Does it help hold the threads of the story separate if we say that Wilderness evolved, rather than being invented? It is, after all, an institution, not the proverbial "wheel" that we're not supposed to re-invent. And as you suggest, it continues to evolve..
I would love to embrace evolution, but which kind? A progressive evolution, in which new ideas are better than old? Yet here, some of the older ideas seem better. A Darwinian evolution, in which mutations turn out to be apt for the needs of a moment? Yet this seems the opposite of the essence of wilderness, set off to be impermeable to the moment's needs.
I'm leery of "progress" as a form of evolution. It may be, looking back from some point in the future, that what passes for progress right now is a dead end. And I agree that certain older ideas (both in general and about wilderness) seem better, feel better, to me at least.
Applying the idea of natural selection to ideas and institutions rather than to organisms is tempting. They are more like organisms than technology, which is really where the conventional Western ideas of progress roost. But I am unsure about that metaphor. I think perhaps that there is another type of evolution. But am not prepared to go there at the moment.
As for wilderness being "impermeable to the moment's needs," I think that may be the essence of it in some peoples' minds, but the wilderness itself has always evolved fire, flood, landslide, blowdown, tsunami, etc. Humans have always had a hand in that, though not a dominating one, but are now driving unfortunately rapid change everywhere as the climate changes.
I think indigenous people probably understood/understand the hopelessness of certainty better than we do, but that's for them to say. People like Leopold (at least early on, it would have been interesting to hear how his thoughts continued to evolve had he lived longer) and Carhart (about whom I have a question for you), probably were seeking a place to hide from the flood of modernity. Benton MacKaye (I am unclear about his influence on the others of the early Wilderness Society) said that explicitly and even drew diagrams of it.
I will pause here, but my question DId your research on Carhart show any explicit links to Frederick Law Olmsted? You can't be a landscape architect without an indirect link back to FLO, but did you see anything indicating that Carhart was influenced by FLO or was in touch with FLOs sons?
Carhart received Iowa State's first-ever degree in "landscape gardening." So he was surely trained in FLO's approaches. He occasionally corresponded with FLO, jr., through the American Society of Landscape Architects. I think he was very much an FLO disciple.
Does it help hold the threads of the story separate if we say that Wilderness evolved, rather than being invented? It is, after all, an institution, not the proverbial "wheel" that we're not supposed to re-invent. And as you suggest, it continues to evolve..
I would love to embrace evolution, but which kind? A progressive evolution, in which new ideas are better than old? Yet here, some of the older ideas seem better. A Darwinian evolution, in which mutations turn out to be apt for the needs of a moment? Yet this seems the opposite of the essence of wilderness, set off to be impermeable to the moment's needs.
I'm leery of "progress" as a form of evolution. It may be, looking back from some point in the future, that what passes for progress right now is a dead end. And I agree that certain older ideas (both in general and about wilderness) seem better, feel better, to me at least.
Applying the idea of natural selection to ideas and institutions rather than to organisms is tempting. They are more like organisms than technology, which is really where the conventional Western ideas of progress roost. But I am unsure about that metaphor. I think perhaps that there is another type of evolution. But am not prepared to go there at the moment.
As for wilderness being "impermeable to the moment's needs," I think that may be the essence of it in some peoples' minds, but the wilderness itself has always evolved fire, flood, landslide, blowdown, tsunami, etc. Humans have always had a hand in that, though not a dominating one, but are now driving unfortunately rapid change everywhere as the climate changes.
I think indigenous people probably understood/understand the hopelessness of certainty better than we do, but that's for them to say. People like Leopold (at least early on, it would have been interesting to hear how his thoughts continued to evolve had he lived longer) and Carhart (about whom I have a question for you), probably were seeking a place to hide from the flood of modernity. Benton MacKaye (I am unclear about his influence on the others of the early Wilderness Society) said that explicitly and even drew diagrams of it.
I will pause here, but my question DId your research on Carhart show any explicit links to Frederick Law Olmsted? You can't be a landscape architect without an indirect link back to FLO, but did you see anything indicating that Carhart was influenced by FLO or was in touch with FLOs sons?
Carhart received Iowa State's first-ever degree in "landscape gardening." So he was surely trained in FLO's approaches. He occasionally corresponded with FLO, jr., through the American Society of Landscape Architects. I think he was very much an FLO disciple.
Thanks!