The first Great Truth of contemporary life is that
the West is changing. And the second Great Truth is that the Cowboy
Myth is an anachronistic view that denies the first truth and
assures that we will become a socioeconomic backwater. What we need
to do, or so we are told by those who purport to know such things,
is abandon our allegorical tales and face the real world. Inspired
by constitutional contrariness, informed by 22 years of living in
Wyoming (45 years in the West), and motivated by a desire to help
find a viable response to the first Great Truth, I offer a succinct
reply to the futurists, pundits and critics’ call for the death of
the West’s mythology: Bullshit
No
literary passage better expresses the Cowboy Myth than the
description of Conagher, the title character in a classic Western
story by Louis L’Amour. When the hero is deciding whether to
confront the bad guys:
He simply did what had to
be done … It would be easy, he told himself, to throw everything
overboard and disclaim any responsibility. All he had to do was
saddle up and ride out of the country. It sounded easy, but it was
not that easy, even if a man could leave behind his sense of guilt
at having deserted a cause. To be a man was to be responsible. It
was as simple as that. To be a man was to build something, to try
to make the world about him a bit easier to live in for himself and
those who followed. You could sneer at that, you could scoff, you
could refuse to acknowledge it, but when it came right down to it,
[Conagher] decided it was the man who planted a tree, dug a well,
or graded a road who mattered.
The modernists
claim that tales like Conagher lie at the core
of the West’s inability to address our real problems. But this
contention is based on a profound misunderstanding of the nature of
mythology and a great deal of confusion about the Cowboy Myth in
particular. “Myth” has two very different meanings. The literary
term denotes a traditional story that reveals the world-view of a
people; let us call this Myth. But there is also a pejorative
meaning — an unfounded account of the world; let’s call this a
myth. The goal of Myth is to illuminate a moral ideal toward which
a people aspire, binding together generations and communities, and
helping us to understand how we are to live in the world and treat
one another — functions that can be ascribed to
Conagher.
Many well-meaning efforts to make sense of the
West’s past and future misunderstand the meaning of Myth and risk
aggravating social and environmental problems. I propose that we
grasp the rich nature and complex role of these stories, rather
than simply tossing out our cultural legacy and groping for
whatever new perspective is most in fashion. We might find that our
problems could be effectively addressed if we took seriously the
Cowboy Myth. Many Western states are faced with the same
challenges: How do we respond to the widening gulf between the rich
and poor? What should we do about the high rates of drug abuse and
suicide? How do we handle urban sprawl and uncontrolled
development? Who should bear the costs and reap the benefits of
mineral extraction? How do we foster viable livelihoods consistent
with our cultural character and natural environment? Perhaps
Conagher provides the answers we need.
Needing a
foil for my diatribe, I’m going to pick on two fellow
Westerners, which seems only fair — we’ve railed enough about
Easterners and their soft-bodied, latte-sipping, hoity-toity views.
According to Samuel Western, Wyoming’s economic problems — and, we
can infer, many of the difficulties of neighboring states — are
caused by the Cowboy Myth, or so he argues in Pushed off
the Mountain, Sold Down the River: Wyoming’s Search for Its
Soul (Homestead, 2002). And the cause of environmental
degradation throughout the West? That’s right, the Cowboy Myth,
according to Debra Donahue in Western Range Revisited:
Removing Livestock from Public Lands to Conserve Native
Biodiversity (University of Oklahoma, 1999).
These books are a no-holds-barred, tag-team throttling of the
cowboy. It’s not necessary to have read them to have heard the
arguments; everyone in the West knows at least one critic who turns
his nose up with disdain at the “Old West” or waves her hand in
haughty dismissal of the people and trades associated with
ranching. So, in keeping with the spirit of Conagher, who fought
fair but pulled no punches, here comes a good, old-fashioned
dustup.
What really gets the goat of these critics is the
pervasiveness of mythic icons. Donahue decries the way that “the
bucking bronco shows up everywhere in Wyoming.”
Everywhere includes the insignia of the National
Guard, the football helmets of the University of Wyoming, and even
our currency. When the U.S. Mint released a Wyoming quarter with a
cowboy astride a bucking bronco, a panel of progressive luminaries
and enlightened dignitaries denounced it as cultural atavism. One
can only suppose that their reaction would be similar to the Dallas
Cowboys, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, and Oregon’s Crook County High
School Cowboys.
