edward abbey and the american west

1. Edward Abbey and the American West

3. Edward Abbey 1927-1989 American writer, essayist, park ranger, environmentalist �Thoreau of West� �Militant conservationist�, anarchist, polemicist�

4. Often compared to Thoreau, but not from elite background or Emerson More like Muir. Grew up on farm in Indiana, Pennsylvania 1944, headed west, hitchhiked around west, fell in love with Four Corners Region Masters from UNM, later tried to attend Yale, quit after two weeks Self described �redneck�

5. "I am a redneck myself, born and bred on a submarginal farm in Appalachia, descended from an endless line of dark-complected, lug-eared, beetle-browed, insolent barbarian peasants, a line reaching back to the dark forests of central Europe and the alpine caves of my Neanderthal primogenitors."-- from "In Defense of the Redneck", Abbey's Road.

6. Passionate defender of wilderness Hard to pigeonhole, and not at all stereotypical liberal environmentalist Loved to hunt and shoot, advocate of right to bear arms & supporter of NRA Drink beer and red meat Argued important role for wilderness was as refuge from authoritarian government, place to hide out in times of tyranny and launch rebellion

7. Hardly right-wing either Defended revolutionaries of Bolivia, Vietnam Opposed Vietnam war, conscription, foreign wars in general Railed against power of oil industry, road industry�.Control of Washington DC by industry, generally.

8. �Keep America beautiful: burn a billboard�

9. Like Thoreau, a passionate advocate of individual liberty, bordering on anarchist�

10. Like Thoreau, a poet

11. Like Thoreau, a poet

12. �The personification of the natural is exactly the tendency I wish to suppress in myself, to eliminate for good. I am here not only to evade for a while the clamor and filth and confusion of the cultural apparatus, but also to confront, immediately and directly if it�s possible, the bare bones of existence, the elemental and fundamental, the bedrock which sustains us�.

13. I want to be able to look at and into a juniper tree, a piece of quartz, a vulture, a spider, and see it as it is in itself, devoid of all humanly ascribed qualities, even the categories of scientific description. To meet God or Medusa face to face, even it it means risking everything human in myself.

14. �I dream of a hard and brutal mysticism in which the naked self merges with a nonhuman world ad yet somehow survives still intact, individual, separate. Paradox and Bedrock.

15. Wrote 21 books Most famous, Desert Solitaire (1968) Meditation on beauty and solitude of nature, based mostly on experience as ranger in Canyonlands (15 years as with Park Service ) Meditation on human folly, �progress� and �culture� Many aphorisms: �Reason has seldom failed because it has seldom been tried.� �Who will save the parks from the park service?

16. The Monkey-wrench gang (1975) Novel about a group of misfits who become saboteurs, wrecking dams in American west to restore landscape Said to have been inspiration for Earth First! �Direct action� to protect wilderness against �industrial tourism� and other forms of development �Monkeywrenching�--to damage machinery or commit sabotage without hurting people (to throw a monkey wrench, or British: to throw a spanner in works

17. What does Abbey have to say in Desert Solitaire?

18. I. Critique of Industrial Tourism What is industrial tourism? Why is it bad? Why does the park service foster it? Why does park service foster it?Several reasons Industrial tourism is Big business. Pressure from road industry and automobile combine. Industry puts pressure on Congress--you can always get money for roads, but not rangers. Mentality of progress--that more is better, including more visitors. Mentality of action--you need to be seen to be doing something., Why does park service foster it?Several reasons Industrial tourism is Big business. Pressure from road industry and automobile combine. Industry puts pressure on Congress--you can always get money for roads, but not rangers. Mentality of progress--that more is better, including more visitors. Mentality of action--you need to be seen to be doing something.,

19. �Congress is always willing to appropriate money for more and bigger paced roads, anywhere, particularly if they form loops. Loop drives are extremely popular with the petroleum industry --they bring the mortorist right back to the same gas station from which he started.�

20. Pinchot and U.S. Forest Service Reconciling competing interests National Park Service a bit different: Established in 1916 �to provide for the enjoyment of [the parks] in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.� �Provide for enjoyment� v. �unimpaired� Are these goals compatible?

