William Cronon The Trouble With Wilderness

Throughout history the definitions and knowledge of different concepts have evolved. Wilderness is a wonderful example of this. Although it has been believed that Cronon attempts to make an argument throughout his paper that “nature is everywhere” by describing a tree in the backyard as wilderness, he is truly arguing that true utter wilderness does not actually exist. Wilderness has been a romanticized idea that society has constructed to feel “naturally fulfilled” in life.

The idea of wilderness has been a fabrication in our minds only to give us the pride that we are daredevils who delve into the beauty, the deepness, and the savagery that we associate with the word wilderness. It has become a place that people look towards when they want

The bright blue oceans with purely white sand, and the mountains with pristine snow landing just on the caps is the image of wilderness that comes to our minds due to how society has portrayed it. As William Cronon stated in The Trouble With Wilderness, “Wilderness suddenly emerged as the landscape of choice for elite tourists, who brought with them strikingly urban ideas of the countryside through which they traveled” (Cronon Pg.9). The wilderness has developed into what William Cronon describes it as, a “cultural invention”, as expressed on page 1,“Far from being the one place on earth that stands apart from humanity, it is quite profoundly a human creation” (Cronon Pg.1). We have created an aesthetic to the wilderness that is formed around our fantasy idea of what we want it to be. This would seek out more and more people who want to go into “wilderness”, “Thus the decades following the Civil War saw more and more of the nation’s wealthiest citizens seeking out wilderness for themselves. The elite passion for wild land took many forms: enormous estates in the Adirondacks and elsewhere” (Cronon Pg.9). A cultural invention that has been made around what we want it to be. “Wilderness hides its unnaturalness behind a mask that is all the more beguiling because it seems so natural. As we gaze into the

2). After culture decided the wilderness was something that could provide an “escape” it become made into something it was not. As stated in paragraphs above, it has detached from the former definition and become about society. Cronon explains, “The wastelands that had once seemed worthless had for some people come to seem almost beyond price” (Cronon Pg.9). People would do anything to strive for the “wilderness experience”. After this shift, it become an economical aim on how to make money off of the “wilderness”. This is when national parks came into play. Wilderness is now considered Zion or Yellowstone Park. But in what way does a National Park, a government regulated area, with a parking lot to drive your car right up to the entrance of “the wilderness” entail savagery? It doesn’t. “Once set aside within the fixed and carefully policed boundaries of the modern bureaucratic state, the wilderness lost its savage image and became safe: a place more of reverie than of revulsion or fear” (Cronon Pg. 9). And that is because the wilderness has totally and completely become a cultural activity in order to look spontaneous or