"Yes, I’m the nitwit who talked up going into bear country"
April 23, 2018 11:10 PM Subscribe
"I have become too much a friend to rules; I have slept for too long in a soft bed; I have grown quite comfortably into the rites of a civilized life and as a result I think I have become something of a fucking infant... But in the very breath of my demand for the “authentic” wild, the un-guided tour, I’m cringing at how flaccid and disgracefully naive I probably sound—how much like one of Krakauer’s goons, the kind of person who will either gentrify the woods or get myself killed in them."
This falls nicely into the "cusp of introspection article type", i.e. "I'm pointlessly privileged and I still don't like the world, so I tried x and here's what it was like."
You can feel and see the writer push their banal existence to the back of their mind as they bargain with themselves over whether, perhaps , writing this article itself might be the thing that brings them meaning.
posted by durandal at 12:46 AM on April 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
You can feel and see the writer push their banal existence to the back of their mind as they bargain with themselves over whether, perhaps , writing this article itself might be the thing that brings them meaning.
posted by durandal at 12:46 AM on April 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
It killed me because learning that I needed a license to pee was a reminder that for the privilege of living on a small island with four million people I have traded in some things, and the most precious of these is freedom.
I really wanted to read the article attentively because I’ve never been at the remotest risk of a bear attack and I’m interested to know how it feels. But this anecdote about needing to wait for the Starbucks bathroom key killed it for me; I couldn’t go on in the author’s company.
posted by Aravis76 at 1:28 AM on April 24, 2018 [15 favorites]
I really wanted to read the article attentively because I’ve never been at the remotest risk of a bear attack and I’m interested to know how it feels. But this anecdote about needing to wait for the Starbucks bathroom key killed it for me; I couldn’t go on in the author’s company.
posted by Aravis76 at 1:28 AM on April 24, 2018 [15 favorites]
I think there's a lot to be said about the ways we've commodified nature, the banality of upper middle class white male existence, masculinity, its link with outdoorsiness, settler colonialism and the sense that Nature is yours for the taking. This essay was introspective and self-aware enough that I was willing to follow him through the soul crushing nature of making six figures to get free high quality ping pong balls and incidentally do some programming to get at the insights on the other side.
But then, "The goal is not to get raped by bandit locals,” I had written in an email. And, about the view while hiking in Glacier National Park, It was pretty, that’s all, just like a pretty girl. It glowed with something good; I could look at it all day. But it wasn’t a religious experience.
You know, I'm glad this guy tried to go to the woods and live deliberately and suck the marrow out of life. But it's sort of a gut punch to remember that he's implicitly entitled to this place. That experience - no better than a "pretty girl," not transcendent - "this was why America was discovered.” It hurts to read on a number of levels, not least because this same magazine published a long and detailed and hard to read article about sexual harassment and assault experienced by women outdoors not three months ago.
White people and men have a lot of interesting and valuable things to say about their experiences, and there is a lot of value in considering the ways people across the economic spectrum are and are not satisfied with their lives. But if you're going to write a longform essay in Outside about how nature can't wholly satisfy your ennui, you really need to be more self aware than this guy.
posted by ChuraChura at 2:52 AM on April 24, 2018 [113 favorites]
But then, "The goal is not to get raped by bandit locals,” I had written in an email. And, about the view while hiking in Glacier National Park, It was pretty, that’s all, just like a pretty girl. It glowed with something good; I could look at it all day. But it wasn’t a religious experience.
You know, I'm glad this guy tried to go to the woods and live deliberately and suck the marrow out of life. But it's sort of a gut punch to remember that he's implicitly entitled to this place. That experience - no better than a "pretty girl," not transcendent - "this was why America was discovered.” It hurts to read on a number of levels, not least because this same magazine published a long and detailed and hard to read article about sexual harassment and assault experienced by women outdoors not three months ago.
Some 70 percent of the 4,176 people who responded to an Outside survey for this story reported that they’d been harassed in the outdoors or while working in the outdoor industry. I eventually talked to or exchanged e-mail with 80 such people, representing nearly every sport that the magazine has covered in its 40-year history. I spoke with women who were sexually harassed or assaulted at ski races, at mountain-bike events, while trekking overseas, at gear companies, even while reporting about the outdoors. I heard from a female scientist who was raped while conducting research at a remote field site, a woman who was stalked in the mountains of Canada by a former climbing partner, and dozens of other women who have been followed, catcalled, belittled, threatened, or asked for sexual favors in ways that made them feel profoundly unsafe while working or playing outside.And it hurts because John Muir and the other explorers and chroniclers of the American West didn't discover America. Glacier National Park's website talks about the Blackfoot, the Kutenai, the Assiniboine in the past tense but they're still here, just dispossessed of their rights to live in the places this guy didn't feel were transcendent enough.
White people and men have a lot of interesting and valuable things to say about their experiences, and there is a lot of value in considering the ways people across the economic spectrum are and are not satisfied with their lives. But if you're going to write a longform essay in Outside about how nature can't wholly satisfy your ennui, you really need to be more self aware than this guy.
posted by ChuraChura at 2:52 AM on April 24, 2018 [113 favorites]
Yeah, I thought this was a miss - admittedly I only got a third of the way through but the obliviousness of this guy assured me there would be little of value here.
Kind of interesting in the ways it failed, though : I assume the editor’s idea was, ‘guy goes from tech world to the great outdoors, has some reflections that make it worth the effort.’ But the writer didn’t deliver: it lacked the self-knowledge that would cut the narrative with levity or insight and make it more than just a recitation of what he did.
posted by From Bklyn at 4:39 AM on April 24, 2018
Kind of interesting in the ways it failed, though : I assume the editor’s idea was, ‘guy goes from tech world to the great outdoors, has some reflections that make it worth the effort.’ But the writer didn’t deliver: it lacked the self-knowledge that would cut the narrative with levity or insight and make it more than just a recitation of what he did.
posted by From Bklyn at 4:39 AM on April 24, 2018
I’ve never been at the remotest risk of a bear attack
that is untrue; you are at some finite risk of bear attack RIGHT NOW
posted by thelonius at 5:17 AM on April 24, 2018 [31 favorites]
that is untrue; you are at some finite risk of bear attack RIGHT NOW
posted by thelonius at 5:17 AM on April 24, 2018 [31 favorites]
that is untrue; you are at some finite risk of bear attack RIGHT NOW
Aravis76 might be posting from the Bearless Void, any of a number of anti-Bear Zones, or one of the infinity of Dimensions of No Bears; you never know.
Honestly, though, the genre of “well-off white cis guy goes and does something uncharacteristic and has thoughts” is pretty played out; maybe try again after 2100AD?
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:28 AM on April 24, 2018 [10 favorites]
Aravis76 might be posting from the Bearless Void, any of a number of anti-Bear Zones, or one of the infinity of Dimensions of No Bears; you never know.
Honestly, though, the genre of “well-off white cis guy goes and does something uncharacteristic and has thoughts” is pretty played out; maybe try again after 2100AD?
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:28 AM on April 24, 2018 [10 favorites]
that is untrue; you are at some finite risk of bear attack RIGHT NOW
The bear is calling FROM INSIDE YOUR HOUSE.
Which it is, too, but realizing our shared habitat is a level of connection this poor fellow never got to. I suspect the size of the party didn’t help — unless you have 5 extraordinary people there’s always going to be chatter about sports or cellphones or something else a thousand miles away. To connect with nature you actually have to be there, and not just when you need to pee.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 5:37 AM on April 24, 2018
The bear is calling FROM INSIDE YOUR HOUSE.
Which it is, too, but realizing our shared habitat is a level of connection this poor fellow never got to. I suspect the size of the party didn’t help — unless you have 5 extraordinary people there’s always going to be chatter about sports or cellphones or something else a thousand miles away. To connect with nature you actually have to be there, and not just when you need to pee.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 5:37 AM on April 24, 2018
I have just escaped from a very dull committee meeting in central London--the reminder that there was a tiny possibility of IMPENDING BEARS all along has cheered me up, thanks. Apparently there are no bears in London Zoo, so I plan to spend some time this morning working out the route that the bear escapees would need to take to get to my office from Whipsnade.
posted by Aravis76 at 5:44 AM on April 24, 2018 [23 favorites]
posted by Aravis76 at 5:44 AM on April 24, 2018 [23 favorites]
What kind of freedom is it if you spend the daylight hours indoors, in managed places, crowded and rule-bound?
Freedom from being eaten by a goddamn bear.
posted by escabeche at 5:45 AM on April 24, 2018 [33 favorites]
Freedom from being eaten by a goddamn bear.
posted by escabeche at 5:45 AM on April 24, 2018 [33 favorites]
Hey now, bears just wants to be left alone to eat berries and honey in peace. Instead, all these voyeurs are trying to spy on them, or clueless office bros are trying to impose their company. It's nerve wracking, especially for serious introverts like bears tend to be. And bears don't have easy access to good therapists to help them cope in healthy ways with those sort of stressors!
posted by eviemath at 5:54 AM on April 24, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 5:54 AM on April 24, 2018 [9 favorites]
But this anecdote about needing to wait for the Starbucks bathroom key killed it for me; I couldn’t go on in the author’s company.
How so? That moment was exactly the kind of thing that would make me reflect bitterly on everything around me. I personally would have been angrier at a country that so refuses to take care of its transient and ill that stores have to do this kind of thing to customers in order to avoid societal problems manifesting all over the bathroom, but hey.
posted by Countess Elena at 5:58 AM on April 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
How so? That moment was exactly the kind of thing that would make me reflect bitterly on everything around me. I personally would have been angrier at a country that so refuses to take care of its transient and ill that stores have to do this kind of thing to customers in order to avoid societal problems manifesting all over the bathroom, but hey.
posted by Countess Elena at 5:58 AM on April 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
Clearly the Starbucks bathroom key was what made him seek out the bears, so he too could learn to shit in the woods.
posted by Segundus at 6:06 AM on April 24, 2018 [16 favorites]
posted by Segundus at 6:06 AM on April 24, 2018 [16 favorites]
Freedom from being eaten by a goddamn bear.