Echoing Willie Nelson’s plaintive cry
about not letting babies grow up to be cowboys, Western —
apparently in all seriousness — asks, “What is a Wyoming kid
supposed to think about his or her future when the only license
plate available is one with a cowboy on it?” I’m guessing that not
many kids are brainwashed by license plates. (Does Tennessee, the
“Volunteer State,” have an abundance of do-gooder adolescents, or
“Show me” Missouri a plethora of dubious teens?) If Western’s
concern is valid, then what is an American kid supposed to think
when the country’s only flag has stars and stripes and all of its
dollar bills bear the image of George Washington? What kids (and
the rest of us) presumably think is that we are part of a community
with shared stories and values that reveal an important part, but
hardly the entirety, of who we are.
Western joins the other anti-traditionalists anxious to modernize
the social values, political perspectives and economic models of
our region by attacking the Cowboy Myth as a “century-old
throwback.” But if the age of a story is an inherent weakness, then
tales of America’s Founding Fathers ought to be discarded. Not to
mention the culturally primal stories of Genesis
and the Odyssey, which surely are more repugnant
to the modernist than Conagher or The
Virginian.
There is often great wisdom in venerable
people and stories; there’s usually a good reason that they’ve
lasted. But Western and Donahue relish nothing more than debunking
cowboy legends. The former declares that “the state’s romantic past
is largely fictive,” and the latter reveals that “the cultural myth
of the cowboy and economic myths of western self-reliance and
independence are closely related and replete with contradictions.”
Myth is not meant to be journalistic; it is not concerned
with timeworn facts but with timeless truths, such as the virtues
of unflinching courage and fierce independence. We all know that
real cowboys were sometimes cowardly. As long as we’re at it,
George Washington probably lied as a child, and Santa Claus doesn’t
bring presents. For those who understand the function of Myth,
these factual disclosures reveal nothing important. To adapt
Francis P. Church’s response to Christmas skeptics: Yes, Virginia,
there is a Conagher, and he exists as certainly as bravery and
autonomy and duty exist.
The critics of the Cowboy Myth
wouldn’t be so incensed if the stories weren’t still a source of
profound meaning to the public. Western is apoplectic, contending
that “when the homesteader myth spliced with the cowboy mystique,
the fusion wielded ungodly power.” Donahue reiterates the complaint
that as long as we believe in the Cowboy Myth, it will guide our
political actions “as though” it were reality. But “as though”
understates the point; incorporating Myth into social life
makes it real, as actual and tangible as the
Puritan value of hard work that shapes America’s economy and social
programs or the Jeffersonian ideal of agrarianism that molds the
nation’s landscape and tax laws. The pundits understand, however,
that the Cowboy Myth is too robust to be crushed under the weight
of facts, so they implicitly offer competing Myths — their own
jealous gods to gun down Conagher and the rest of the cowboys.
—-
Sam Western proposes — covertly but clearly — the Myth
of Capitalism, with the hero being an entrepreneurial figure (like
John Galt in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged) who, in
a world of free enterprise, accrues staggering riches through his
own sweat and cleverness. Through the Myth of Capitalism, the
economist imagines a world of constant, unlimited growth in which
affluence brings an ever-increasing amount of happiness to those
who have the requisite qualities — intelligence, shrewdness,
fortitude and fearlessness. However, the heroic Capitalist is
disconnected from the land, except to the extent that nature
provides a source of raw materials for manufacturing wealth. As an
economist, Western is frustrated that “collectively Wyoming
struggles with the idea that people and their ideas, not natural
resources, bring wealth.” He seems to be saying that we need a Myth
that is disassociated from a sense of place. But if the Grand
Canyon, Death Valley and the Tetons are no longer necessary to the
West’s Myth, then how can the story be ours?
Donahue’s
alternative is more surreptitious than Western’s. Her stated
purpose is to demythologize the West, but what she is really
proposing is a new Myth: Scientism. She contends that “the public
and policymakers must look to ecologists, not myth marketers, for
guidance in charting a course for the West’s future.” From the
first-hand perspective of a scientist — an insect ecologist, in
particular — I can assure you that science cannot provide the
answers to the deep questions concerning what we ought to do with
Western people and lands. Science is necessary, but it is not
sufficient. And here’s why.
In the Myth of Scientism, the
hero is an absolutely objective, rational discoverer of unchanging
physical truths (like Isaac Newton and the apple incident, which of
course never happened — but we know that Myths don’t collapse
under the weight of facts). The Scientist reveals how the world
really is, not some fanciful tale replete with
human desires. The problem, of course, is that according to this
Myth, science is value-free. So the hero can offer no moral lessons
regarding our treatment of one another or the land. Donahue
believes that “although it may not be possible ever to ‘demystify’
the West totally, there are good economic and ecological reasons
for trying.” What she fails to see is that there are horrific
cultural, and probably ecological, consequences if we succeed.
