wilderness is actually “a product of civilization, and could hardly be contaminated by the very stuff of which it is made” (Cronon).
Seeing wilderness as a cultural invention seems to be Cronon’s general point of view. The definition of wilderness has changed …show more content…

He pointed out many ideas and concepts that most people have never thought about, or even realized in the first place. At the end of the essay, he writes: "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". This lack of self-consciousness in our actions is what can cause "trouble", as he mentions in the essay. I think that this concept goes for any other topic. Acknowledgment and self-awareness is extremely important. Why do we do things, say things, believe things? What influences us? There is always an influence to everything. Regarding the topic of wilderness, it was the moral values and cultural symbols that had a strong influence on the views of wilderness. The concept of wilderness today is very much different than that of the earlier centuries, and I learned that we must acknowledge and be aware of this. The underlining idea of this essay is that we humans created the idea of wilderness. The term has evolved and changed throughout the centuries, and it was very interesting to come to this …show more content…

According to these studies, people visit the wilderness for spiritual benefits. Some of these benefits include feeling stronger spiritually, gaining a sense of peace and serenity, and experiencing a sense of oneness with nature and the cosmos (Heintzman). Some visit the wilderness as “an escape from a hectic daily life and the opportunity for reflection and solitude” (Heintzman). There are those who feel “physical benefits” as they go to the wilderness for fitness/exercise. However, most studies found that majority of the people who visit the wilderness are there for a spiritual

Show More
Related

  • Chapter Summary Of 'Wilderness And The American Mind'

    754 Words  | 2 Pages

    From the prologue through chapter one in “Wilderness and the American Mind”, the author emphasizes the affect wilderness had on the Europeans during the colonization of America. In today’s society, we are familiar with the concept of wilderness but few of us have experienced the feeling of being encapsulated in the unfamiliar territory. Today we long for wilderness, crave it even. We use it as an outlet to escape the pace of life. However, we have a sense of safety that the Europeans did not. We are not isolated in the unfamiliar, help is usually a phone call away. Though we now view the wilderness as an oasis because we enter at our own terms, in the early colonial and national periods, the wilderness was an unknown environment that was viewed as evil and dangerous.

    Read More

  • Aldo Leopold’s Illinois Bus Ride

    1030 Words  | 3 Pages

    A number of ideas, suggestions, and points can be extracted from “Illinois Bus Ride,” a passage from Aldo Leopold’s collection of essays entitled A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There. However, there must be one main thesis that the author is attempting to get through to his audience. Leopold argues that we Americans have manipulated the landscape and ecosystem of the prairie so that it seems to be nothing more that a tool at our disposal. All aspects of what was once a beautiful, untamed frontier have been driven back further and further, until they were trapped in the ditches.

    Read More

  • Humility In Jon Krakauer's Into The Wild

    981 Words  | 2 Pages

    The wild is a place to push yourself to the limit and take a look at who you truly are inside. “Wilderness areas have value as symbols of unselfishness” (Nash). Roderick Nash’s philosophy states that the wilderness gives people an opportunity to learn humility but they fight this because they do not have a true desire to be humble. Human-kind wants to give out the illusion that they are nature lovers when in reality, they are far from it. “When we go to designated wilderness we are, as the 1964 act says, "visitors" in someone else's home” (Nash). People do not like what they cannot control and nature is uncontrollable. Ecocentrism, the belief that nature is the most important element of life, is not widely accepted. The novel Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer depicts a young boy who goes on an exploration to teach himself the true concept of humility. Chris McCandless, the protagonist, does not place confidence in the universal ideology that human beings are the most significant species on the planet, anthropocentrism.

    Read More

  • American Imagination In Into The Wild By Jon Krakauer

    400 Words  | 1 Pages

    The wilderness allows people to escape the crazy hectic lives they live daily and just unwind. Chris McCandless was “ unheeded, happy, and near to the wild heart,” throughout his soul-searching journey in the wilderness (Krakauer 31). Many people like Chris will experience different sensations in the serene wilderness, however it calls

    Read More

  • Analysis of The Abstract Wild by Jack Turner

    3431 Words  | 7 Pages

    the idea of the wild and its importance and necessity of human interaction with the wild.

    Read More

  • Ecotherapy Case Study

    962 Words  | 2 Pages

    Ecotherapy is an amalgamation of the ideas of ecopsychology and psychotherapy. At its core, ecotherapy claims that personal human distress can be alleviated by developing a connection with nature. It can include a variety of techniques from “horticulture therapy, wilderness excursion work, time stress management and certain kinds of animal-assisted therapy” (Chalquist, 2009). In the emerging sub-field it is often acknowledged that human emotional ailments come from the industrial world in which we live. Humans are evolutionarily wired to react and respond to nature in a way that manmade settings are not currently fulfilling. This disconnect is what allows many mental illnesses to thrive. It is not suggested that a reconnection

    Read More

  • The Land Ethic

    385 Words  | 1 Pages

    I think that he is trying to say that wilderness is something to be cherished and loved, because it gives definition and meaning to his life. His whole life was spent looking after and trying to preserve the wilderness. This is a plea for the preservation. I think that Leopold believes one day a lot of what we have today and he want it to be preserved so that in the future people have the chance to see there cultural inheritance like our ancestors let us see by preserving things.