Having once accidentally found myself w/in ~20 ft. of a grizzly in the middle of nowhere, the value of this freedom is not to be understated.
Clearly the Starbucks bathroom key was what made him seek out the bears, so he too could learn to shit in the woods.
I once also had to sit in a pit toilet for something like 30 minutes waiting for a juvenile black bear to go away, because I was worried its mother might be nearby. The Starbucks bathroom key conundrum is nothing compared to the risk of a post-dump mauling.
posted by ryanshepard at 6:07 AM on April 24, 2018 [14 favorites]
Having once accidentally found myself w/in ~20 ft. of a grizzly in the middle of nowhere, the value of this freedom is not to be understated.
Clearly the Starbucks bathroom key was what made him seek out the bears, so he too could learn to shit in the woods.
I once also had to sit in a pit toilet for something like 30 minutes waiting for a juvenile black bear to go away, because I was worried its mother might be nearby. The Starbucks bathroom key conundrum is nothing compared to the risk of a post-dump mauling.
posted by ryanshepard at 6:07 AM on April 24, 2018 [14 favorites]
I plan to spend some time this morning working out the route that the bear escapees would need to take to get to my office from Whipsnade.
The Secret Knowledge, Chapter XXIII: Urban Bear Routes
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:12 AM on April 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
The Secret Knowledge, Chapter XXIII: Urban Bear Routes
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:12 AM on April 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
I couldn’t go on in the author’s company.
You might say it was unbearable.
posted by octobersurprise at 6:21 AM on April 24, 2018 [31 favorites]
You might say it was unbearable.
posted by octobersurprise at 6:21 AM on April 24, 2018 [31 favorites]
it's more fun to read this essay as if it were a fictional first-person piece by Babbitt or his more contemporary, real-life embodiment in Chris McCandless - a story of a fragile, mediocre white man who seeks authenticity from external sources because he is unable to generate it internally. with the entire mediocre thesis of it being the realization that the external sources he seeks are themselves are banal, appropriative, and derivative, and his privileged, comfortable, sheltered life is truly the life for him
posted by runt at 6:31 AM on April 24, 2018 [15 favorites]
posted by runt at 6:31 AM on April 24, 2018 [15 favorites]
We are all born with a bunch of bad camping trips and bad essays in us. The trick is to get them all out as fast as possible so we can go on good camping trips and write good essays. The author's camping, and his writing, and even his search for meaning will get better with practice.
(And if YOU're feeling trapped like the author, but you don't want to go all whiny Thoreau, there are other things to do about it, like volunteering. You don't have to borrow your authenticity from Ron Swanson.)
posted by Horkus at 6:42 AM on April 24, 2018 [8 favorites]
(And if YOU're feeling trapped like the author, but you don't want to go all whiny Thoreau, there are other things to do about it, like volunteering. You don't have to borrow your authenticity from Ron Swanson.)
posted by Horkus at 6:42 AM on April 24, 2018 [8 favorites]
I woke up from a nightmare and read this thinking it was tongue-in-cheek, which helped me calm down and try to sleep some more ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I’ll have to re-read it later, in a different mindset.
I’m terrified of the wilderness, but that’s because I have no reservations about my inability and lack of experience being in the wilderness. Part of me thinks it would be fun to go on a hike and setup camp for a couple of days, but mostly that’s because when I’ve gone “camping” (meaning, I’ve parked a car and setup a tent by it), I’ve been mostly terrified of the other campers down the road. If I were to go camping I’d want it to be a comfortable distance from other people, but not so far away that I’m going to die out there. Every time I’ve gone camping I’ve had weird run-ins with people that soured the entire experience.
Funny enough, ranked after bear attacks, I’m terrified of seeing a UFO in the woods. That’s actually one of my main fears, but human beings are definitely number one.
posted by gucci mane at 6:45 AM on April 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
I’m terrified of the wilderness, but that’s because I have no reservations about my inability and lack of experience being in the wilderness. Part of me thinks it would be fun to go on a hike and setup camp for a couple of days, but mostly that’s because when I’ve gone “camping” (meaning, I’ve parked a car and setup a tent by it), I’ve been mostly terrified of the other campers down the road. If I were to go camping I’d want it to be a comfortable distance from other people, but not so far away that I’m going to die out there. Every time I’ve gone camping I’ve had weird run-ins with people that soured the entire experience.
Funny enough, ranked after bear attacks, I’m terrified of seeing a UFO in the woods. That’s actually one of my main fears, but human beings are definitely number one.
posted by gucci mane at 6:45 AM on April 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
Those of you who dismissed this article actually missed some good points.
We do do this, we fetishize nature and "the Outdoors", to the point that people think that the only two possible options are backpacking solo across the Andes and feeding yourself entirely through scavenging and hunting, and staying indoors altogether.
And this guy's ultimate point is, to my mind, that there is a middle path. It's okay to know your own limits and start small, for pity's sake; even Thoreau, whom he mentioned in the essay, lived within walking distance of a relative and would turn up frequently for free meals at their house. The legend of Thoreau just omits that detail.
But that's the thing - we have the legend of Thoreau and John Muir and The Oudoors in mind, and pursue the legend, instead of experiencing the real thing. And the real thing is all around and much more accessible than you think - I have been on hikes right here in the middle of New York City where I actually saw more deer than people. I've got a wall hanging I made of oyster shells that washed up on the shores of a beach in Red Hook, and I've got a colelction of enormous hardshell clam shells that I found on the shores of Fort Totten, during a walk where I also spent 15 minutes watching a bunch of sandpiper-y looking birds poking around in the surf. Once on a Long island beach trip, I watched a whole pod of dolphins lazily swim along the coast; and then an hour later got back on a ferry and went back to Brooklyn.
That all counts as "being in nature" too, was his point, I believe.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:58 AM on April 24, 2018 [16 favorites]
We do do this, we fetishize nature and "the Outdoors", to the point that people think that the only two possible options are backpacking solo across the Andes and feeding yourself entirely through scavenging and hunting, and staying indoors altogether.
And this guy's ultimate point is, to my mind, that there is a middle path. It's okay to know your own limits and start small, for pity's sake; even Thoreau, whom he mentioned in the essay, lived within walking distance of a relative and would turn up frequently for free meals at their house. The legend of Thoreau just omits that detail.
But that's the thing - we have the legend of Thoreau and John Muir and The Oudoors in mind, and pursue the legend, instead of experiencing the real thing. And the real thing is all around and much more accessible than you think - I have been on hikes right here in the middle of New York City where I actually saw more deer than people. I've got a wall hanging I made of oyster shells that washed up on the shores of a beach in Red Hook, and I've got a colelction of enormous hardshell clam shells that I found on the shores of Fort Totten, during a walk where I also spent 15 minutes watching a bunch of sandpiper-y looking birds poking around in the surf. Once on a Long island beach trip, I watched a whole pod of dolphins lazily swim along the coast; and then an hour later got back on a ferry and went back to Brooklyn.
That all counts as "being in nature" too, was his point, I believe.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:58 AM on April 24, 2018 [16 favorites]
I liked it. I get that it's tiring to read about cis white male introspection again and again, and I agree, but at least he acknowledges his privilege and his softness multiple times.
He's right in that the "wilderness experience" is just yet another thing that can be ruined by capitalism and marketing and ego. He's right that in the modern world, authenticity is something constantly searched for and rarely found. And when he does find it, in the woods, he doesn't feel what he expected to feel.
I cried when I saw the Grand Tetons last year, as in literally having to pull over because I could not drive through my sobbing. I spent a few days hiking (though not backpacking) and those were some of the happiest days of my life. I have a different life and history than the author so I have a different appreciation and level of comfort with the outdoors, but I get where he's coming from.
I hope he's able to figure out where he genuinely belongs instead of going outside because he thinks he should, or because it will make him seem cooler. His life in New York sounds like hell to me. I am pulled to the mountains; he seems pushed. I think both are valid modes of living and most people fall somewhere between the two.
As for me, I can think of no better way to die than being eaten by a bear in the shadow of a snow-capped mountain. As long as it's quick.
posted by AFABulous at 7:03 AM on April 24, 2018 [13 favorites]
He's right in that the "wilderness experience" is just yet another thing that can be ruined by capitalism and marketing and ego. He's right that in the modern world, authenticity is something constantly searched for and rarely found. And when he does find it, in the woods, he doesn't feel what he expected to feel.
I cried when I saw the Grand Tetons last year, as in literally having to pull over because I could not drive through my sobbing. I spent a few days hiking (though not backpacking) and those were some of the happiest days of my life. I have a different life and history than the author so I have a different appreciation and level of comfort with the outdoors, but I get where he's coming from.
I hope he's able to figure out where he genuinely belongs instead of going outside because he thinks he should, or because it will make him seem cooler. His life in New York sounds like hell to me. I am pulled to the mountains; he seems pushed. I think both are valid modes of living and most people fall somewhere between the two.
As for me, I can think of no better way to die than being eaten by a bear in the shadow of a snow-capped mountain. As long as it's quick.
posted by AFABulous at 7:03 AM on April 24, 2018 [13 favorites]
I wanted to add - I definitely posted pictures to social media as soon as I came across a place that had wifi, but I wish I hadn't. I'd like to try going on hikes without taking pictures at all. I can't be simultaneously present in a moment and thinking about what I'm going to share with people later. I've been withdrawing from social media lately just for this reason - I've begun to lose sight of who I am and what I want. I realized that too many of the choices I made were governed by whether they fit the image I wanted to project.
posted by AFABulous at 7:11 AM on April 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by AFABulous at 7:11 AM on April 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
my worse camping experience was when some meth heads in an adjoining camp stopped by our campfire and tried to end the night by stealing all of my marijuana paraphernalia
my best camping experience was the same night when me and a self-identified redneck who looked like Jake Gyllenhall from Jarhead shot the shit and related about common humanity and the rights of queer folks
even Thoreau, whom he mentioned in the essay, lived within walking distance of a relative and would turn up frequently for free meals at their house. The legend of Thoreau just omits that detail.
