Good and necessary article. Like you, I'm a "fan" of the National Parks, of conservation, wildlife, and "wilderness", who has come to grapple with the contradictions inherent in the concept. I DID know much of what you relate here, from further reading on these figures. Both Muir and Roosevelt are complex figures, and I don't think either of them should be excused at all as "products of their time" (there were plenty of people, in their time and before, who did not hold their racist views; and even if both of them evolved in some ways over time, their legacies are checkered). I can still see the value in even the Ken Burns series... but it's better if you temper it with attention paid to what it doesn't say or cover. (I wonder how different it would be if he made it today?)
I'm not really sure what "the answer" is. But I also feel that if we don't have the perfect, all-encompassing answer to this history (and the wrongs done) or to this present, it shouldn't keep us from trying to address "smaller"-scale problems on the way towards trying to solve the bigger ones. Such as, trying indeed to make the Parks belong to, and accessible to, more Americans than just affluent white people. (I put "smaller" in quotation marks there, because that itself isn't a small problem at all.)
As a frequent user of public lands I found this piece very interesting and thought-provoking.
As a minor aside my hot take is that national parks, while beautiful, are generally lame due to tons of people, fees, and restrictions on fun stuff like hiking and camping: preservation is the focus. National forests and bureau of land management land however are way overlooked and where most of the fun is in my experience
Mann and what has been a revelation to me is that the landscapers we revere so much weren’t “temples grander then no man could build”. Instead the environment was shaped and lived in by the original American people’s
Good post! #outsidesowhite is such a true and glossed over fact. Im a white guy who lives near the desert in CO/UT and spend a lot of my free time in the mountains or desert and i rarely see anyone who doesnt look like me even though ppl who look like me have only been in this area for a tiny amt of time in the grand scheme of things. Its a mess/shame.
This is such an embarrassing article. Jumps around wildly in time to make an obvious point that people who lived in 1880 did not have great views on race. Rather than the reality that they grew dramatically over their life and almost single handed created one of the only genuinely great things this awful country has ever done, our national parks system. Speculates wildly and inaccurately about their classism. Somewhere there's probably a great article about miur and roosevelts legacy but this is not it.
I remember reading Ed Albee's lightly fictionalized autobiography. There was so much gross racism and misogyny that it just... You got the sense you were being preached to by the author, not shown a shitty character that the author created.
Looked him up and sure enough, he was a white supremacists and not really any kind of preservationist. He just wanted to be sure that when all the resources were used up, white people had got all the benefit.
Really sucked. Monkey Wrench Gang was pivotal to me growing up. Anyway, "Show me your hero and I'll show you a bum" as that old WWII ace said.
“John Muir held the natural world sacred and made it his life’s work to protect it, but his reverence for his fellow humans (as illustrated in much of his writing) is often indifferent at best[.]”
No defense of Muir here, but misanthropic environmentalists remain abundant.
Best thing you can do is familiarize yourself with The Population Bomb and the movement that grew up around it and persists to this day.
Once you have an idea of the arguments and language they use it's very obvious who cares about the environment and who just wants to maintain a recreational enclave for them, their family and the other affluent whites in their circle.
One of the best articles I've ever hating reading. I knew about Teddy's indiscretions but Muir came as a punch to the gut. I've camped at the spot 10k feet up on Mt. Rainier named after him so it's always associated with the most beautiful view I've ever seen. Moving forward I'll need to make sure I temper that feeling with some necessary reality and better appreciate those that came before John Muir.
Sad to think the Ahwahneechee had shaped and preserved the land that Roosevelt described as a temple not built by the hands of man. Then to also not value those people and their brilliance and instead to attribute their work and knowledge to the divine.
