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Show 322. It would have been a sign of naivete if Muir had expressed very much faith in the corrupt Legislature of nineteenth century California. He didn't. He believed further that men were most governed when they were most wild, and so by logical extension must have felt that men who lived closely enough to Nature did not need social structures at all. The author of "Wild Wool" might be characterized as a "Naturalistic Anarchist." But that kind of thinking could not be exported to the cities. Like Thoreau, he may have decided that there was no point in asking for no government, and instead took the stance that government was a necessary expedient by which the quality of life could be preserved. In other words, when he spoke in his public voice he was a reformer, not a revolutionary. In retrospect it is easy to see where that strategy would lead. The public Muir would be a man who worked for political solutions to ecological problems. But in private he was deeply repulsed by politics. Thus he became an enigmatic and problematic figure. Politicians could never understand what Muir hoped to gain by preserving wilderness. They assumed that he planned to acquire something material from his public campaigns. On the other hand, his decision to work within the Political and governmental realm caused him personal agony and would have tragic implications. He could never achieve complete realization of the deep values which he nursed through such shallow means. He imagined a rebirth of American consciousness, but would never be able to bring that about in the political arena. This was the beginning of a long tragic theme in his |