Thoreau also burned down a forest prior to his pretentious grandstanding; that he didn't get strung up or completely ostracized and is now celebrated as an American literary hero is a testament to his money and his privilege. 'middle paths' only exist for people who lack the insight to assess their own positionality within a world of power and oppression. the mountains and the woods and that whole transcendentalism bit is a privileged white endeavor that exists on colonized lands, an activity specifically for the privileged to expose themselves to vulnerability in a way many other folks can't:
my best camping experience was the same night when me and a self-identified redneck who looked like Jake Gyllenhall from Jarhead shot the shit and related about common humanity and the rights of queer folks
even Thoreau, whom he mentioned in the essay, lived within walking distance of a relative and would turn up frequently for free meals at their house. The legend of Thoreau just omits that detail.
Thoreau also burned down a forest prior to his pretentious grandstanding; that he didn't get strung up or completely ostracized and is now celebrated as an American literary hero is a testament to his money and his privilege. 'middle paths' only exist for people who lack the insight to assess their own positionality within a world of power and oppression. the mountains and the woods and that whole transcendentalism bit is a privileged white endeavor that exists on colonized lands, an activity specifically for the privileged to expose themselves to vulnerability in a way many other folks can't:
Put any city kid in the sticks and they may turn craven, but black kids are aware that this is the same environment where Emmett Till, a 14-year-old from Chicago visiting family in Mississippi, was tortured and killed. These are the backwoods where black people were once found swinging from trees like “strange fruit,” as depicted in the recent film, 12 Years a Slave. These are the woods where the towns African Americans built during Reconstruction were burned down and destroyed by the Ku Klux Klan, white police, state troopers, and other mobs of white supremacists throughout much of the 20th century.posted by runt at 7:11 AM on April 24, 2018 [12 favorites]
This essay isn’t great, but it touches on essential questions about our relationship to the outdoors thatmy cohorts and I have spent a lot of time discussing and debating. How does one experience wilderness, and do so meaningfully and ethically? These conversations come up over beers or along gentle trails, between folks that climb or ski or backpack all winter and build trail or count fish or fight wildland fires all summer, they basically live outside and always have a few beat up paperbacks from the graduate-level Shit to Read About Wilderness curriculum.
There’s the quandary of actually being in wilderness, and therefore making it less wild, and the debate over whether or not humans of the Western Civilization still count as part of nature.
And the general trend folks follow of gradually doing more and more dangerous things, but in safer and safer ways. Courting the risk of the backcountry while practicing strict risk management. This certainly isn’t a BAD trend. Lord knows the fewer cotton-wearing lost hikers armed with only a candy bar that need rescuing, the better. But it it is ironic. Sure, you’re going to scale a cliff, but you’re going to mitigate so much risk, you may as well be at an amusement park.
The counterpoint is that wilderness puts that risk management in your own hands, not in the hands of the amusement park, the folks leading your canoe tour, the baseball coach, etc.
Then there is the hierarchy of wilderness, something EmpressCallipygos touches on above. There’s a tree in your backyard, home to some birds and a squirrel. There’s your local park. There’s a nature walk on a boardwalk, with informational placards, through a bit of woods that’s been restored to its pre-developed state and is heavily managed. There’s the Appalachian trail, through forest that once was all logged. There’s a bumper-to-bumper drive through Yellowstone, versus a winter snowshoe tour along the very same roads. Flying into Alaska’s remote interior. Backcountry skiing the Tetons. A months-long backpacking trip in the Bob Marshal Wilderness.
What do you include in your definition of wilderness? What factors influence your definition? It’s usually a combination of higher consequences and low human impact.
And how to balance wilderness with access. It’s frustrating trying to protect our public lands, and ensure future access and then I get annoyed when it’s crowded on the hiking trail because I’m a hypocrite. And that I seek being alone in the mountains, that’s one of the joys of wilderness, but it requires that other people not also seek it.
That we hike deeper and deeper into what remains wild to find wilderness, and as we do so, we make the depths a little less wild.
And don’t get me started on what our ideas about “untouched wilderness” says about Native populations.
I guess the point is that we must engage with nature and wilderness thoughtfully and conscientiously, constantly questioning our ethics and our understanding of the land we walk on. But really, if it makes you grin like an idiot, seek it out, but consider both history and your impact.
posted by Grandysaur at 7:23 AM on April 24, 2018 [11 favorites]
There’s the quandary of actually being in wilderness, and therefore making it less wild, and the debate over whether or not humans of the Western Civilization still count as part of nature.
And the general trend folks follow of gradually doing more and more dangerous things, but in safer and safer ways. Courting the risk of the backcountry while practicing strict risk management. This certainly isn’t a BAD trend. Lord knows the fewer cotton-wearing lost hikers armed with only a candy bar that need rescuing, the better. But it it is ironic. Sure, you’re going to scale a cliff, but you’re going to mitigate so much risk, you may as well be at an amusement park.
The counterpoint is that wilderness puts that risk management in your own hands, not in the hands of the amusement park, the folks leading your canoe tour, the baseball coach, etc.
Then there is the hierarchy of wilderness, something EmpressCallipygos touches on above. There’s a tree in your backyard, home to some birds and a squirrel. There’s your local park. There’s a nature walk on a boardwalk, with informational placards, through a bit of woods that’s been restored to its pre-developed state and is heavily managed. There’s the Appalachian trail, through forest that once was all logged. There’s a bumper-to-bumper drive through Yellowstone, versus a winter snowshoe tour along the very same roads. Flying into Alaska’s remote interior. Backcountry skiing the Tetons. A months-long backpacking trip in the Bob Marshal Wilderness.
What do you include in your definition of wilderness? What factors influence your definition? It’s usually a combination of higher consequences and low human impact.
And how to balance wilderness with access. It’s frustrating trying to protect our public lands, and ensure future access and then I get annoyed when it’s crowded on the hiking trail because I’m a hypocrite. And that I seek being alone in the mountains, that’s one of the joys of wilderness, but it requires that other people not also seek it.
That we hike deeper and deeper into what remains wild to find wilderness, and as we do so, we make the depths a little less wild.
And don’t get me started on what our ideas about “untouched wilderness” says about Native populations.
I guess the point is that we must engage with nature and wilderness thoughtfully and conscientiously, constantly questioning our ethics and our understanding of the land we walk on. But really, if it makes you grin like an idiot, seek it out, but consider both history and your impact.
posted by Grandysaur at 7:23 AM on April 24, 2018 [11 favorites]
For real though, if you ever see a group of backcountry woodsy dirtbags, just go up to them and be like “hey guys does wilderness exist?” and then sit back and watch them debate themselves til the bar closes.
posted by Grandysaur at 7:29 AM on April 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by Grandysaur at 7:29 AM on April 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
I was prepared to be contrarian and like this, or at least read it deeply and find things to like in it. But oh gods he really did write " "The goal is not to get raped by bandit locals,”". Offensive stereotyping of rednecks by a New Yorker, presumably because he wants to show us how much he's changed or learned or whatever? Pass.
posted by traveler_ at 7:30 AM on April 24, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by traveler_ at 7:30 AM on April 24, 2018 [7 favorites]
I hope he's able to figure out where he genuinely belongs instead of going outside because he thinks he should, or because it will make him seem cooler. His life in New York sounds like hell to me. I am pulled to the mountains; he seems pushed. I think both are valid modes of living and most people fall somewhere between the two.
Yeah, that's the crazy thing - there are so many options for getting outdoors even inside New York City proper. And getting outside more regularly to one of thsoe green spaces in the city can cut down on the stress you have from the job during the week to the point that you don't feel like you have to go climb bears or hunt boulders or whatever, unless you have another reason to want to. There's an entire national recreation area where you can fish and kayak and camp and swim and hike and go birdwatching, and you can get there on the damn subway and city bus.
Or even just slowing down and looking at things. I didn't think much of birdwatching until I had an ex who taught me about how he did it - he didn't do the kind of "I am keeping track of these rare species and ticking them off on a list" thing, he was all, "ooh, hey, look at that bird over there, let's stop for a little while and watch and see what it does." With that approach, you don't have to go out to the woods, you can just watch the birds at your bus stop. Or the city parks - there's a whole colony of chimney swifts right by where they have the big Smorgasburg doo-dah on Saturdays. I also saw a bunch flying around the parade grounds out on Governors' Island one afternoon.
If it gets you out of your head and reminds you that you are an equal part of the world, rather than being its conqueror, then it coutns. Even if all you do is sit in the backyard and watch leaves fall.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:33 AM on April 24, 2018 [9 favorites]
Yeah, that's the crazy thing - there are so many options for getting outdoors even inside New York City proper. And getting outside more regularly to one of thsoe green spaces in the city can cut down on the stress you have from the job during the week to the point that you don't feel like you have to go climb bears or hunt boulders or whatever, unless you have another reason to want to. There's an entire national recreation area where you can fish and kayak and camp and swim and hike and go birdwatching, and you can get there on the damn subway and city bus.
Or even just slowing down and looking at things. I didn't think much of birdwatching until I had an ex who taught me about how he did it - he didn't do the kind of "I am keeping track of these rare species and ticking them off on a list" thing, he was all, "ooh, hey, look at that bird over there, let's stop for a little while and watch and see what it does." With that approach, you don't have to go out to the woods, you can just watch the birds at your bus stop. Or the city parks - there's a whole colony of chimney swifts right by where they have the big Smorgasburg doo-dah on Saturdays. I also saw a bunch flying around the parade grounds out on Governors' Island one afternoon.