    Read More

  • A Rhetorical Analysis Essay On Into The Wild

    781 Words  | 2 Pages

    He essentially enforces the readers to live in absolute nature in order to live their lives to the fullest. Christopher McCandless follows this ideal throughout the novel, Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. In Into the Wild, a young McCandless embarks on a significant journey to Alaska. Throughout the way, he abandons his family, identity, money, and his car in order to “live off the land” in the Alaskan wilderness. However, this ultimately led to McCandless’ demise, when his body was found dead on September 6, 1992, on the Stampede Trail. The cause of death was ruled to be as starvation, which brings me to my main point. In a world where technology is constantly taking over our lives, individuals should experience nature firsthand sometimes. However, purely living off the land as Thoreau suggests, is severely consequential. Even for experienced outdoorsman such as McCandless risk their lives to live in the isolation of pure nature, and it’s truly costly. So, I don't endorse this extreme

    Read More

  • Theme Of Changes In The Land By William Cronon

    855 Words  | 2 Pages

    Changes in the Land by William Cronon depicts the changes in New England brought upon by the European settlers in the 1600s. What was once only occupied by Native Americans, New England’s resources were sustainably consumed by the indigenous people of the land. However, in Cronan’s perspective, the arrival of the settlers brought upon drastic and detrimental consequences that would go on to affect the ecology of New England today. An apparent theme brought up in Changes in the Land is adaptation. Cronan arrays the theme of adaptation by displaying how the natives had to adapt to a sporadically changing lifestyle that the colonists attempted to assimilate into the land and its people.

    Read More

  • Summary Of The Wheels Of Freedom: Bicycles In China

    871 Words  | 2 Pages

    Many years ago, people saw the wilderness as a savage wasteland, but today, it is viewed as “the last remaining place where civilization, that all too human disease, has not fully infected the earth.” (Cronon) He discusses this changed point of view by stating the difficulties that society will have rectifying environmental ailments if it stops viewing wilderness as “a dualistic picture in which the human is completely outside the nature.” (Cronon) This is understandable because humans rely on others to create opinions, and they do not know how to form their own thoughts and solutions to issues such as environmental ones. Therefore, it is with great importance that humans begin to learn how to formulate their own thoughts and share those personal thoughts with others, such as sharing solutions about environmental

    Read More

  • Dillard and Thoreau Comparison

    1452 Words  | 3 Pages

    From the lone hiker on the Appalachian Trail to the environmental lobby groups in Washington D.C., nature evokes strong feelings in each and every one of us. We often struggle with and are ultimately shaped by our relationship with nature. The relationship we forge with nature reflects our fundamental beliefs about ourselves and the world around us. The works of timeless authors, including Henry David Thoreau and Annie Dillard, are centered around their relationship to nature.

    Read More

  • Femininity against Masculinity in A White Heron

    1703 Words  | 4 Pages

    ... middle of paper ... ... This conflict conveys the confrontation of wild American nature with the new-coming European civilization, people like the young hunter?had no qualms about doing harm to nature by thrusting civilization upon it? P. Miller, p. 207.

    Read More

  • Our Relationship With Nature Explored in Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild

    1104 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...can be a life-changing experience. McCandless entered the wild as an overly confident hitchhiker and left as a self-accepting and humble man. He thought that human relationships were futile, he was impervious to materialism, and that he could understand nature on a scientific level. However, McCandless left the wild with a newfound appreciation for humanity, some clarity on his purpose in life, and the ability to create his own legacy. Many people finish reading Into the Wild and form negative opinions about McCandless’ reckless behavior. However, it is important to focus on how being in the wild brought McCandless closer to understanding himself. Into the Wild should motivate humans to participate in explore the wilderness to discover the true meaning of life.

    Read More

  • Lost Child In The Wood Analysis

    724 Words  | 2 Pages

    Coming from a more urban place going up I am use to concrete and tall building. The wilderness is something of a fantasy seen mostly in books. The tallest tree I’ve seen where I am from now seem small and insignificant, being here and being surrounded by nature some of which has been around for hundreds of years. In an article called ‘Walk on the Wilder side’ an English teacher experiences how detach from nature her students are firsthand. “Somewhere in the recent past her students had become the Net generation, weaned on electronic text, instant messages, and virtual reality. The gap between word and world had widened at the time when cotemporary environmental authors cry out for reconnection.” (Mary Ellen Dakin, 2011). A need to bridge the gap between kids that grow up in urban setting and nature itself has never been more important now. People are now spending so much time on their phones and computer not only can they get disconnected from nature, but they can also get disconnected from the world. When the English teacher in an urban area found that many of her student did not have a good understanding of the nature around them, she had them go outside and sit in a park and write about what they saw and heard. “She would see that they lack a vocabulary specific to the natural world, unable to name types of trees, birds, insect, grasses, flowers, and weeds they observed (one student would write

    Read More

  • My Experience Of Nature: My Interactions With Nature

    1046 Words  | 3 Pages

    Although I don 't think that I 've ever spent more than a three days camping, but, I used to go to the camp every single week. The camp was in the middle of the desert where there is nothing but sand around you. It’s so quiet and peaceful away from the hustle and bustle of the city. Because we used to go a lot, we developed a some sort of a lifestyle there, and at least to me, it felt like a second home. As always, starting the day by either exploring the place, offroading or may be shooting targets and then ending the day with fireworks and cooking our dinner. Even though we were having a totally different lifestyle there, it still does feel like home to me and that is the time when I call nature a

    Read More

More about Summary Of The Trouble With Wilderness William Cronon

Open Document