by Mira Gibson
The term ‘environment’ has multiple meanings. For William Cronon, an environmental historian, ‘environment’ is related to a discussion of national parks and the illusion of wilderness. For environmental philosopher Steven Vogel, the environment consists not just of plants and animals, but also the commodities of a civilisation.[i] Upon reading Cronon and Vogel’s work, I gained a greater understanding of my own biases and my connection with the environment as a place where I can be my authentic self. I will enrich this reflection by considering Cronon’s criticism of wilderness and Vogel’s discussion of humanity’s alienation from nature.
The most recurrent motif in my life is nature, starting from my first home in Calgary, Alberta, in a small backyard garden with ferns, bumblebees, and strawberries. I remember holding wiggling worms in my hands and letting a ladybug rest on my fingertip. This has manifested into a desire to hike and enjoy wilderness. I like going up to Mt. Tambourine just to see and walk through the rainforest. I feel at home in nature, and it is where I feel like I am my most authentic self. This sense of self is one of the strongest emotional experiences that I have when interacting with the environment.
William Cronon’s article ‘The Trouble of Wilderness’ (1996) problematises the type of experience that I just described. He describes how the inclination to idealise wilderness comes from the Romantic Sublime movement[ii] that situates wilderness as an escape from civilisation and as a space to reclaim an authentic self.[iii] Specifically, he centres this discussion on the logic that saw the rise of American national parks like Yellowstone. Calling back to the nostalgic myth of the unsettled lands of America, national parks offered a place for people to “escape the confining structures of civilised life”.[iv] Specifically, national parks were created to protect the cultural illusion of wilderness. This is problematic because the national parks were already places of Indigenous civilisations. People who had cultivated the land into what it was were forced out of their homes and onto reservations to ensure the coloniser’s enjoyment of the illusion of a “virgin” wilderness in its “original state”.[v] This logic is still prevalent today. For instance, the Parks Australia website advertises their botanical gardens as the “perfect retreat from the rush of city life,”[vi] upholding the nature/human civilisation dichotomy. This idealisation of getting away from civilisation is growing more prominent within tourist imaginaries[vii] and is something with which I identify. When I plan my semester breaks, I usually try to make a trip to a national park with the hopes of renewing my energy and feeling more authentic afterwards. The feeling of authenticity is when my actions feel more aligned with my ‘core’ or ‘essential’ self.[viii] I feel like my decision to be in nature comes from the ‘core’ part of me. Being in nature simultaneously expresses and affirms this core self. This is opposed to my ‘city life’ where my decisions to live in a city apartment and work an office job come from necessity and not because it reflects my core values or desires.
This illusion and idealisation have two consequences within environmental discussions. Firstly, by celebrating wilderness as the antithesis of human civilisation, the dualism between humans and nature is maintained.[ix] If the untouched wilderness is the ideal, then there is arguably no place for humans to exist within nature. It then follows that there can be no ethical discussions around what it might look like for humans to have a place within nature. Secondly, this illusion and idealisation alienates me from the impact my actions have on the environment. By localising authenticity within the untouched wilderness, there is an evasion of responsibility for the lives lead within civilisation. If my core values are located within the wilderness and if I view my life in civilisation as non-essential to my idea of self, then what do my actions within civilisation reflect about me? If my actions in my ‘city life’ and their consequences are unessential or even contrary to my core self, they are then somehow not a reflection of who I truly am.[x]
While I do not generally think of wilderness as untouched by humans, I do operate under the assumption that there is a division between my authentic ‘core’ self that I experience in ‘nature’ and the daily life I lead in my university apartment. However, upon reflection, I do not think that by localising my authentic self within more nature-abundant places I do not also find wonder in the environment that I have cultivated around me in the place I call home. I do feel a sense of authenticity when I am gardening or walking down tree-lined streets. This appreciation for environments (or ‘the wild’ as Cronon would put it) aligns with Cronon’s call to action. He writes, “If wilderness can stop being (just) out there and start being (also) in here, if it can start being humane as it is natural, then perhaps we can get on with the unending task of struggling to live rightly in the world”.[xi] The flight from responsibility that is enabled by the dichotomy between civilisation and nature can be undermined by acknowledging the wonderful wild things close to home. If this dichotomy can be dissolved, then people can more easily imagine their effect on the environment and thus develop a deeper ethical relationship with the environment.[xii]
A way that this can be facilitated is through a purposeful and educated engagement with wild spaces. While Cronon is right to locate this sense of wonder and authenticity within urban environments as well as ‘wilderness’ areas, it is important to acknowledge the role of ‘wilderness’ places as a realm for environmental ethics to be developed. Places of ‘wilderness’ (like national parks) can promote feelings of responsibility. Studies have shown that purposeful interaction with wild spaces has a documented increase in pro-environmental action.[xiii] This increase in pro-environmental action implies that people are identifying themselves within nature, as they are acknowledging that their actions have an impact on the natural environment. However, instead of interacting with the park as a place of fantasy, an ethical contemplation of our role within nature involves having a deeper understanding of the history and the workings of the place we are in. It is when this education is used to develop a sense of wonder and connectedness to nature that environmental action spikes.[xiv] This aligns more with my experience with nature. While I have never attended a guided tour, my mum would always explain the interconnectedness of all the plants and animals in the garden, which often created a sense of wonder and connection within me. So, while Cronon is correct to argue for the localisation of wonder with nature closer to home, educated engagement with the wild is an area that he does not acknowledge but is still a powerful place for pushing forward his project of ethically living within nature.
