Frank's Wildness Essay

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Surviving Civilization - The Recovery of Nature and Man

By Frank LeBeau

The difficulty of resurrecting the natural world from the wasteland of modern civilization is that we have become accustomed to the conveniences provided by industrial production. For the time being, though perhaps for not much longer, the western world luxuriates in the wanton lifestyle of conspicuous consumption. At an unprecedented pace we foul the air by burning fossil fuels, poison the earth with toxic chemicals, and destroy farmlands, forests and oceans. Perpetuating this way of life is contingent on having a viable natural world to supply our materialistic habits. Since many resources are severely depleted or already destroyed, we are faced with the problem of either changing or dying. The Hopi word for this dilemma is “koyannisqatsi”, defined as “world out of balance”, or “a way of life that requires another way of living.” Presuming that we want to live, how then shall we change? Is it possible to preserve the planet without reverting to a stone-age existence? Can we save Mother Earth and still possess some kind of technology? How far back do we have to turn the technological clock in order to survive?

In the confrontation between wildness and domesticity we would like to believe that it’s somehow possible to hold on to the gizmos and gadgets that make life easy and interesting. We want our cars and computers, central air conditioning, televisions, microwave ovens and cell phones. Environmentalist, Gary Snyder thought otherwise. In his book The Old Ways he argued that the only solution to human survival was to return to the pre-industrial lifestyles of primal cultures, which lived simply and lightly on the land. He believed they lived more happily and healthily than we do with all our manufactured creature comforts. Snyder thought that it was better to forego all industrial production and avoid the insane, soul-numbing torment of monotonous factory work and the industrial pollutants that came with it. Perhaps the only Americans equipped to survive a major meltdown of our infrastructure are the Amish and a few Native American tribes that are still practicing their old ways.

The creation of a wilder world begins with wilder thinking. It begins with a paradigm shift away from the analytical mind set of western science to a holistic view that simultaneously perceives everything working in concert. Western scientific thinking often reduces everything to isolated chemical particles reacting under mathematically measurable conditions. Consequently, it ignores anything that can’t be quantified and separates individual parts from the integrity of the whole. The end result is evident in monoculture farmlands, a wholesale loss of natural habitat resulting in species extinction, a coast to coast, homogenized, white-bread society, artificial, Las Vegas-style manufactured pleasures and a designer chemical poison to address every problem.

Thoreau declared that,”In wilderness is the preservation of the world.” The spiritual essence of wilderness is “wildness.” It is a sacred force that forms and sustains the cosmos. It is an expression of God, a completely holy, nonreligious energy. It promotes diversity. It is animated, mysterious, passionate and creative. It was here before the Industrial Revolution. Allowing the energy of wildness to express itself will grant us the possibility of survival. It will help restore the natural order, but it won’t guarantee human survival.

There aren’t many nomadic hunter/gatherer cultures roaming the planet these days. Most humans have invested their existence on sustaining themselves within an agrarian/industrial civilization. Has the ascent of man, achieved with its development of technology, been a grand mistake? Was it a cosmic joke that tricked us into believing that we could improve upon the universe? Civilization required that we create a domesticity, a household on which to base our survival. To be “domesticated” implies that there is a taming of the natural expression, a deadening reduction of the life force. Is there a middle way, between the old ways of our Neolithic ancestors and the current environmental catastrophe, in which we can reconcile the seemingly contrary forces of wildness and domesticity? I believe that a benevolent technology exists, one that will allow us to sustain ourselves without destroying the planet.

The first step toward applying it is to reject the analytical world view that compartmentalizes the universe into isolated parts and replace it with a new cosmology that perceives the interconnectedness of all things. The second step is to be open to the possibility that there are more things in heaven and earth than in western science. German transcendentalist writer and philosopher, Johann von Goethe described a scientific methodology that refused to separate subjects under investigation from the wholistic context in which they existed. His approach has been validated by quantum physics which recognizes that all phenomena are determined by the totality of their surroundings and that even the presence of the observer influences the outcome of the experiment. The first modern organic agriculture, called Biodynamics, was developed by Rudolph Steiner in 1926. He used Goethe’s scientific method of observation to formulate an agricultural approach that saw beyond what was measurable with scientific instrumentation. Steiner’s own clairvoyant insight allowed him to perceive what he called “formative forces” that guide and influence the growth of plants. By working with these energies, Steiner was able to help farmers miraculously recover the fertility of their depleted farmlands with simple applications of homeopathic preparations.

Benevolent technology is useful only in so far as it preserves the integrity of the natural order. It must be used to recover lost habitat, promote species diversity, reduce consumption, utilize mostly local resources frugally, and rely on renewable forms of energy. In this way wildness can exist in a sustainable ecosystem that meets human domestic needs. A sustainable habitat might look in part like a French Medieval village, an ancient Anasazi pueblo, a geodesic biosphere or the hanging gardens of ancient Babylon. Whatever form it takes, if it intends to be truly sustainable, it must ultimately establish a connection to the sacred.