If it gets you out of your head and reminds you that you are an equal part of the world, rather than being its conqueror, then it coutns. Even if all you do is sit in the backyard and watch leaves fall.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:33 AM on April 24, 2018 [9 favorites]
The bones of a good or at least okay article are in there, dude just needs an editor.
posted by mygothlaundry at 8:07 AM on April 24, 2018
posted by mygothlaundry at 8:07 AM on April 24, 2018
How so? That moment was exactly the kind of thing that would make me reflect bitterly on everything around me. I personally would have been angrier at a country that so refuses to take care of its transient and ill that stores have to do this kind of thing to customers in order to avoid societal problems manifesting all over the bathroom, but hey.
But that’s not at all what he was reflecting on. He’s mad because he specifically can’t do whatever he wants whenever he wants to, he thinks it’s outrageous to participate in any kind of social contract that requires something from him before he uses anyone else’s resources, even if all thats required from him is insurance that he wont be so careless with those resources (like walking away with the key) that nobody else can use them. It’s a libertarian level of privilege. Which, as someone pointed out upthread is exactly the leason he learns — the prison of other people is freedom from bears.
I also want to elaborate on why the “like a pretty girl” line is off putting. Because it’s not just sort of objectifying of the pretty girl in the simile. It also reveals that it has not crossed the authors (or editors) mind that he could be talking to herero women or gay men in this piece. Roughly 50% of the population just dont exist for him as a possible audience who would find that simile as illuminating as “it was like looking at a pretty assfhjbdmmsnnd.”
posted by mrmurbles at 8:13 AM on April 24, 2018 [15 favorites]
But that’s not at all what he was reflecting on. He’s mad because he specifically can’t do whatever he wants whenever he wants to, he thinks it’s outrageous to participate in any kind of social contract that requires something from him before he uses anyone else’s resources, even if all thats required from him is insurance that he wont be so careless with those resources (like walking away with the key) that nobody else can use them. It’s a libertarian level of privilege. Which, as someone pointed out upthread is exactly the leason he learns — the prison of other people is freedom from bears.
I also want to elaborate on why the “like a pretty girl” line is off putting. Because it’s not just sort of objectifying of the pretty girl in the simile. It also reveals that it has not crossed the authors (or editors) mind that he could be talking to herero women or gay men in this piece. Roughly 50% of the population just dont exist for him as a possible audience who would find that simile as illuminating as “it was like looking at a pretty assfhjbdmmsnnd.”
posted by mrmurbles at 8:13 AM on April 24, 2018 [15 favorites]
MetaFilter: nothing compared to the risk of a post-dump mauling
posted by chavenet at 8:18 AM on April 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by chavenet at 8:18 AM on April 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
But it it is ironic. Sure, you’re going to scale a cliff, but you’re going to mitigate so much risk, you may as well be at an amusement park.
Sure, if the risk is the bit that matters to you, that defines the experience or conception of wilderness or nature for you. I'd wager that it doesn't for most people though, and that no amount of the kind of risk management involved in actual outdoor rock climbing would make the experience qualitatively similar or comparable to an amusement park in any way, or make the environment you're experiencing feel similarly managed.
posted by Dysk at 8:19 AM on April 24, 2018 [8 favorites]
Sure, if the risk is the bit that matters to you, that defines the experience or conception of wilderness or nature for you. I'd wager that it doesn't for most people though, and that no amount of the kind of risk management involved in actual outdoor rock climbing would make the experience qualitatively similar or comparable to an amusement park in any way, or make the environment you're experiencing feel similarly managed.
posted by Dysk at 8:19 AM on April 24, 2018 [8 favorites]
“That killed me. Not because of anything he did, of course. It killed me because learning that I needed a license to pee was a reminder that for the privilege of living on a small island with four million people I have traded in some things, and the most precious of these is freedom.”
No, you don’t need a license to pee, you need permission to use someone else’s property explicitly because it isn’t yours to do with as you please.
And in fact the whole world is not yours to do with as you please. Which is why going out into the wilderness is unsatisfying, because you still cannot do as you please without possibly negative consequences. And why having a six-figure job, where you actually feel entitled to literally break the toys you’re given because they are not sufficiently satisfying to you, is also a place where you cannot do what you please. Because others exist. Other people, other species, other weather conditions, other features of the Earth that have absolutely zero responsibility to cater to you.
I feel like this guy has gone through his entire life without once figuring that out. Even his 8-year-old walk in the woods with Grandpa is framed as something specifically given to him, something created for him. His entire essay and his entire thought process is framed around how the world around him is or isn’t shaping him into his ideal of manhood. He frames the spectacle of the wilderness as being the reason explorers explore.
“This,” I wanted to answer Thoreau, “this was why America was discovered.”
America was never “discovered”. It’s been here for eons and ages.
The world was created, it doesn’t exist for you. It exists. And at no point does this guy ever consider the concept that the world is an enormous and infinitely complex system of which he is a minuscule part, a participant, a drop of rain against a mountaintop. He never gets that. He goes outside and disappoints himself with how everything doesn’t live up to his expectations, not even his own body. It’s still all for him and how he feels about it. Like a pretty girl is for him to look at and approve of, not a person with her own life and frame of reference.
And now he wrote an article about it and we’re supposed to sympathize about how relentlessly self-absorbed he still is? What. A. Turd.
posted by Autumnheart at 8:24 AM on April 24, 2018 [49 favorites]
No, you don’t need a license to pee, you need permission to use someone else’s property explicitly because it isn’t yours to do with as you please.
And in fact the whole world is not yours to do with as you please. Which is why going out into the wilderness is unsatisfying, because you still cannot do as you please without possibly negative consequences. And why having a six-figure job, where you actually feel entitled to literally break the toys you’re given because they are not sufficiently satisfying to you, is also a place where you cannot do what you please. Because others exist. Other people, other species, other weather conditions, other features of the Earth that have absolutely zero responsibility to cater to you.
I feel like this guy has gone through his entire life without once figuring that out. Even his 8-year-old walk in the woods with Grandpa is framed as something specifically given to him, something created for him. His entire essay and his entire thought process is framed around how the world around him is or isn’t shaping him into his ideal of manhood. He frames the spectacle of the wilderness as being the reason explorers explore.
“This,” I wanted to answer Thoreau, “this was why America was discovered.”
America was never “discovered”. It’s been here for eons and ages.
The world was created, it doesn’t exist for you. It exists. And at no point does this guy ever consider the concept that the world is an enormous and infinitely complex system of which he is a minuscule part, a participant, a drop of rain against a mountaintop. He never gets that. He goes outside and disappoints himself with how everything doesn’t live up to his expectations, not even his own body. It’s still all for him and how he feels about it. Like a pretty girl is for him to look at and approve of, not a person with her own life and frame of reference.
And now he wrote an article about it and we’re supposed to sympathize about how relentlessly self-absorbed he still is? What. A. Turd.
posted by Autumnheart at 8:24 AM on April 24, 2018 [49 favorites]
There’s also some dissonance with the “freedom” the wilderness can provide. In my experience, ones choices are far more limited in the woods than in the city, it’s just nature imposing restrictions rather than your fellow humans.
Backpacking, each day you get up, you pack up camp, you move forward, you stop, you set up camp, you sleep, repeat. You wear a few clothes and hope you brought the right layers. You eat the food you packed, even though you’re really craving thai food. You have to turn back from the summit because there’s a storm coming. Or you’d rather not get on the raft today, it’s seems like the perfect day to read in the sun and drink a beer, but you’re day 14 into a 30 day river trip and you literally have not other option but to head down the river so you make it out in time and don’t run out of food or overstay your permit.
The wilderness imposes some very real rules on you, and disobeying can kill you.
On the other hand, it provides freedom from society’s petty rules and impositions, you are literally held accountable by a higher power.
Additionally, the structure and simplicity of being in wilderness offers respite from the tyranny of choice, which is its own sort of liberation.
posted by Grandysaur at 8:25 AM on April 24, 2018 [13 favorites]
Backpacking, each day you get up, you pack up camp, you move forward, you stop, you set up camp, you sleep, repeat. You wear a few clothes and hope you brought the right layers. You eat the food you packed, even though you’re really craving thai food. You have to turn back from the summit because there’s a storm coming. Or you’d rather not get on the raft today, it’s seems like the perfect day to read in the sun and drink a beer, but you’re day 14 into a 30 day river trip and you literally have not other option but to head down the river so you make it out in time and don’t run out of food or overstay your permit.
The wilderness imposes some very real rules on you, and disobeying can kill you.
On the other hand, it provides freedom from society’s petty rules and impositions, you are literally held accountable by a higher power.
Additionally, the structure and simplicity of being in wilderness offers respite from the tyranny of choice, which is its own sort of liberation.
posted by Grandysaur at 8:25 AM on April 24, 2018 [13 favorites]
Or the city parks - there's a whole colony of chimney swifts right by where they have the big Smorgasburg doo-dah on Saturdays. I also saw a bunch flying around the parade grounds out on Governors' Island one afternoon.
There's been a huge red-tailed hawk soap opera playing itself out in Tompkins Square Park recently.
posted by praemunire at 8:27 AM on April 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
There's been a huge red-tailed hawk soap opera playing itself out in Tompkins Square Park recently.
posted by praemunire at 8:27 AM on April 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
Also, as a woman, where my physiology and culture makes it impossible for me to just whip it out and pee wherever I choose no matter how urgent my need, and therefore I have to engage in the social convention of finding an appropriate bathroom and obtaining the necessary permission 100% of the time, it really stood out to me that dude thought that “needing a license to pee” was some kind of offense to his personal autonomy.
posted by Autumnheart at 8:32 AM on April 24, 2018 [23 favorites]
posted by Autumnheart at 8:32 AM on April 24, 2018 [23 favorites]
Between ChuraChura and Autumnheart, I don't think I have anything to add that hasn't already been said better than I could. I would favorite both their comments multiple times if I could.
posted by biogeo at 8:41 AM on April 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by biogeo at 8:41 AM on April 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
It exists. And at no point does this guy ever consider the concept that the world is an enormous and infinitely complex system of which he is a minuscule part, a participant, a drop of rain against a mountaintop.
