OCR Text |
Show 464. grazing, or anything other than whole, complete, healthy forests. He knew that a second growth forest wasn't a real forest. And as the decade progressed he became less able to give any voice to the language or values of "wise use." Yet he would have to take advantage of the language of use which the eastern audience could understand. THE LANGUAGE When Muir wrote about scenery for the eastern ear, he was writing also to the civilized, cultured ear, and he had to make certain concessions to the cultivated language of the East. For the East, wilderness had to be clothed in pastoral language, language of the middle distance, humanistic language. Consequently it is not surprising to find that the eastern language of conservation was also filled with the false connotations that subvert the kind of message Muir might have wanted to get across. Park is perhaps the most significant word, since its origin is the same as paddock, meaning enclosure, but does not distinguish between the kinds of things enclosed. What an unsatisfactory term, then, considering that Muir's chief complaint about Yosemite Valley as a Park was that it was being used as a paddock. The term was too tame and failed to distinguish between the significantly different actions of men who wanted pastures, and men who wanted wildlands. Reserve was a term which Muir was likely to prefer. Reserve meant something about the actions of men too, and had a more precise |