OCR Text |
Show 439 carries in it the same assumptions which flawed the movement, assumptions of a man-centered world. And those who are most interested in replacing that paradigm, that way of thinking about the world, need to break the chains which tie them to those assumptions. Just as Muir needed to walk through the South and free himself from the assumptions embodied in Marsh's Man and Nature, even though he would later use Marsh's arguments, so we need to free ourselves from the nineteenth century assumptions about conservation which keep us from taking a coherent ecological perspective. Otherwise we will be enslaved by other men's thinking, without even knowing it. So one comes to this period with great trepidation, knowing that the issues Muir involved himself in were part of the larger whole, the making of twentieth century America. While focusing on Muir, one is always in danger of placing him at the center of the movement, or even suggesting that his causes were the central issues of the day. Neither is true, and yet there is a certain truth about our present which can be revealed through this perspective. Americans were thinking about more pressing issues than National Parks and Forest Reserves, or so it seemed to them. And today, we still are likely to believe that those issues are not the Pressing issues of our lives. But Muir himself had focused a much more encompassing and more complex vision of life on Parks and Reservations, because he could at least do something concrete in this realm. As previous chapters document, he was never interested in preserving only scenery. |