And so, with the West’s economy suffering from chronic
anemia (the current transfusion of mineral royalties in parts of
Colorado and Wyoming notwithstanding) and its environment battered
and bruised, the critics’ proposed course of treatment is to bleed
the patient, blaming the region’s lifeblood for its problems.
However, rather than draining the West of the Cowboy Myth, perhaps
we could revitalize this worldview — and in so doing ground our
future in the virtues of our past.
L’Amour’s Conagher exemplifies the Cowboy Myth, being a wonderfully typical and
altogether unextraordinary tale. The title character is remarkable
only in his being so characteristic of the Western’s Mythic hero.
What if the conflicting, even paradoxical, qualities of Conagher
were taken seriously as a model for the people and politicians of
the West (or, for that matter, our national leaders)?
Jehovah, the god of the Old Testament, was slow to anger, but
extremely dangerous when crossed. He would have made a fine Cowboy.
Consider Conagher: “He wanted trouble with no man, but he wasn’t
going to take any pushing around, either.” When an opponent finally
provokes Conagher to the breaking point, we are told that “he
proceeded to beat him unmercifully with the swinging coil of rope.”
The Cowboy could have shot his enemy, but the man was unarmed.
Proportional, not gratuitous, violence is how one responds to a
“hard country,” the dangerous world of the unsettled West. Make no
mistake, Conagher is willing to kill. But only for a just cause. As
he tells a widow’s young son: “Some men take a sight of killing,
boy. Just be sure that when killing time comes around that you’re
standing on the right side.” And a just cause basically means
protecting the innocent.
Conagher evinces compassion —
even tenderness — for those who are vulnerable, including the son
of a widow trying to make a life on the prairie. “Hell of
a thing, he said to himself, leavin’ a woman and two kids out there
alone. But even as he said it he knew that many a man had
no choice. You took your chances in this country; some of them paid
off and some did not.” Conagher treats the courageous but
struggling woman with deep respect and the boy with paternal
gentleness. Even a cowboy’s enemies warrant a degree of compassion,
as when in the midst of a shoot-out with cattle rustlers, our hero
takes a gut-shot enemy into his cabin, saying, “I’ll see no man
suffer.”
So, how would a man like Conagher respond to
modern threats? In the face of a widening gap between rich and
poor, in light of extractive industries’ domination of local
communities, in recognition of the declining physical and mental
health of women and children, a Cowboy would aggressively protect
the vulnerable. Conagher would abide no excuses from the
methamphetamine addict, the delinquent youth, or the teenage mother
— but he’d not abandon them, either.
—-
A Cowboy mayor,
legislator, governor or — dare we say during an election year —
president would not turn first to economically or politically
lethal force against those who exploit the weak, but such a leader
would leave no doubt that those who put our communities at risk or
despoil our lands do so at their own peril. If the Cowboy Myth were
reinvigorated, perhaps the federal agencies, mineral corporations
and real estate developers would perceive Western civic leaders as
others saw Conagher: “You do your job, you’re honest, and you never
backed off from trouble.” Any community would be justifiably proud
to have such leaders.
But isn’t fierce autonomy, rather
than duty to others, the core of the Cowboy? This Mythic hero is
unwilling to trade freedom for security; his life is one of
passionate independence. As Conagher says, with just a hint of
melancholy, “I got no friends anywhere. Only whiskey friends, and
that kind don’t stay by you.” But at the same time, he is
unwaveringly loyal, telling the man who hired him, “I’ll work my
tail off and cash in my chips some dark night riding herd on
another man’s cows, but when they write my epitaph they’ll say,
He rode for the brand …” Conagher’s loyalty
doesn’t derive from academic analysis but stems from a deep-seated
sense of duty, empathy, and community: “He had never given much
thought to truth and justice or the rights of man, but he did not
like what seemed to be happening here, and anything that happened
to an outfit he rode for, happened to him.”
Applied to
leaders and citizens in the contemporary West, this means we must
take responsibility for ourselves and one another, blaming nobody
else for our problems and relying on ourselves for the solutions.
As candidates aspire to public office, we must ask if they ride
“for the brand” — for the people. Leaders must be autonomous and
possess a sense of duty to craft programs, laws and policies on
behalf of the public, rather than allow mineral companies or real
estate developers to define and (maybe) solve the problems. At a
national level, perhaps what we need in the White House is an
authentic Cowboy (not to be mistaken for a president who saddles up
for corporations and rides away from his role while fostering
economic suffering, environmental degradation and international
terrorism).
