Born Free or Born to be Wild?

As we embark on the journey into the wild blue yonder of our class, the first readings from the Dictionary of the History of Ideas (DHI) and Gary Snyder's "Etiquette of Freedom" help lay the groundwork of terms for the class. After these readings, my perception of the "wild" blue yonder may not be so wild after all.

While I was appreciated the many dichotomies that the DHI set up to define "nature" throughout the history, I was particularly intrigued with how Snyder defined "wild" when he explains that the OED definition of "wild" is based on what it isn't.

"Of animals – not tame, undomesticated, unruly"
Of plants – not cultivated
Of land – uninhabited, uncultivated…" etc.

Snyder reverses the OED approach and lists what he thinks what wild is.
"Of animals – free agents, each with its own endowments, living within natural systems
Of plants – self-propagating, self-maintaining, flourishing in accord with innate qualities
Of land – a place where the original and potential vegetation and fauna are intact and in full interaction and the landforms are entirely the result of nonhuman forces. Pristine." etc. (pp. 9-10)

I found both these explanations enlightening, as my first impression what "wild" is coincides with the OED approach, which I now realize is very "human-centric" and very un-Howard Zinn of me, especially given the fact that wild world existed before non-wild.

In Snyder's explanation of "wildness" he specifies that "wilderness" is a place where the wild potential is fully expressed (p. 12) and goes on to say that during the 16th century, cities and civilizations in Asia and Europe began to be more urban-oriented, and less knowledgeable of nature and the wild. Instead of people going out into nature, nature was brought back to the people. This task was accomplished by newly emerged "nature-travelers" and "resource scouts" to search for natural resources and human labor during the age of exploration in the New World, Asia, and Africa. The Conquistadores and priests encountered "people who lived in and with the wilderness" (p. 13) and "people who lived without Church or State." As Native Americans were often referred to as "savages," I would assume that Snyder would say that a European explorer's definition of "wild" would include "Of people—people without Church or State."




(This scene of Columbus encountering Native Americans reminds me of modern-day urban dwellers who refer to themselves as "pioneers" when they speak of moving into an area that is on the edge of gentrification. The same connotations of "wild" and "culture" are often used in modern real estate contexts.)

It seems that Snyder wants to equate human civilization with the natural world when he writes that some feel that humans are superior to animals because of our capacity for language, but he points out that animals do in fact communicate through call systems (p. 17). It feels like that Snyder advises us that we should be more appreciative of nature, and the society on the whole has become so removed from the "wilderness" that we have to go out of our way to experience nature by way of hiking or some leisurely outdoor activity that we need to seek out. But he seems comfortable with the state of where we are so long as we have a deep knowledge, appreciation, and respect of the "wild." "The wild requires that we learn the terrain, nod to all the plants and animals ad birs, ford the streams and cross the ridges, and tell a good story when we get back home." (p. 24). I imagine that Snyder is kindred spirits with Wordsworth, as Wordsworth writes "The world is too much with us; late and soon, / Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; / Little we see in Nature that is ours;…"

I do appreciate Snyder's call to appreciate the "wild" world as a person who is a product of suburban and urban environments. I am certainly someone who has to plan an expedition in order to encounter the natural world ("natural" in the "wild" sense.)

Regarding the various definitions of "nature" in DHI, it was eye-opening to learn abou the various meanings and contexts which nature has been used. Plato categorized real, natural things as things that were constantly changing (pg. 2), and the opposite, the ideal, as immutuable and timeless (is this what the real, natural, imperfect world should model itself after?). Setting up a real vs. ideal binary conjures up a realist vs. idealist opposition.

The idea of custom vs. nature was also new to me. According to fourth century B.C. Greeks, "nature" meant the pure, untouched world, which corresponds with Christianity's idea of the world before the Fall. "Custom thus became that whch was added to nature and hence if one was to liv a life in accordance with nature, one would have to abandon everything that human intelligence had invented or discovered." (pg. 3). To me, "custom" meant common local practices. But now I think of what "customized" means -- like a tinkering or tailoring of raw material, the raw material being "natural."

DHI further mentions childhood as a "paradigm of the natural human being" stemming from teachings of Cicero and the Bible. I can see how people thought the purity and innocence of a child can represent the uncorrupted natural world, but feel that some ideas conflict when it comes to how explorers and pioneers thought natives (aren't natives natural?) were savages. To me savages imply a population that was to be civilized and/or saved by religion and governing. "Natives" are seen as a group that Snyder speaks of that "lives in and with the wilderness," but can't these "savages" be seen as simply uncorrupted? It seems like native societies could be defined as "wild," as the OED states "uncivilized, ... resisting constituted government" but the other side of the coin, as Snyder points out is that a wild society is one "whose order has grown from within and is maintained by the force of consensus and custom rather than explicit legislation." (p. 10).