Ah, yeah, this is the difference between him and me. I find nature extremely humbling and that's a big part of why I enjoy it. I am nothing to a river or mountain. I'm not even a blip on the timeline that created a canyon. This relieves a lot of anxiety about my life decisions, because they don't matter, at all. Nature isn't there for me, and I'm not there for it. We both just are.
posted by AFABulous at 8:45 AM on April 24, 2018 [5 favorites]
Ah, yeah, this is the difference between him and me. I find nature extremely humbling and that's a big part of why I enjoy it. I am nothing to a river or mountain. I'm not even a blip on the timeline that created a canyon. This relieves a lot of anxiety about my life decisions, because they don't matter, at all. Nature isn't there for me, and I'm not there for it. We both just are.
posted by AFABulous at 8:45 AM on April 24, 2018 [5 favorites]
I consider it no coincidence that I live in an area where there have in fact been bear sightings in the neighborhood. Black bears, but bears nonetheless.
posted by Autumnheart at 8:45 AM on April 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Autumnheart at 8:45 AM on April 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
There's been a huge red-tailed hawk soap opera playing itself out in Tompkins Square Park recently.
Heh; I once saw a hawk snatch a koi out of the pond in the Japanese Hill and Pond area at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. It had been circling the garden and Prospect Park all day, and at some point it just dove in, splashed down and then took back off, a huge koi wriggling in its grasp.
The best part, though, was the one lap it did of the pond before taking off - past a whole bunch of kids who'd been goofing off on the pavillion across from me and getting on my nerves. They had all shut up when they heard the splash, and they all were watching the hawk, jaws dropped, a little scared, and absolutely silent. Another woman who'd been passing by where I sat saw the whole thing too, and we both looked from the hawk to the kids, and then at each other - and we laughed our asses off.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:51 AM on April 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
Heh; I once saw a hawk snatch a koi out of the pond in the Japanese Hill and Pond area at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. It had been circling the garden and Prospect Park all day, and at some point it just dove in, splashed down and then took back off, a huge koi wriggling in its grasp.
The best part, though, was the one lap it did of the pond before taking off - past a whole bunch of kids who'd been goofing off on the pavillion across from me and getting on my nerves. They had all shut up when they heard the splash, and they all were watching the hawk, jaws dropped, a little scared, and absolutely silent. Another woman who'd been passing by where I sat saw the whole thing too, and we both looked from the hawk to the kids, and then at each other - and we laughed our asses off.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:51 AM on April 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
First, as a woman, "whip it out" might not apply but I've peed in places you people wouldn't believe .... all those moments will be lost in time, like, okay, obviously tears aren't the only bodily fluid that washes away.
Also, Londoners: Bears at Whipsnade! Paddington. My god, Paddington!!!
posted by Lesser Shrew at 8:53 AM on April 24, 2018 [5 favorites]
Also, Londoners: Bears at Whipsnade! Paddington. My god, Paddington!!!
posted by Lesser Shrew at 8:53 AM on April 24, 2018 [5 favorites]
Rule #1 of e.g. strapping a canoe to your car and making your way down a river is that you bring two cars.
posted by Autumnheart at 8:54 AM on April 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by Autumnheart at 8:54 AM on April 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
Fantastic discussion. I'm going to be musing on the small, yet undeniably present, chance of BEARS ATTACKING ME all the way home through London evening rush hour. Thanks for making my evening just that much better.
posted by Ziggy500 at 9:04 AM on April 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by Ziggy500 at 9:04 AM on April 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
I've got a lot of sympathy for the guy. He's affected by all those accounts by quite possibly impressive people writing impressively about their most impressive moments, and he feels there's something wrong with him because he isn't like that.
It's a nasty trap, and I hope he finds a way out.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 9:19 AM on April 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
It's a nasty trap, and I hope he finds a way out.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 9:19 AM on April 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
the small, yet undeniably present, chance of BEARS ATTACKING ME all the way home through London evening rush hour.
they probably can't afford that congestion charge
posted by thelonius at 9:30 AM on April 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
they probably can't afford that congestion charge
posted by thelonius at 9:30 AM on April 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
Sure, you’re going to scale a cliff, but you’re going to mitigate so much risk, you may as well be at an amusement park. The counterpoint is that wilderness puts that risk management in your own hands, not in the hands of the amusement park, the folks leading your canoe tour, the baseball coach, etc.
It's interesting that the writer brings up Jon Krakauer and Into Thin Air, because the conception of reducing the wilderness into a setting for your own personal self-actualization and/or triumph is one of the main reasons Krakauer points to for the deadliness of the Everest trek that that book is about. Climbers looked at Everest as a setting for their own personal dramas instead of as something much, much bigger than that, something that exists in and for its own right, and many lost their lives for that hubris.
What's frustrating about this article is that the writer maintains that hubris. He isn't punished for it and is seemingly still blind to it...and then even somehow blames/dismisses wilderness for not dissuading him from it in harsher terms.
Another thing that Krakauer brings up a lot in Into Thin Air is the idea that climbers on his trek (including himself) abdicated a lot of their personal agency and just expected the guides or even just the narrative force of their [triumphant] climb to get them to the summit and back safely/successfully. They didn't take responsibility for themselves because they had infantalized themselves. What's interesting to me about this writer is that he complains bitterly about how he has infantalized himself, too, but then he still STILL expects the wilderness to just deliver enlightenment into his head. He still doesn't understand the concept of taking responsibility or acting as an adult with his own agency, that he's not acting within the safety bumpers of A Successful Life Narrative, despite supposedly going on a quest specifically to learn just that concept.
I don't think the piece itself is a failure so much as it is an account of a failure to learn. The writer is trying to learn the lessons of Into Thin Air (et al), but in the end, he just doesn't.
posted by rue72 at 9:46 AM on April 24, 2018 [12 favorites]
It's interesting that the writer brings up Jon Krakauer and Into Thin Air, because the conception of reducing the wilderness into a setting for your own personal self-actualization and/or triumph is one of the main reasons Krakauer points to for the deadliness of the Everest trek that that book is about. Climbers looked at Everest as a setting for their own personal dramas instead of as something much, much bigger than that, something that exists in and for its own right, and many lost their lives for that hubris.
What's frustrating about this article is that the writer maintains that hubris. He isn't punished for it and is seemingly still blind to it...and then even somehow blames/dismisses wilderness for not dissuading him from it in harsher terms.
Another thing that Krakauer brings up a lot in Into Thin Air is the idea that climbers on his trek (including himself) abdicated a lot of their personal agency and just expected the guides or even just the narrative force of their [triumphant] climb to get them to the summit and back safely/successfully. They didn't take responsibility for themselves because they had infantalized themselves. What's interesting to me about this writer is that he complains bitterly about how he has infantalized himself, too, but then he still STILL expects the wilderness to just deliver enlightenment into his head. He still doesn't understand the concept of taking responsibility or acting as an adult with his own agency, that he's not acting within the safety bumpers of A Successful Life Narrative, despite supposedly going on a quest specifically to learn just that concept.
I don't think the piece itself is a failure so much as it is an account of a failure to learn. The writer is trying to learn the lessons of Into Thin Air (et al), but in the end, he just doesn't.
posted by rue72 at 9:46 AM on April 24, 2018 [12 favorites]
I am fortunate to work in Grand Canyon, where I earn my living by taking people hiking. There was a point in my life where I had a lot in common with the author of this essay, right down to listening to the exact same David Foster Wallace radio interview he quotes.
It's easy to be critical of the essayist, and there are good reasons for doing so. But remember how painful junior high school was? Remember the terrible poetry you wrote, the cringe-worthy journal entries that record what felt like an impossible process of navigating between other people's expectations and your own self-consciousness? This essay is what it looks like when a similar degree of personal growth happens in adulthood. It's not pretty.
This essay definitely would have benefitted from an editorial overhaul, and I think it could have been an outstanding piece if it had been tightened up and if half the space had been given to responding thoughts from a woman or a person of color or a member of some other minority group who had spent a lifetime working in the outdoors.
There are points that the author makes that are valid, and which are worth exploring in greater depth from someone else's viewpoint. That thing he says about brand-new gear being expensive, and it seems necessary, but is it really necessary, and do you need all the latest-and-greatest to get outdoors? It comes close to remarks that I have heard from a friend and colleague who runs outdoor programs for his minority-group community. He struggles with trying to get decent-enough gear for one of his programs while also having to deal with the glossy-catalogue necessity-mindset that pervades outdoor-product marketing and outdoor journalism. And even though the essayist's remarks come close to some important issues, they also miss the substance of those issues by a wide margin.
What this author is going through, these boring cliche thoughts, these cliches about cliches, the circular thinking and navel-gazey stuff ... this is what dawning self-awareness looks like. It looks totally self-absorbed.
(It actually reminds me somewhat of the profile of Tucker Max from several years ago [previously], where Tucker has gone to therapy, and he demonstrates this inkling of self-awareness, and but the self-awareness is also totally self-centered, and in my memory of the profile he's essentially like, "Look how flawed I am, I'm self-aware now, I'm totally awesome for realizing how flawed I am." I haven't seen anything to suggest that Tucker Max reached escape velocity from one-dimensional narcissism, but that's what the start of the process can look like, and yeah, it's ugly.)
