Honoring wildness requires critical self-consciousness, non-use, and gratitude

Evidence

Learning to honor the wild—learning to remember and acknowledge the autonomy of the other—means striving for critical self-consciousness in all of our actions. It means the deep reflection and respect must accompany each act of use, and means too that we must always consider the possibility of non-use. It means looking at the part of nature we intend to turn toward our own ends and asking whether we can use it again and again and again—sustainably—without its being diminished in the process. It means never imagining that we can flee into a mythical wilderness to escape history and the obligation to take responsibility for our own actions that history inescapably entails. Most of all, it means practicing remembrance and gratitude, for thanksgiving is the simplest and most basic of ways for us to recollect the nature, the culture, and the history that have come together to make the world as we know it. If wildness can stop being (just) out there and start being (also) in here, if it can start being as humane as it is natural, then perhaps we can get on with the unending task of struggling to live rightly in the world—not just in the garden, not just in the wilderness, but in the home that encompasses them both. — William Cronon, The Trouble with Wilderness; or,…, 85

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: The explicit demand that honoring wild means considering non-use and never escaping into wilderness to dodge history directly parallels the ‘Grafting & Growth’ article’s treatment of trees as neither purely natural nor purely ours to use.
• XREF: This is the chapter’s practical resolution and its ecologically-ethical endpoint, which the rest of the polyad can treat as taking up residence ‘in here.’ — connects to: Every landscape, from city to wilderness, is both cultural and natural — William Cronon, The Trouble with Wilderness; or,…, 82; Wilderness wonder is a cultural state of mind, not a natural fact — William Cronon, The Trouble with Wilderness; or,…, 78; The garden tree is as wild and wondrous as the forest tree — William Cronon, The Trouble with Wilderness; or,…, 79 (+2 more)

Related

• Every landscape, from city to wilderness, is both cultural and natural (similarity 0.79)
• Wilderness wonder is a cultural state of mind, not a natural fact (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Secular naturalism cannot ground gratitude toward nature because nature lacks intention #contradicts (0.82) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 492