Entry #1: The Paradox of Wilderness: Is Wilderness Anthropocentric?

The idea of wilderness displays a real paradox: human activities are excluded from wilderness but the notion is defined in relation to human beings. The concept of wilderness denotes an area which is not tamed by human beings. It gives the impression of putting forward a kind of “purity” or “authenticity” which is not real because it is difficult to see such an area in its “original” presentation as Lawrence Buell recognizes through the analysis of William Cronon (66-67). Buell implies that it is important to always keep in mind that there were people living and “manipulating” the land that we imagine being the first to discover. Lawrence Buell’s way of thinking is a lesson of humility vis-à-vis the land and other people.

In Crossing Open Ground (“Yukon-Charley: The Shape of Wilderness”), Barry Lopez shows a double obligation of human beings towards wilderness: “an ethical obligation to provide animals with a place where they are free from the impingements of civilization” and “a historical responsibility to preserve the kind of landscapes from which modern man emerged” (81). Human engagement for wilderness constructions places him at the center of the notion/space although few pages later in the book, Lopez claims that “in The Wilderness Act, humans are construed as aliens” (87).

The theory of wilderness seems both to polarize humans and nature and at the same time “reconciles” them. Unfortunately, this reconciliation appears more in favor of humans’ well-being. Wilderness is a place of safety and healing, “a therapeutic refuge” (Buell, 67) designed to welcome people in search of communion with nature. There is also an economic value attached (and hidden) to wilderness. In broad, wilderness is a marionette whose strings are pulled by people who try unsuccessfully to be invisible. The identity of a wild area is inseparable from human beings. It is the presence/absence of humans that makes wilderness.

At the end of this thought, one can ask the following question: is the oxymoronic appreciation of wilderness, that William Cronon calls “the trouble with wilderness”, not another marker of our anthropocentric world which acknowledges human beings as world-forming and other creatures as “poor in the world” (to borrow Heidegger’s words)? Since according to Heidegger, it is the act of building that makes us beings that can dwell.