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Show 325. of Nature - he had no inkling at first that the rocks and fountains of rivers in the mountains were in danger - he came to see the value of the role of tour guide, what did the guide know? He knew the tourist, and if the tourist was a representative urban citizen, the guide knew just how alienated urban America was from Nature. Though he often satirizes the pitiful tourists when speaking to his close friends, the guide must find some value in the people he serves. Though Muir felt his difference from the public he wished to influence, though he was like the Park Interpreters and guides of today, and might justify his job only as a way to get bread, yet he felt a deep ambivalence. The conflict between his satirical view of the tourists and his stated aims to "entice people to see Nature's beauty," remained with him throughout his career as a writer. If he could not accept the humanist's faith that Man was the center of the world, if he could not accept the false assumptions that Man could find social or technological solutions to all of his own problems, still Muir didn't hate men. He never wanted to become a humanist, yet he had to appeal to human needs and values, for the sake of the forests, and for the future of men. It is a popular and false view, that the critic of humanism hates men. Muir merely wanted civilized men to recognize their limitations, and thus become better. As I have indicated, his choice seemed very straightforward in the 70's. If he wanted to save the forests, he would have to propose a human use which might compete with the |