21. Utilitarianism: maximize good, greatest happiness for greatest number� What would Abbey think of this philosophy? Stupid, because you could have a lot of fat happy tourists� but the world would be impoverished for it. If you can get people out of their cars, they would see more, and actually be happier. People don�t know what they are missing Stupid, because you could have a lot of fat happy tourists� but the world would be impoverished for it. If you can get people out of their cars, they would see more, and actually be happier. People don�t know what they are missing

22. Critique of Civilization: What does Abbey think of Civilization?(how does he characterize it? �commerce, traffic and rubbish� �Clamor, filth and confusion�

23. II. What is the role of wilderness? �Wilderness is a necessary part of civilization and it is the primary responsibility of the national park system to preserve intact and undiminished what little still remains.�

24. How should we understand the �enjoyment� part? �Usufructuary� The right to enjoy something belonging to another, so long as no damage is done�

25. How can we save the parks from damage?

26. Resistance. Esp. to automobiles. �It is the responsibility of the Park Service, as well as that of everyone else concerns with preserving both wilderness and civilization, to begin a campaign of resistance. The auto-motive combine has almost succeeded in strangling our cities; we need not let it destroy our national parks.�

27. Is this pie-in-the-sky? Why should it be? �We have agreed not to drive our automobiles into cathedrals, concert halls, art museums, legislative assemblies, private bedrooms and the other sanctums of our culture; we should treat our national parks with the same deference, for they, too, are holy places.

28. Prescription for national parks No more automobiles 2) No new roads. Existing roads only for bicycles or horses. Provide free bikes. Fraction of cost of road building and maintenance.

29. 3) Make rangers range What would happen if we did this? �If we could learn to love space as deeply as we are now obsessed with time, we might discover a new meaning in the phrase to live like men.�

30. Civilization v. Culture �I was accused of being against civilization, against science, against humanity� Is he?

31. Civilization v. culture Civilization �is a semi-independent entity, precious and fragile, drawn through history by the finest threads of art and idea, a procfess or series of events wthout formal structure or clear location in time and space. It is the conscious forefront of evolution, the brotherhood of great souls, and the comradeship of intellect�the Invisible Republic open to all who wish to participate, a democratic aristocracy based not on power or institutions but on isolated men�

32. Who are these men? �Lao-Tse� Socrates� Jesus� Paine and Jefferson, Blake and Burns and Beethovern, John Brown and Henry Thoreau, Whitman, Tolstoy, Emerson, Mark Twain, �.Nietzsche and Thomas Mann, Lucretius and Pope John XXIII, and ten thousand other poets, revolutionaries and independent spirits, both famous and forgotten, alive and dead, whose heroism gives to human life on earth its adventure, glory and significance.� --Desert Solitaire, Episodes and Visions

33. Culture in contrast� �means the way of life of any given human society considered as a whole.� Examples? Industrial culture State socialism Monopoly capitalism [Popular culture]

34. �Civilization is the vital force in human history, culture is that inert mass of institutions and organizations which accumulate around and tend to drag down the advance of life. Civilization is tolerance, detachment and humor, or passion, anger, revenge; culture is the entrance examination, the gas chamber, the doctoral dissertation, and the electric chair.�

35. �Civilization is Jesus turning water into wine, culture is Christ walking on the waves. Civilization is the wild river; culture, 592,000 tons of cement.�

36. Inter-textuality Abbey calls himself a redneck,but he�s incredibly well read, cultured, literate. Abbey calls himself a redneck,but he�s incredibly well read, cultured, literate.

37. British poet Wrote of emptiness of western culture. Turned to Christianity, had nervous breakdown, ultimately eastern religion�

38. The Wasteland (1922)

39. The Hollow Men (1925)

40. What is Abbey�s goal in living alone in the desert?

41. Abbey�s politics How would you describe them? Is Abbey the Thoreau of the west? Libertarian, almost anarchist. Wants wilderness preserved in part as refufe from totalitarian governments. Notes people in cities easily rounded up, oppressed. Cities --> �concentration camps� �The city which should be the symbol and center of civilization, can also be made to function as a concentration camp. This is one of the significant discoveries of contemporary political science.� Guerillas in Vietnam survived quite well in jungles. Libertarian, almost anarchist. Wants wilderness preserved in part as refufe from totalitarian governments. Notes people in cities easily rounded up, oppressed. Cities --> �concentration camps� �The city which should be the symbol and center of civilization, can also be made to function as a concentration camp. This is one of the significant discoveries of contemporary political science.� Guerillas in Vietnam survived quite well in jungles.

42. Elitism: Is Abbey elitist? �A man could be a lover and defender of the wilderness without ever in his lifetime leaving the boundaries of asphalt, powerlines, and right-angled surfaces. We need wilderness whether or not we ever set foot in it. We need a refuge even though we may never need to go there. I may never get to Alaska, for example, but I am grateful that it�s there. We need the possibility of escape ; without it the life of the cities would drive all men into crime or drugs or psychoanalysis.� YES: disdainful of most tourists So what if children and old people can�t hike. No: Wants wilderness to be available for everyone. Thinks they will appreciate it if forced to get out of cars. Need it even if you never go there. --> political argument YES: disdainful of most tourists So what if children and old people can�t hike. No: Wants wilderness to be available for everyone. Thinks they will appreciate it if forced to get out of cars. Need it even if you never go there. --> political argument

43. What does Abbey think of men in general?

44. Does Abbey have a coherent philosophy of the environment?

45. Wilderness Ethics and Roadless Wilderness Debate