Conagher was a “thirty-dollar cowhand” who
could not even afford a pair of new boots — and Montana, North
Dakota and Wyoming are the only states in the nation without Jaguar
or BMW dealerships. But dire poverty is another thing entirely;
living on food stamps or making a home of a horse trailer demeans
the human condition. But the promises of material growth — more
businesses, highways, tourists, mines or you-name-it — cannot
deceive a people who understand that the quantity of possessions is
no substitute for the quality of life, that character counts for
more than money. As much as it might frustrate economists, the
self-proclaimed priests of modernity, Cowboys and Westerners know
that the value of clean air, abundant wildlife and open space —
gloriously austere and brutally humbling steppes — is not
convertible to cash. But the Mythic hero also understood that not
everyone had to have the same version of the good life.
How would the Cowboy respond to the changing
social mores that some folks believe threaten the Western way of
life? “None of my affair,” Conagher said, “… and as long as
nobody bothers me, I’ll bother nobody.” Good advice. But Conagher
goes one step further. The Cowboy judges a person not by
appearances but by actions. Contrary to the politically correct
view that the Mythic Cowboy was sexist and racist (a perception
supported by an uncharitably selective reading of stories or
viewing of movies), Conagher respects the settler woman far more
than he does most of his male associates: “(It) took sand to stay
on a place like this with two kids, and no money coming in. It took
real old-fashioned grit.” One might even say, true grit.
And as for Indians, “You can’t yield to an Indian. He will kill you
out of contempt as much as for any other reason, but he respects
courage, and he respects a good argument.” Ever the existentialist,
Conagher expects authenticity. I have to imagine that he’d vote for
a gutsy woman over a pandering male, ride with a capable minority
instead of an incompetent white (as did John Wayne in The Cowboys),
and value the integrity and hard work of a man without being
concerned with who shared his bunk. But doesn’t the
live-and-let-live approach combined with the Cowboy’s itinerant
nature bode poorly for the well-being of the land?
How
the itinerant nature of the Cowboy accords with his perception of
the land is vitally important if we are to take seriously the role
of this Myth in the modern world. After all, to those who are
unrooted, the degradation of the land wouldn’t seem to matter. Some
would even argue that this is precisely the attitude that allowed
Europeans to despoil nature in a wave of settlement across the
frontier, culminating in today’s fly-by-night companies that
rapaciously exploit the West’s mineral resources. But, as with the
other Cowboy qualities, there is a sense of balance. The widow that
Conagher finds so engaging says what the Cowboy feels: “One evening
Evie was coming in from milking and he was sitting on the stoop
watching the sun set on the hills. ‘It is very beautiful, Mr.
Conagher,’ she said. ‘I like to watch the wind on the grass.’ ” She
knows, as does he, that the land is not pretty, but it is beautiful
— a distinction that the great American conservationist Aldo
Leopold embraced. Ultimately, when it came to nature, the Cowboy
was a pragmatic idealist — the role of humans was neither
exploitation nor preservation but, in the deepest biblical sense,
stewardship.
Conagher knows that the harsh, vagrant life
of the cowboy is the prerogative of youth: “It was a hard life, a
bitter, lonely life after a fellow got beyond the kid stage.” So
the Cowboy, if he survives his adventures and matures into a body
of leathered skin and mended bones, must reflect on his journeys
and on his experiences with weather, grass, wildlife and livestock.
And in so doing, he finds a place to complete his life: “The
waiting would not be bad if it was on a man’s own place, where he
could watch his own cattle graze and could be in some kind of
peace.” After all, to be a man is not just to journey into the
world but to make something of the world, and this “something” is
more of a sanctuary than a monument.
To be
honest, I like Deb Donahue a great deal. I’ve guest
lectured in her law classes; I respect her keen mind, and I relish
her sharp wit. But I’m afraid that she roped me into her circle of
black-hatted villains when she wrote, “(T)he myth of the Old West
and its cowboys is alive and well, thanks in part to the continuing
efforts of writers, filmmakers, chambers of commerce, and even
scientists and academics.” Being a member of three of these
disreputable gangs, perhaps it’s not surprising that I hope that
the Cowboy Myth is as alive and well as Deb seems to fear. However,
I worry that it is eroding under the withering critiques of
economic rationalism and scientific positivism.
I worry
because without a story to guide the culture of the West, we are
unlikely to coalesce as a people in order to save our communities
and lands. We are unlikely to act with the fortitude of Conagher,
as he explained his worldview to a friend before the climatic
shootout: “This here’s a hard country. But it’s a good country,
Scott, and it’ll be better as soon as we hang or shoot a few more
thieving skunks.”
Jeff Lockwood devoted nearly
20 years to the study of rangeland grasshoppers as a faculty member
at the University of Wyoming. He recently metamorphosed into a
professor of natural sciences and humanities at the university. He
is the author of several books. His writing has been recognized
with a Pushcart Prize, a John Burroughs Award and inclusion
in Best American Science and Nature
Writing.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Why the West needs Mythic Cowboys.
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