Dec 28 2009
World Without Wildness
I found a field mouse in the basement the other day – an uninvited guest. Its sudden appearance inside my home, the ultimate expression of domestication, is proof positive that the wild cannot be completely eradicated. I find no small consolation in this. I absolutely dread the possibility of living in a world without wildness, so I’d like to let that mouse stay. But I’ll be putting out traps soon. After all, I have to protect my investment.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the relationship between humankind and nature, about the difference between what is wild and what is not. We use the terms “wild” and “civilized” as if they were opposites, as if one cancels out the other, but I don’t think that’s necessarily true. Our relationship to the wild is much more complicated than that. I believe that a part of the wild rests deep within us all, and that the wildness within cannot be completely eradicated any more than the weeds in our yard or the pests creeping into our houses. All the same, it can be pushed back to the point where any discussion regarding it is moot.
When all that’s left of the wild is the occasional intruder in the basement, we will be living in a world without wildness. When all nature is under our thumb, one way or other, then the wild won’t be worth thinking about. When what we call nature is reduced to gardens, woodlots and preserves, and we have the means to genetically alter everything at will, then the wildness within us will be lost as well. Then wilderness will be a theme park – a mere caricature of what it once was – and we will be only shells of our former selves.
I find it impossible to adequately define concepts like “wild” and “civilization” no matter how much I try. These are terms fraught with ambiguities. But this much I do know: without a place to roam freely, we are merely cogs in a grand, meaningless, self-perpetuating system. Aldo Leopold got right to the heart of the matter when he said: “Of what avail are forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map?” In an era of flying drones, GPS navigation, infrared cameras, and electronic tracking devices, this question is hardly an academic one. Computer chips are showing up everywhere. Soon it will be impossible to completely disappear into the wild no matter how hard we try. Good news for fighting terrorism or finding lost hikers, but bad news for preserving the wildness essential to us all.
I fear the scientist with his radio collar more than the greedy developer with his bulldozer. It doesn’t require a great deal of creativity to imagine a team of technicians descending upon a woods wanderer and tagging him or her like any other wild animal. And why not? The wild cannot be properly managed if there are gaping holes in the database. So yeah, I’ll trap that mouse in my basement, but not without deep reservation. Some part of the wild must be cultivated within me. Some part of the wild must be allowed even in my own home. Otherwise, civilization is all for nothing.
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