William Cronon The Trouble With Wilderness

In the story, “The trouble with wilderness” by William Cronon, explains the wilderness as we can imagine has no longer relation to nature. Because of the culturally constructed nature of wilderness, he argues is that we need to change the way we think about wilderness. One of the most fundamental views of environmentalism of holiness of wilderness. It is considered a pure, pristine environment, “an island in the polluted sea of urban-industrial modernity,” a landscape untouched by humanity. This concept is very much a human construct, however, and it is merely the latest version of an evolving human relationship to the wild. We are know that our true home is out there somewhere remaining pure. Therefore we may continue living our daily lives …show more content…
However, much to my relief, Cronon is in fact not arguing from this perspective. What he is very much is referring to is the concept of the wilderness. And of course, he is right. Any concept is inevitably the product of the human mind, and therefore has much about it that has a basis in language. His deeper point, then, is that often people, including earnest ecologists and environmentalists, unknowingly conflate the biological reality we know as the wilderness, with a problematic understanding of the concept of the wilderness itself, leading to a profound misunderstanding about how the two are distinct and should remain. Cronon doesn’t have a problem with protecting wild places, he has a problem with the way that WE culturally conceive of these places. Instead of viewing wilderness as remote and massive, we need to focus on the wilderness and nature in our own backyards If we want to successfully exist with nature, we have to recognize that we are a part of it. Cronon also points out that we must not then fall into the trap of forgetting that it is also more than us – that there really is something wild and other about nature – and that we must respect and tend to that, as well as to the