To put it another way, the process of a deeply flawed individual realizing their deep flaws is necessary going to look deeply flawed. It just so happens that the author of this essay appears to have had this realization in the wilderness.
And so the essayist is dealing with these important questions about who he is and who he is going to be and what it means to be that person. But because he asked himself these questions as a result of being miserable outdoors, he appears to be confusing these questions with the question of "What is wilderness?"
Wilderness is important to me because it's where I did a lot of the hard work of figuring out how to be a better person than I used to be. It is where I finally got past the navel-gazey, cringeworthy part of getting over my own ego. When I lead trips in the backcountry, I see many of my clients going through this process on their own, to different degrees, and I try to be patient with them.
I agree with what Autumnheart writes above, that the essayist has still not learned that "the whole world is not yours to do with as you please." But I also think that this is what the beginning of the learning process looks like. It's not pretty.
posted by compartment at 10:05 AM on April 24, 2018 [17 favorites]
It's easy to be critical of the essayist, and there are good reasons for doing so. But remember how painful junior high school was? Remember the terrible poetry you wrote, the cringe-worthy journal entries that record what felt like an impossible process of navigating between other people's expectations and your own self-consciousness? This essay is what it looks like when a similar degree of personal growth happens in adulthood. It's not pretty.
This essay definitely would have benefitted from an editorial overhaul, and I think it could have been an outstanding piece if it had been tightened up and if half the space had been given to responding thoughts from a woman or a person of color or a member of some other minority group who had spent a lifetime working in the outdoors.
There are points that the author makes that are valid, and which are worth exploring in greater depth from someone else's viewpoint. That thing he says about brand-new gear being expensive, and it seems necessary, but is it really necessary, and do you need all the latest-and-greatest to get outdoors? It comes close to remarks that I have heard from a friend and colleague who runs outdoor programs for his minority-group community. He struggles with trying to get decent-enough gear for one of his programs while also having to deal with the glossy-catalogue necessity-mindset that pervades outdoor-product marketing and outdoor journalism. And even though the essayist's remarks come close to some important issues, they also miss the substance of those issues by a wide margin.
What this author is going through, these boring cliche thoughts, these cliches about cliches, the circular thinking and navel-gazey stuff ... this is what dawning self-awareness looks like. It looks totally self-absorbed.
(It actually reminds me somewhat of the profile of Tucker Max from several years ago [previously], where Tucker has gone to therapy, and he demonstrates this inkling of self-awareness, and but the self-awareness is also totally self-centered, and in my memory of the profile he's essentially like, "Look how flawed I am, I'm self-aware now, I'm totally awesome for realizing how flawed I am." I haven't seen anything to suggest that Tucker Max reached escape velocity from one-dimensional narcissism, but that's what the start of the process can look like, and yeah, it's ugly.)
To put it another way, the process of a deeply flawed individual realizing their deep flaws is necessary going to look deeply flawed. It just so happens that the author of this essay appears to have had this realization in the wilderness.
And so the essayist is dealing with these important questions about who he is and who he is going to be and what it means to be that person. But because he asked himself these questions as a result of being miserable outdoors, he appears to be confusing these questions with the question of "What is wilderness?"
Wilderness is important to me because it's where I did a lot of the hard work of figuring out how to be a better person than I used to be. It is where I finally got past the navel-gazey, cringeworthy part of getting over my own ego. When I lead trips in the backcountry, I see many of my clients going through this process on their own, to different degrees, and I try to be patient with them.
I agree with what Autumnheart writes above, that the essayist has still not learned that "the whole world is not yours to do with as you please." But I also think that this is what the beginning of the learning process looks like. It's not pretty.
posted by compartment at 10:05 AM on April 24, 2018 [17 favorites]
And on second thought it is possible that I am 100% projecting.
posted by compartment at 10:07 AM on April 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by compartment at 10:07 AM on April 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
I have grown quite comfortably into the rites of a civilized life and as a result I think I have become something of a fucking infant...
Hemingway!masculinity has fucked up men but good.
posted by tzikeh at 10:09 AM on April 24, 2018 [5 favorites]
Hemingway!masculinity has fucked up men but good.
posted by tzikeh at 10:09 AM on April 24, 2018 [5 favorites]
It's interesting to note the tenor of discussion about this essay, in which we are BENDING OVER BACKWARDS to be charitable in our readings and extract as much good as possible while acknowledging its many flaws. And, that's a generous and kind way to read essays and it's a generous and kind way to ... suck the marrow out of problematic things. While it's good to read generously, I have to think that a significant amount of this "But he's growing" and "But he's introspective in some ways" has to do with the extended adolescence and space to fuck up white people and white men in particular get. And, frankly, I really resent it given the lazy misogyny and settler colonialism on display in the essay. I don't have to extend that much benefit of the doubt to this guy. I have to believe that there are more interesting and, probably, diverse, voices that we could be elevating and seriously discussing and Outside Magazine could be publishing who have even more interesting insights on nature and wilderness and commodification of the outdoors.
posted by ChuraChura at 10:11 AM on April 24, 2018 [22 favorites]
posted by ChuraChura at 10:11 AM on April 24, 2018 [22 favorites]
this is what dawning self-awareness looks like. It looks totally self-absorbed.
Does it? I'm not sure. Here is MetaFilter's discussion of a parallel article about dawning self-awareness, about a person gaining a deeper understanding of who she is in the world and the flaws in the narrative that she unconsciously absorbed as a younger person. The author of that piece is almost painfully aware of how others read her experiences, and what they imply not just about her but other women. This business of coming slowly and consciously to realise that there are other people in the world is not really an option for her, since other people have been forcing an awareness of themselves and their desires on her since she was very young; the whole piece is about realising, slowly, that she exists apart from those desires. That difference doesn't, in itself, make her story more morally admirable than his, but it does suggest that attaining self-awareness exclusively via self-absorption is not a universal narrative for the whole human race.
posted by Aravis76 at 10:18 AM on April 24, 2018 [11 favorites]
Does it? I'm not sure. Here is MetaFilter's discussion of a parallel article about dawning self-awareness, about a person gaining a deeper understanding of who she is in the world and the flaws in the narrative that she unconsciously absorbed as a younger person. The author of that piece is almost painfully aware of how others read her experiences, and what they imply not just about her but other women. This business of coming slowly and consciously to realise that there are other people in the world is not really an option for her, since other people have been forcing an awareness of themselves and their desires on her since she was very young; the whole piece is about realising, slowly, that she exists apart from those desires. That difference doesn't, in itself, make her story more morally admirable than his, but it does suggest that attaining self-awareness exclusively via self-absorption is not a universal narrative for the whole human race.
posted by Aravis76 at 10:18 AM on April 24, 2018 [11 favorites]
The enormous difference between that article and this one is that in the case of the woman who used to be a model, she was always treated as an object for other people’s fulfillment, and she learned over time that she was her own person. This guy treats everything as objects for his fulfillment, and has yet to learn that anything or any one is its own and not just a reflection of him.
posted by Autumnheart at 10:28 AM on April 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Autumnheart at 10:28 AM on April 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
(So I just said what Aravis76 said. Derp. Ignore that one.)
posted by Autumnheart at 10:34 AM on April 24, 2018
posted by Autumnheart at 10:34 AM on April 24, 2018
IDK, if anyone's linked it already, but the author's personal website. If self-awareness = self-absorption then he woke AF.
posted by dudemanlives at 10:41 AM on April 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by dudemanlives at 10:41 AM on April 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
This guy needs to be able to stop narrating his own life to himself every waking moment in order to be able to experience anything, much less 'the wilderness'.
And he knows that:
I wish him well, but I don't know how to help him.
posted by jamjam at 10:55 AM on April 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
And he knows that:
“Another glorious Sierra day in which one seems to be dissolved and absorbed and sent pulsing onward we know not where,” John Muir, the founder of the Sierra Club, put down in his journal on June 13, 1869, while trailing a shepherd and his flock to the source of the Tuolumne river. “Life seems neither long nor short, and we take no more heed to save time or make haste than do the trees and stars. This is true freedom, a good practical sort of immortality.Yet this self-awareness only leads to more self-awareness for him; he can't seem to take one step outside the cave of his own words.
Which is so much the essence of what I’m looking for that it is at once a promise and a terrible challenge—terrible because however much I want to go with Muir and feel full and in the moment I may not, by my very constitution, be able to. It may well be that even as I embark on a trip into the wild, especially as I embark on one, I am doing no more than configuring my public self. It may be that it’s simply not possible for me to go genuinely, unselfconsciously outside.
I wish him well, but I don't know how to help him.
posted by jamjam at 10:55 AM on April 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
BEARS ATTACKING ME all the way home through London evening rush hour.
Don't be so silly, Ziggy500, everybody knows about the bears
posted by glasseyes at 11:04 AM on April 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
Don't be so silly, Ziggy500, everybody knows about the bears
posted by glasseyes at 11:04 AM on April 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
Aravis76, I agree with that assessment. What I should have written is "that is what dawning self-awareness looks like for someone like the essayist." The wording in my first comment assumed a default mode for humanity of privileged, white, male, and self-absorbed. Apologies for writing that. My wording literally ignored most of the planet's population.
ChuraChura, I completely agree that there are better voices to elevate. The essay has no shortage of problems. There's a reason why I was reminded of Tucker Max. I think you're probably correct that excessively charitable readings of an unremarkable essay are a reflection of extended-adolescence privilege.
If my comment above seems overly generous to the author, then it's probably a part of a bigger problem — a tendency among privileged white guys to cut excess slack or devote undue attention to others in our class — and I don't want to be a part of that problem, so I appreciate your remarks.
What I probably should have said is that all of this ugly, personal growth is just that: Ugly personal growth, a personal thing that's not great fodder for a magazine article if the writer can draw no good lessons from the process.