While Cronon and Wheaton use the word ‘environment’ in a similar way, Steven Vogel challenges this word through his discussion of Marx’s theory of alienation. Something Cronon does not acknowledge is that nature is not (just) out there, not (just) in here, but is also what here is made from.[xv] Based on Marx’s theory of alienation, Vogel argues that people are alienated from their power to construct the environment that they like. Vogel discusses nature as an object of labour. One type of alienation within Marx’s framework is the phenomenon where the product of human labour becomes “an external existence… that it exists outside him, independently, as something alien to [the producer], and that it becomes a power on its own confronting [the producer].”[xvi] This type of alienation is concealed by the political economy when it does not consider “the direct relationship between the worker (labour) and production.”[xvii] For instance, the computer I am typing on is an object created by the people who mined the materials, the people who fitted it together, and the person who sold it to me. I am assuming that these people never owned the product of their labour as it is instead owned by a company. As such, the product of labour is external to the producer and outside of their control. When I purchased the computer, this web of sociality was not something the company or I acknowledged, yet these connections become clear upon reflection. This web of sociality is comparable to the relationship humans have with the environment. [xviii]
While Marx’s conception of alienation is specifically in reference to objects of our labour, Vogel shifts this idea of alienation to include the environment. Nature is most commonly viewed as something external and independent of us, similar to the way our labour is alienated from us according to Marx.[xix] Instead, Vogel argues that we need to shift this alienated perspective of the environment into something that acknowledges people’s power to transform the environment. Vogel writes that “the ‘environment’ we inhabit, the world of objects we find around us, is an environment of objects built by humans… [it is] nature transformed, reworked, humanized.”[xx] While Cronon urged his audience to acknowledge the nature that is within our cityscapes – the pond on the street, the tree growing in my backyard garden – Vogel takes this a step further and shifts the understanding of ‘environment’ and ‘nature’ into everything that surrounds people, as nature makes up the materials of everything that we have built.
Vogel’s argument acknowledges and dismantles the same human-nature dichotomy that Cronon finds problematic. Human-made objects are not completely divorced from the materials that they consist of. They are still natural objects that have been reworked by social labour to fulfil a need or desire. This also highlights the power that humans have within this relationship as they were the ones who transformed nature.[xxi] A library that is made from rock-based concrete and filled with books of paper from trees, is planned and built by many different groups of people. The authors who wrote the books, the people who chose the carpet, and the workers who poured the concrete. These are examples of where nature is transformed by human, social labour to fulfill human needs or desires.
Despite the evidence of human power over and interdependence with nature, Vogel notes that the objects surrounding us are perceived as “simply a part of the external scenery we ‘naturally’ find around us; indeed, in general we barely see them at all.”[xxii] For instance, Cronon’s discussion of the illusion of wilderness is constructed through social labour to purposefully create the illusion of untouched lands. Officers of the U.S. government removed Indigenous people from their lands, boundaries of the park were planned and established, and legislators implemented protections for the area.[xxiii] However, this labour is not acknowledged and instead the national park’s nature is seen as untouched. All these activities are examples of social labour that created the commodity of a national park.
Vogel proposes that we need to acknowledge this sociality of labour within the environment. Expanding on Marx’s theory, Vogel identifies that alienation is founded on the “failure to recognize the human origin of objects that have been produced by human activity.”[xxiv] From this, Vogel deems it necessary to “recall humans to their own power, their own ability to change the world and to decide how they want to live.”[xxv] What Vogel’s discussion of the environment highlights is that people are not separate from nature or from the human-made environment around them. Rather, they are active participants in it and the question becomes one of “whether we like what we have wrought.”[xxvi] Do people like the cities that they have created? Do people like the dichotomy they have fostered between nature and humanity? Do people like the pollution in the air, or the mass amounts of waste in the ocean? By dismantling the alienation I have from the human-made environment, I can acknowledge my active role in maintaining environments like those with polluted air and ocean waste. If I am actively maintaining environments like these through my social labour, then I am also empowered to change these environments for the better.
