Writing the Wild: Nature, Culture, and American Literature

So, who do you think got it right?

Is our conception of nature — as a special, redemptive place apart from human civilization, a space endowed with “spiritual” qualities that restores the individual — now dead? Because man has so fundamentally altered weather patterns even for the most distant mountain peak, has global warming killed the Romantic love affair with this idea of wilderness? (McKibben)

Or, is this kind of plangent lament *exactly* the problem — that our concept of the wild was seriously flawed, even dangerously unenvironmental, to begin with? (Cronon) Do we need to discard the wild, or celebrate its demise, and even move to a different configuration of human-nature relationships?

If you discuss, please ground your discussion in the two essays by the authors, quoting and referring to them as necessary.

There’s an informative discussion of McKibben’s book by an environmental philosopher in Canada here — it features some choice quotes from McKibben where he tries to respond to the Cronon critique.