I get the impression that in the years since this article was published Outside has been better about elevating different voices, although there's still lots of room for improvement.
posted by compartment at 11:28 AM on April 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
ChuraChura, I completely agree that there are better voices to elevate. The essay has no shortage of problems. There's a reason why I was reminded of Tucker Max. I think you're probably correct that excessively charitable readings of an unremarkable essay are a reflection of extended-adolescence privilege.
If my comment above seems overly generous to the author, then it's probably a part of a bigger problem — a tendency among privileged white guys to cut excess slack or devote undue attention to others in our class — and I don't want to be a part of that problem, so I appreciate your remarks.
What I probably should have said is that all of this ugly, personal growth is just that: Ugly personal growth, a personal thing that's not great fodder for a magazine article if the writer can draw no good lessons from the process.
I get the impression that in the years since this article was published Outside has been better about elevating different voices, although there's still lots of room for improvement.
posted by compartment at 11:28 AM on April 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
IDK, if anyone's linked it already, but the author's personal website. If self-awareness = self-absorption then he woke AF.
Not sure what you mean. The website reads like a CV (except for the "books I've read" part). Without reading all of his linked articles, what gives you the sense that he's (still) self-absorbed? How else is a writer or developer supposed to promote his work?
posted by AFABulous at 12:16 PM on April 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
Not sure what you mean. The website reads like a CV (except for the "books I've read" part). Without reading all of his linked articles, what gives you the sense that he's (still) self-absorbed? How else is a writer or developer supposed to promote his work?
posted by AFABulous at 12:16 PM on April 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
On his website, he maintains a long list of books he has read, beginning with his first year of college. There are 13 books by women; one is The Rules ("I will be thinking of this book a lot and wondering whether the girls I run into have read it"), one is an essay by Virginia Woolf I've never heard of, two were obviously assigned in a course on Modernism (more Woolf, Stein), and two are children's books. Atwood gets a couple of mentions, for the Maddaddam trilogy, but there's a striking lack of any fiction by women, about women's lives, at all. There are other kinds of Outsides than the trees and mountains, and he might consider adventuring among them rather than trying to replicate primal white-male experiences from the 19th century.
posted by jokeefe at 12:25 PM on April 24, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by jokeefe at 12:25 PM on April 24, 2018 [9 favorites]
AFABulous, the "books I've read" part stuck out as pompous. Really I was just feeling snarky cause I didn't have lunch + the guy kinda reminds me of me 15 years ago.
posted by dudemanlives at 12:25 PM on April 24, 2018
posted by dudemanlives at 12:25 PM on April 24, 2018
It's interesting to note the tenor of discussion about this essay, in which we are BENDING OVER BACKWARDS to be charitable in our readings and extract as much good as possible while acknowledging its many flaws.
It's been two hours since this observation and it looks like the discussion has now started to deliberately prowl the guy's web site looking to take pot-shots at his personal reading list, which is, like, the opposite reaction.
It's absolutely a valid point that the field of outdoors writing has an overall non-diversity of voices. But I don't think the way to fix that is to heap condemnation on this one guy in particular. It's not Star Wars, it's not like we're trying to Bring Balance To The Force or anything. He may be a clueless douche, but this post is more about what he wrote than it is about who he is.
Yes, I know that "who he is" informs "what he wrote". But combing through his reading habits and going "ah-ha, you didn't read anything by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie" or whatever is all that necessary when one can simply say "dude, why bother going to Mount Everest when Breakneck Ridge is just 20 minutes on the Metro North, it's way easier to get to and hard enough for you to feel like you've got balls of steel or whatever you're after".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:41 PM on April 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
It's been two hours since this observation and it looks like the discussion has now started to deliberately prowl the guy's web site looking to take pot-shots at his personal reading list, which is, like, the opposite reaction.
It's absolutely a valid point that the field of outdoors writing has an overall non-diversity of voices. But I don't think the way to fix that is to heap condemnation on this one guy in particular. It's not Star Wars, it's not like we're trying to Bring Balance To The Force or anything. He may be a clueless douche, but this post is more about what he wrote than it is about who he is.
Yes, I know that "who he is" informs "what he wrote". But combing through his reading habits and going "ah-ha, you didn't read anything by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie" or whatever is all that necessary when one can simply say "dude, why bother going to Mount Everest when Breakneck Ridge is just 20 minutes on the Metro North, it's way easier to get to and hard enough for you to feel like you've got balls of steel or whatever you're after".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:41 PM on April 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
His book list reads like an r/iamverysmart post. Sprinkled with a bit of “How do I effectively imitate an actual human being?”
posted by Autumnheart at 12:45 PM on April 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Autumnheart at 12:45 PM on April 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
there are so many options for getting outdoors even inside New York City proper.
Prospect Park, which, unless it's been severely abused in the last couple of decades, has a much more remote feeling in its interior than just about any place in Central Park, except maybe for the Ramble.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:12 PM on April 24, 2018
Prospect Park, which, unless it's been severely abused in the last couple of decades, has a much more remote feeling in its interior than just about any place in Central Park, except maybe for the Ramble.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:12 PM on April 24, 2018
But combing through his reading habits and going "ah-ha, you didn't read anything by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie" or whatever is all that necessary when one can simply say "dude, why bother going to Mount Everest when Breakneck Ridge is just 20 minutes on the Metro
He's made a carefully curated public list of his reading life, which is an ego display in the first place, and a statement of his values. It's not wrong to suggest that an expansion of his reading might result in an adjustment in his outlook-- he's a writer, this is how he negotiates the world.
posted by jokeefe at 1:44 PM on April 24, 2018 [5 favorites]
He's made a carefully curated public list of his reading life, which is an ego display in the first place, and a statement of his values. It's not wrong to suggest that an expansion of his reading might result in an adjustment in his outlook-- he's a writer, this is how he negotiates the world.
posted by jokeefe at 1:44 PM on April 24, 2018 [5 favorites]
I mean, it’s a personal essay. It’s going to invite personal criticism. Imagine the response here if someone posted the essay version of Eat, Pray, Love.
posted by mrmurbles at 2:05 PM on April 24, 2018
posted by mrmurbles at 2:05 PM on April 24, 2018
It killed me because learning that I needed a license to pee was a reminder that for the privilege of living on a small island with four million people I have traded in some things, and the most precious of these is freedom.
One day they will open a real Westworld and he will be so happy because he can pee wherever he wants and the bears will be programmed to growl, but they will not actually eat him.
posted by betweenthebars at 2:10 PM on April 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
One day they will open a real Westworld and he will be so happy because he can pee wherever he wants and the bears will be programmed to growl, but they will not actually eat him.
posted by betweenthebars at 2:10 PM on April 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
He may be a clueless douche, but this post is more about what he wrote than it is about who he is.
No - because what he wrote is clueless douchieness of a type that is currently causing immense harm. Who he is is the problem. The writing is just a documentation of the problem.
posted by PMdixon at 2:30 PM on April 24, 2018
No - because what he wrote is clueless douchieness of a type that is currently causing immense harm. Who he is is the problem. The writing is just a documentation of the problem.
posted by PMdixon at 2:30 PM on April 24, 2018
Yes, the extended adolescence thing really irritated me when reading this essay. There's nothing wrong with personal growth, at any stage of life, and I guess you could see this guy's recognition that his "manly man outdoorsman" fantasies are unrealistic as a "better late than never" sort of growth. But I'm profoundly uninterested in his personal journey; his self-realizations are pretty basic and pedestrian, and it's pretty clear he's coming from a pretty immature place with a lot of unexamined privilege. He's discontented with a life in which he and his friends and coworkers all make more money than I probably ever will, doing work that quite frankly isn't very hard, where they are so coddled that they can throw tantrums over insufficiently fancy ping pong balls. I would love to be able to take a trip like the one that so underwhelmed him; my heart aches when I think of the last time I saw mountains, but because I chose a career in academic laboratory science instead of much easier (for me) IT-related work, I see no such opportunity for my financial and life circumstances to permit one any time soon.
I think Autumnheart nailed it with this:
And in fact the whole world is not yours to do with as you please. Which is why going out into the wilderness is unsatisfying, because you still cannot do as you please without possibly negative consequences.
Some of us figured out early on that the world is not for us, and that trying to treat it as such may lead to transient pleasure but is never fulfilling. Learning to be with it can bring peace, and working to be for it can give meaning. The best ideas of the Transcendentalists were about focusing on the natural world as a kind of icon of these truths. Somers instead approached nature as something to be conquered, a tool for proving his masculinity and capacity to live independently of the "bonds" of civilization. He's sufficiently self-aware to recognize his failure to engage with nature on his hike, and that his expectations for the trip were grossly misplaced. The best line in the essay is this one:
posted by biogeo at 3:23 PM on April 24, 2018 [13 favorites]
I think Autumnheart nailed it with this:
And in fact the whole world is not yours to do with as you please. Which is why going out into the wilderness is unsatisfying, because you still cannot do as you please without possibly negative consequences.