Through the problematisation of ‘wilderness’, Cronon concludes that the environment both close to home and further away should be considered with a sense of wonder to promote ethical considerations. Reflecting on my own experiences, I realised that Cronon’s critique spoke to me and encouraged me to be more actively mindful in my relationship with ‘wilderness’. Wheaton’s paper offers a possible area of extension for Cronon’s work by considering how educated encounters with ‘wilderness’ environments can also promote ethical actions. Extending upon Wheaton and Cronon’s ideas of ‘environment’, Vogel argues that the ‘natural’ environment around us includes urban constructions, such as libraries. Vogel’s conclusion is to acknowledge that people need to be aware of their power in creating the environment around them. Vogel’s discussion deepened how I perceive my relationship with the environment around me and I believe that if everyone reflects on their relationship with their environment, they too can be empowered to create change.
Mira is an undergraduate Advanced Humanities student majoring in Philosophy who loves thinking about feminism, reading romance books, gardening, and singing. She is super excited to start her honours year where she hopes to explore topics relating to consciousness and ethical forms of porn. You can usually find her admiring jacaranda flowers and drinking oat milk mochas at Merlo.
ENDNOTES
[i] Steven Vogel, “Marx and Alienation from Nature,” Social Theory and Practice 14, no. 3 (1988): 374, https://www.jstor.org/stable/23557052.
[ii] William Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness or, Getting back to the Wrong Nature,” Environmental History 1, no. 1 (1996): 8-10, https://doi.org/10.2307/3985059.
[iii] Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness,” 16.
[iv] Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness,” 13.
[v] Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness,” 15.
[vi] Australian National Botanic Gardens, “Discover the stunning diversity of native Australian plants, right here in Canberra,” Parks Australia, 11 June 2023, https://parksaustralia.gov.au/botanic-gardens/.
[vii] Morgane Roux-Müller, “Visiting the Wilderness of Banff National Park: Achieving Touristic Well-being by ‘Disconnecting’ from Everyday Life and ‘Connecting’ to Nature,” Journal of Alpine Research | Revue de géographie alpine (2023): 17, https://doi.org/10.4000/rga.11379.
[viii] Somogy Varga and Charles Guignon, “Authenticity,” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta. Stanford University, 2014, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/authenticity/#AutSel.
[ix] Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness,” 16-7.
[x] Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness,” 17.
[xi] Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness,” 25.
[xii] Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness,” 25.
[xiii] Mele Wheaton et al., “Using web and mobile technology to motivate pro-environmental action after a nature-based tourism experience,” Journal of Sustainable Tourism 24, issue 4 (2016): 610, https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2015.1081600.
[xiv] Wheaton et al., “Using web and mobile technology,” 595, 604-9.
[xv] Vogel, “Marx and Alienation,” 374.
[xvi] Manuscript “Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844” by Karl Marx, 1932, page 29, Marxists.org, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Economic-Philosophic-Manuscripts-1844.pdf.
[xvii] Marx, “Economic & Philosophic,” 30.
[xviii] Vogel, “Marx and Alienation,” 374.
[xix] Vogel, “Marx and Alienation,” 375.
[xx] Vogel, “Marx and Alienation,” 375.
[xxi] Vogel, “Marx and Alienation,” 378.
[xxii] Vogel, “Marx and Alienation,” 375.
[xxiii] National Park Service, “Origin of the National Park Idea,” National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior, 10 Mar. 2016, https://www.nps.gov/articles/npshistory-origins.htm.
[xxiv] Vogel, “Marx and Alienation,” 374.
[xxv] Vogel, “Marx and Alienation,” 384.
[xxvi] Vogel, “Marx and Alienation,” 378.
WORKS CITED
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Varga, Somogy and Charles Guignon. “Authenticity.” In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta. Stanford University, 2014. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/authenticity/#AutSel.
Vogel, Steven. “Marx and Alienation from Nature.” Social Theory and Practice 14, no. 3 (1988): 367-387. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23557052.
Wheaton, Mele, Nicole M. Ardoin, Carter Hunt, Janel S. Schuh, Matthew Kresse, Claire Menke, and Willam Durham. “Using web and mobile technology to motivate pro-environmental action after a nature-based tourism experience.” Journal of Sustainable Tourism 24, issue 4 (2016): 594-615.https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2015.1081600.
Featured photo by Allef Vinicius on Unsplash
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