We must go back to the Puritans - back to the early 17th century - to learn how this “loathing” of wilderness came into existence.  In his seminal book Wilderness and the American Mind, Roderick Nash shows us step by step how the so-called “first Americans” landed on the shores of this continent with every sort of fear and superstition imaginable about forests and wilderness areas.  The Puritans literally reinterpreted their entire new environment, which naturally produced an anti-ecological attitude - right from the time they walked off their boats.

Nash tells us. “When William Bradford (one of the early ‘leaders’) stepped off the Mayflower he wrote that he’d stepped into a ‘hideous and desolate wilderness.’”  Later Muir wrote that Bradford and the early settlers started a behavior that became a tradition of repugnance toward the forest wilderness - for all those who would follow them over the next several centuries.   The Pilgrims were first, then came the Puritans who were literally engulfed in ancient forest myths - including ‘the little people’ the ‘devouring giants’ and ‘the dark savages.’  Anything dark - especially dark hair and dark eyes - has threatened white Americans for 400 years - and still threatens them.  Deep fears too often produce outrageous behavior.

Witness the senseless killing of so many indigenous people.  Over and over orders came from the President of the United States to exterminate anyone who got in the way of America’s destiny in the world.  As mostly illiterate European immigrants - allowed in as potential laborers - poured into this country, they quickly assimilated those traditional fears toward the forest wilderness and the indigenous peoples.  “Evil spirits” and “unnatural forces” lurked behind every tree.  Over the years, tens of thousands of completely innocent people were killed simply because their mere appearance produced uncontrollable fears in mostly ignorant people.

But really nothing was done about it until the first quarter of the 20th century.  One of my heroes, whom I’ve written much about in this blog is Aldo Leopold.  His “land ethic” was new in all human history.  It was talked about at the highest levels of government, and led to certain wilderness areas being preserved by legislation.  This led to the Wilderness Act of 1964 which preserved [under law] several million acres of wilderness.   And that Act led to further legislation that drastically reduced the harvesting of the remaining forests.  

Thomas Merton writes, “Leopold brought into clear focus one of the most important moral discoveries of our time.  This can be called ‘the ecological conscience,’ which is centered in an awareness of man’s true place as a member of the biotic community.  The tragedy that has been revealed in the ecological shambles created by business and war is a tragedy of ambivalence, aggression, and fear cloaked in virtuous ideas and justified by pseudo-Christian cliches.  Or rather a tragedy of psuedo-creativity deeply impregnated with hatred, megalomania, and the need for domination.”

Corporate America Goes Berserk With Greed

I believe America has been destroyed from within.  It’s now a country in steep decline.  So much of her natural wealth has been stripped away that it’s doubtful she’ll ever recover.  Dozens of books have been written that predict far more sinister things about America’s future than you’ll read here.  But clearly the psychology of Western man - who has gradually come to mistake the abstracted and thus artificial value of inert objects (cars, houses, money, fame, etc.) for the power of life itself - is still suffering from a deeply disturbed psychology.  He is still alienated and disenfranchised from the natural world, which is the very world he must embrace in order to get well.

The majesty of Leopold’s ecological conscience lies in his statement that “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community.  It’s wrong when it tends otherwise.”  Unless people everywhere begin embracing this psychology, man will continue to destroy the very environment that now struggles to sustain him.

In my next blog, which will conclude this series, I’ll get into the 4 fundamental ‘laws’ of ecology as developed by Charles Juzek and Susan Mehrtens, as well as describe how mankind has arrived at the time when millions of people will not only want, but will out of necessity need, a personal toilet.