Good and necessary article. Like you, I'm a "fan" of the National Parks, of conservation, wildlife, and "wilderness", who has come to grapple with the contradictions inherent in the concept. I DID know much of what you relate here, from further reading on these figures. Both Muir and Roosevelt are complex figures, and I don't think either of them should be excused at all as "products of their time" (there were plenty of people, in their time and before, who did not hold their racist views; and even if both of them evolved in some ways over time, their legacies are checkered). I can still see the value in even the Ken Burns series... but it's better if you temper it with attention paid to what it doesn't say or cover. (I wonder how different it would be if he made it today?)
I'm not really sure what "the answer" is. But I also feel that if we don't have the perfect, all-encompassing answer to this history (and the wrongs done) or to this present, it shouldn't keep us from trying to address "smaller"-scale problems on the way towards trying to solve the bigger ones. Such as, trying indeed to make the Parks belong to, and accessible to, more Americans than just affluent white people. (I put "smaller" in quotation marks there, because that itself isn't a small problem at all.)
As a frequent user of public lands I found this piece very interesting and thought-provoking.
As a minor aside my hot take is that national parks, while beautiful, are generally lame due to tons of people, fees, and restrictions on fun stuff like hiking and camping: preservation is the focus. National forests and bureau of land management land however are way overlooked and where most of the fun is in my experience
national parks, while beautiful, are generally lame due to tons of people...
Sounds like we need to create more parks to change the parkland/people ratio...
I just finished reading 1491 by Thomas
Mann and what has been a revelation to me is that the landscapers we revere so much weren’t “temples grander then no man could build”. Instead the environment was shaped and lived in by the original American people’s
Great writing Caitlin, I had no idea about any of this
Good post! #outsidesowhite is such a true and glossed over fact. Im a white guy who lives near the desert in CO/UT and spend a lot of my free time in the mountains or desert and i rarely see anyone who doesnt look like me even though ppl who look like me have only been in this area for a tiny amt of time in the grand scheme of things. Its a mess/shame.
Well that hurt. Hopefully we can learn from history's "best" accomplishments and learn not to repeat their worst mistakes.
This is such an embarrassing article. Jumps around wildly in time to make an obvious point that people who lived in 1880 did not have great views on race. Rather than the reality that they grew dramatically over their life and almost single handed created one of the only genuinely great things this awful country has ever done, our national parks system. Speculates wildly and inaccurately about their classism. Somewhere there's probably a great article about miur and roosevelts legacy but this is not it.
I remember reading Ed Albee's lightly fictionalized autobiography. There was so much gross racism and misogyny that it just... You got the sense you were being preached to by the author, not shown a shitty character that the author created.
Looked him up and sure enough, he was a white supremacists and not really any kind of preservationist. He just wanted to be sure that when all the resources were used up, white people had got all the benefit.
Really sucked. Monkey Wrench Gang was pivotal to me growing up. Anyway, "Show me your hero and I'll show you a bum" as that old WWII ace said.
Abbey! Ed Abbey! Fucking Jesus, autocorrect!
“John Muir held the natural world sacred and made it his life’s work to protect it, but his reverence for his fellow humans (as illustrated in much of his writing) is often indifferent at best[.]”
No defense of Muir here, but misanthropic environmentalists remain abundant.
Best thing you can do is familiarize yourself with The Population Bomb and the movement that grew up around it and persists to this day.
Once you have an idea of the arguments and language they use it's very obvious who cares about the environment and who just wants to maintain a recreational enclave for them, their family and the other affluent whites in their circle.
One of the best articles I've ever hating reading. I knew about Teddy's indiscretions but Muir came as a punch to the gut. I've camped at the spot 10k feet up on Mt. Rainier named after him so it's always associated with the most beautiful view I've ever seen. Moving forward I'll need to make sure I temper that feeling with some necessary reality and better appreciate those that came before John Muir.
Sad to think the Ahwahneechee had shaped and preserved the land that Roosevelt described as a temple not built by the hands of man. Then to also not value those people and their brilliance and instead to attribute their work and knowledge to the divine.
This was very educational! Thank you for writing this