Dear HCN,
I have a great deal of
respect for Susan Zakin as a writer and, for the most part, I was
quite interested in her article, “Shake-up: Greens inside the
Beltway” (HCN, 11/11/96). However, I was concerned by her
disparaging comments about William Cronon, and the way she frames
his book, Uncommon Ground, as part of a greater schism between “the
accommodators and those who are standing fast.”
Zakin explains that Cronon, along with Bill
McKibben, is trying to “debunk the very concept of wilderness.”
This is a gross misinterpretation. By referring to Cronon as only
an “ostensible” supporter of the environmental movement, she
needlessly degrades the serious and valuable work which he has done
toward improving our understanding of the relationship between
human culture and the natural world.
In his
essay, The Trouble With Wilderness, Cronon explains that our
perceptions of wilderness are a product of culture, which have to
be placed in a historical context in order to be meaningful. This
is not a new or radical concept. Zakin may recognize that it is the
central thesis of Roderick Nash’s seminal work, Wilderness and the
American Mind. It is Nash who once began a lecture by stating:
“Wilderness does not exist. It never has. It is a feeling about a
place; part of the geography of the mind.”
Cronon points out the simple fact that an
artificial preoccupation with wilderness can ultimately distract
from one’s commitment to home, that place we all live in when we
are not out hiking. This is not a challenge to environmentalism;
rather, it is a call for a practical, personal and everyday land
ethic. Cronon does not deserve such angry
rhetoric.
Brad Rogers
Durham,
North Carolina
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Zakin skewered historian.
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