Introduction To Wildness By Roger Gipple

The Agrestal conversation began two years ago with the question, “What is wildness?” Now, when I think of wild, words that come to mind are self-reliant, spontaneous, liberated, self-regulating, self-willed, local, and authentic.

But what does wildness have to do with being human? And why is it that for as far back as we can know members of our species have attempted to subdue, control, centralize, and domesticate the world. It’s as though we’re absolutely determined to separate will and self from all otherness – and that somehow by completely eliminating the unpredictable and the unfamiliar from our lives we can benefit, but how?

Is it by building locks and dams on rivers which once ran wild and free?

Or, by replacing the wolf with the Pomeranian and the buffalo with the Longhorn?

Can we benefit by opting for upward mobility over the sense of belonging to something great and ongoing?

And do we really want certified organic standards from a distant hierarchical government as a substitute for trust between local producers and consumers? Does centralization and bureaucracy always trump village economy and local control? I don’t think so.

And how do we benefit from increasing dependency and decreasing autonomy, or from the unrelenting suppression of spirit among so many human and non-human creatures around the globe?

Where must all this inevitably lead, if not further down the road to a universe which exists entirely for the privileged human’s convenience and strictly on the privileged human’s terms?

So here we are in Iowa with 25% of the world’s best soils and annual rainfall exceeding 30 inches, yet even in this incredible place humans have created a way of living that is bounded, fragmented, and diminished.

How could this possibly be a deliberate process? Do we actually prefer to reduce all wildness to a predictable, familiar state? Is that the world in which we would consciously choose to exist? And is it out of this apparent attachment to wildness as a predictable, familiar state that many Iowans experience grief and guilt for the loss of woodland, wetland, and prairie? Furthermore, would this attachment to wildness as a predictable, familiar state combined with the belief that humans somehow know what’s best for nature explain our passion for wildlands restoration and management?

Do we have a choice to make regarding this historical pattern of control and dependency? Is it possible there might ultimately be some liberation from our total assault on otherness - both for the victim and the victimizer? James Carse suggests that nature is indifferent to humans. Could our wild nature benefit if we simply demonstrated a degree of indifference in return? And would this liberation through indifference require more of us, or less? Is it about holding on, or letting go; caring or not caring; fear or trust?

Well, that’s a lot of questions to ponder. So now I’ll close with three more: