Hannah

"Its a conundrum!" -Hannah

Oh, those Greeks

Masculine and Feminine gender polarity...shout out to Aristotle, Hippocrates , and Galen.

I realize I should probably explain my train of thought here...

After each reading for Environmental Ethics (or during depending on how much my brain is boiling) I open my sketch book to help me mull over what I've read. Goodness knows what will end up on the page though. It often ends up being only partly related to the topic or in fact requires research of its own. This lasted post, after reading Victoria Davian, Greta Gaard and Lori Gruen , is from that bit of my mind that is fascinated by historical gender perceptions and Greek dudes and fed by a history classes.

The low-down:

Eco-feminism, in part, plays upon the shared domination over women and nature under patriarchy. Reading about the mutual oppression of Woman and Nature my little mind went straight to thoughts about gender polarity. Traditional theory per Aristotle says that male and female are fundamentally different. Opposite, in fact.

Female/Male

Cold/Hot
Left/Right
Circle/Line
Earth/Sky
Underworld/Heaven
Wet/Dry
Chaos/Order
Body/Soul
Opinion/Wisdom
Crooked/Straight

You get the idea...

Probably not what the eco-feminists had in mind? Not very "feminist" at all? And while some go to pains to remind us that the masculine and feminine are inherently related (patriarchy created the "feminine," etc.) there are voices out there that are exalting Women above Men in this polarizing fashion, simply in reverse to the traditional.

My favorite Teddy

Teddy Roosevelt is my favorite president. Not for his name, not for his cowboy image, not even for his gap toothed smile and khaki inspired fashion. I like him because he liked the outdoors, I like him because he is from New York. I like him because he gave us a national conservation movement. He represents a time period where the frontier was vanishing. Nature inspired nostalgia and those who could afford it would “return” to taste the freedom of the wild once again. After reading William Cronon (The Trouble With Wilderness) and G. Stanley Kane (Restoration or Preservation: Reflections On a Clash of Environmental Philosophies) I'm giving Teddy a second thought. Now, looking at his accomplishments and beliefs, seeing where we are now, and where we are likely to go, I have a few questions. What are we conserving? And what is the best way to go about doing it. There are so many things to think about. And only so much space.

Jumping off an insightful comment from geoeliot, “who loved [the wilderness] more than the People who had kept it well for thousands of years?” This is a really good point. Where is the legitimacy in our Government removing Native Americans from the land that was to become national parks, forest, etc. in order to “protect” it? This relocation of the native people is a perfect example of our dualist attitude towards the environment. As if we were visitors rather than part of the system, part of nature itself. I am not comfortable thinking of humanity as outside nature. I prefer Kane’s community model of joint responsibility and trust, how can you deny interdependence?

I want to go back to my last two cartoons a moment and the concept of the great American wilderness. There are two types of “wilderness” as I see it. (1) The Biblical wilderness, a savage, inhospitable wasteland that tested Adam and Eve, Moses, Jesus, a place where you can lose yourself very quickly. This is the wilderness humans have fought to tame, to farm, to mould to their purposes. This is the wilderness you find when you get lost in the woods, when the brambles get too thick and you don’t know where home is. Anyone who has ever truly spent time alone and scared in Nature knows this wilderness. (2) Post-Frontier wilderness. The ideal that civilized people have about a wilderness that in reality is no wilderness at all. It is the myth, especially ingrained in American hearts, of the wild frontier where men are true men unburdened by civilization, where truth and freedom reign. Was this ever the case? What a national park is is domesticated. It is policed. It is guided. It is created. I might even risk saying it is unnatural. For goodness sake, what kind of wilderness has boundaries? It merely embodies the myth of perfection, sanctity, and absolute truth. It is a purely romantic notion. So, what would we be conserving then, since these nationally controlled bits of land are fabricated? I think my problem with this is only a problem of definition. I am simply arguing that it is not wilderness. I’m not sure where there still exists true wilderness. But that is a inquiry for another time.

Look! John Muir and T.R. at Glacier Point in Yosemite!

Wilderness Idealism 101

Check out John Muir! He is fascinating. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Muir

The All American Wild Frontier

Inspired by THE TROUBLE WITH WILDERNESS by William Cronon.