Hypernature
Everything wrong with Wilderness
When we think of wilderness in the Western United states, the though of untouched nature is typically the first image but, in fact, the land has been inhabited long before we ever conceived of the idea of wilderness.
What we now compartmentalize as wilderness or the wild was once simply home to indigenous nations.
For thousands of years people lived on the land and through reciprocity contributed to its nurture and nourishment. Now, the land is separated, divided, exploited and used for short term means. At least, for a while, the shareholders were happy.
In order to restore balance to the natural world it is time to admit humanity’s role in the disorder and the order that will follow.
Humans and nature are inseparable and the relationship should be treated as such. Wilderness is not a place that can be visited. Nature is not something that can be protected and spared from human influence. Nature is a hyperobject that itself is non-local. It can be experienced by our role in it.
Ecomodernism advocates for our ability to engineer our way out of the ecological crisis through technology and sustainability but what are we trying to sustain. Should it be our goal to sustain our current mentality toward nature or seek a new anthropocentric ideology that ensures the life of the ecosystem as a whole?
It is essential to give back. It is imperative that we not think of nature as separate but realize that we are nature and every way we interact is nature. To sustain that sense of nature and find balance we need to put in as much as we take out.
Much in the same way that our ancestral forebearers nurtured the land we must too.
It begins with actions every day. The natural world should be all we know because it is all we have.