Some of us figured out early on that the world is not for us, and that trying to treat it as such may lead to transient pleasure but is never fulfilling. Learning to be with it can bring peace, and working to be for it can give meaning. The best ideas of the Transcendentalists were about focusing on the natural world as a kind of icon of these truths. Somers instead approached nature as something to be conquered, a tool for proving his masculinity and capacity to live independently of the "bonds" of civilization. He's sufficiently self-aware to recognize his failure to engage with nature on his hike, and that his expectations for the trip were grossly misplaced. The best line in the essay is this one:
My mistake in Glacier was not in failing to appreciate the high flowers, the playful lives of the squirrels; it was in thinking that such an appreciation would come naturally.But even here, his focus is on achievement: the experience of a Muir-like appreciation for nature is something is something he wants to achieve and bring back with him to New York where he can write about it and post about it on Facebook. The realization that what is on offer is the opportunity to temporarily annihilate himself in something bigger, grander, and more ancient than him, and which is utterly indifferent to him, this realization evidently completely eludes him.
posted by biogeo at 3:23 PM on April 24, 2018 [13 favorites]
I guess I had something of my own I wanted to add after all. What's really been rankling me about this article since I read it has less to do with the author himself and more to do with our society. In a lot of ways I'm very similar to the author of the essay: I'm a white man, good with computers, lived a mostly urban and suburban life but intellectually fond of the outdoors. When I was a teenager, I was privileged enough to be offered a summer job working in an IT department. I was good at it, and I probably could have made a career doing something like web development. But I realized quickly that I wanted to do something that would give back to society in a broader way, and with my interests and abilities, academic science seemed like a natural calling. I knew I was choosing a much less lucrative career, but it seemed like the right choice. (Note that I really don't mean to suggest that there's anything wrong with IT work or web development; both of those can be careers that directly or indirectly make great positive impact on society. This was simply my decision process as a fairly immature but idealistic young person.)
In a lot of ways, I believe I could have been this guy, spending my days tinkering with code, getting paid six figures, and hanging out in an office that provides premium ping pong balls. (Seriously, before this I didn't even know those were a thing.) But, whether or not I was right, I chose instead a life that I believed would be of greater service to society, despite knowing that it was much less valued, financially, by that society. And there are countless more people who chose far less-valued careers, with much greater sacrifices, than I did: social workers, primary school teachers, public defenders. Despite my choice, I am well aware what a privilege I have to be able to have a middle-class life doing work I believe in that does not destroy my body, even if I have sacrificed things like the time and wealth to travel for leisure.
And yet: it is exactly the lack of ability to appreciate a whole greater than oneself, exactly the self-entitled extended adolescence that the author of this piece describes in his background and in his reaction to his camping trip, this is what our society rewards. As others have said here, raging against a system for keeping a restroom clean as some terrible loss of freedom belies a belief that others are there for him in a way that I'm certain made him very effective at taking advantage of the various opportunities that came his way on his path to his well-paid job in a cushy office. He believes that the world exists for him because in a sense it does. The society we have built is one in which the generous spirit that comes from the realization that one is just a small part of a larger whole is punished, while the narrow self-interest that comes from believing that one stands apart from the world is rewarded. The hole in his soul he hoped to fill with his wilderness experience is part of what has given him his material success in life.
I can't help but connect the pattern I see here to more immediately pressing problems that now face our society, and it makes me sad and angry. I wish that I could take solace in the mountains.
posted by biogeo at 5:27 PM on April 24, 2018 [10 favorites]
In a lot of ways, I believe I could have been this guy, spending my days tinkering with code, getting paid six figures, and hanging out in an office that provides premium ping pong balls. (Seriously, before this I didn't even know those were a thing.) But, whether or not I was right, I chose instead a life that I believed would be of greater service to society, despite knowing that it was much less valued, financially, by that society. And there are countless more people who chose far less-valued careers, with much greater sacrifices, than I did: social workers, primary school teachers, public defenders. Despite my choice, I am well aware what a privilege I have to be able to have a middle-class life doing work I believe in that does not destroy my body, even if I have sacrificed things like the time and wealth to travel for leisure.
And yet: it is exactly the lack of ability to appreciate a whole greater than oneself, exactly the self-entitled extended adolescence that the author of this piece describes in his background and in his reaction to his camping trip, this is what our society rewards. As others have said here, raging against a system for keeping a restroom clean as some terrible loss of freedom belies a belief that others are there for him in a way that I'm certain made him very effective at taking advantage of the various opportunities that came his way on his path to his well-paid job in a cushy office. He believes that the world exists for him because in a sense it does. The society we have built is one in which the generous spirit that comes from the realization that one is just a small part of a larger whole is punished, while the narrow self-interest that comes from believing that one stands apart from the world is rewarded. The hole in his soul he hoped to fill with his wilderness experience is part of what has given him his material success in life.
I can't help but connect the pattern I see here to more immediately pressing problems that now face our society, and it makes me sad and angry. I wish that I could take solace in the mountains.
posted by biogeo at 5:27 PM on April 24, 2018 [10 favorites]
But that’s not at all what he was reflecting on. He’s mad because he specifically can’t do whatever he wants whenever he wants to, he thinks it’s outrageous to participate in any kind of social contract that requires something from him before he uses anyone else’s resources, even if all thats required from him is insurance that he wont be so careless with those resources (like walking away with the key) that nobody else can use them. It’s a libertarian level of privilege.
There's a lot of weeks in which I might have followed that line of argument when engaging with this piece, but not the week after we've had national news which demonstrates that bathroom key rules have their own problems. In fact, based off of recent discussions I've had, the libertarians are far more likely to emphatically insist that not only do "third place" venues have a right to ask patrons to patronize before peeing, they also have a right to make *arbitrary* demands, up to and including the right to refuse outright if the color of the patron makes them uncomfortable somehow. Meanwhile, it looks to me like the writer of this piece essentially wants a social contract in which he doesn't have to ask permission to use a restroom in a third place, and that's a state of affairs much less likely to lead black men to be denied restroom access over the pretense of loitering, so maybe it's not something to dismiss out of hand or the best basis for criticizing the piece (particularly when there are others that stick better).
And, that's a generous and kind way to read essays and it's a generous and kind way to ... suck the marrow out of problematic things. While it's good to read generously, I have to think that a significant amount of this "But he's growing" and "But he's introspective in some ways" has to do with the extended adolescence and space to fuck up white people and white men in particular get.
Having adult space for self discovery is for sure a privilege -- having adolescent or even childhood space for that is as well. I'm marginally for resenting how that didn't produce a better article in Outside Magazine for us to applaud on Metafilter, and more for resenting the extent to which structural inequality causes Outside to ignore the piles of better work that may be out there which they might have given space to instead. But I'm not much at all for resenting people who are lucky enough to have that adult space; I don't believe that has much chance of leading to a state of affairs in which the privilege of adult self-discovery is extended to others. More likely, it just lets the criticism cascade to whoever we might work to extend it to next, and more easily.
Anyway, meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum:
Man Bitten by Shark, Bear, and Snake Had Odds of 893 Quadrillion to One
Now there is a man who is possibly not doing enough gazing at his navel, or other scarred parts of his body. Or understands that his privilege doesn't earn him the right to come grips with the rose without the risk of the thorns. Or something. Honestly, I'm not really sure what the lesson is, but he's definitely a contrast.
posted by wildblueyonder at 5:32 PM on April 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
There's a lot of weeks in which I might have followed that line of argument when engaging with this piece, but not the week after we've had national news which demonstrates that bathroom key rules have their own problems. In fact, based off of recent discussions I've had, the libertarians are far more likely to emphatically insist that not only do "third place" venues have a right to ask patrons to patronize before peeing, they also have a right to make *arbitrary* demands, up to and including the right to refuse outright if the color of the patron makes them uncomfortable somehow. Meanwhile, it looks to me like the writer of this piece essentially wants a social contract in which he doesn't have to ask permission to use a restroom in a third place, and that's a state of affairs much less likely to lead black men to be denied restroom access over the pretense of loitering, so maybe it's not something to dismiss out of hand or the best basis for criticizing the piece (particularly when there are others that stick better).
And, that's a generous and kind way to read essays and it's a generous and kind way to ... suck the marrow out of problematic things. While it's good to read generously, I have to think that a significant amount of this "But he's growing" and "But he's introspective in some ways" has to do with the extended adolescence and space to fuck up white people and white men in particular get.
Having adult space for self discovery is for sure a privilege -- having adolescent or even childhood space for that is as well. I'm marginally for resenting how that didn't produce a better article in Outside Magazine for us to applaud on Metafilter, and more for resenting the extent to which structural inequality causes Outside to ignore the piles of better work that may be out there which they might have given space to instead. But I'm not much at all for resenting people who are lucky enough to have that adult space; I don't believe that has much chance of leading to a state of affairs in which the privilege of adult self-discovery is extended to others. More likely, it just lets the criticism cascade to whoever we might work to extend it to next, and more easily.
Anyway, meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum:
Man Bitten by Shark, Bear, and Snake Had Odds of 893 Quadrillion to One
Now there is a man who is possibly not doing enough gazing at his navel, or other scarred parts of his body. Or understands that his privilege doesn't earn him the right to come grips with the rose without the risk of the thorns. Or something. Honestly, I'm not really sure what the lesson is, but he's definitely a contrast.
posted by wildblueyonder at 5:32 PM on April 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods is a hilarious and warm book about being a comfortable white dude who tries to use the backcountry to revive his flagging sense of manhood. The difference there is that Bryson is fascinated with the process of history that led us to consider "nature" the thing we consider it today. He doesn't pretend that hiking the AT is joyful, but he has an awe for nature that he skillfully counterpoints with his own inadequacies on the trail. Bryson uses himself as a character to invite the reader to a wider world. Here, the author is still limited, still caged in by that self.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:08 PM on April 24, 2018 [11 favorites]
posted by Countess Elena at 6:08 PM on April 24, 2018 [11 favorites]
The Starbucks bathroom key conundrum is nothing compared to the risk of a post-dump mauling.
I actually have a bonus memory of camping in or near Glacier National as a teen, having to go out behind a bush in the black of night. The rules were that we had to go in pairs in the dark, and I was holding a towel around myself for Decency, although I am sure my partner did not care about the sight, or possibly even whether a bear got ahold of me. I remember the sight of my breath in the cold in the flashlight, and the involuntary constriction of all relevant muscles. We'd seen a fresh bear track in the mud by our campsite. I do not know how I got through that weekend without some kind of internal bladder injury.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:15 PM on April 24, 2018
I actually have a bonus memory of camping in or near Glacier National as a teen, having to go out behind a bush in the black of night. The rules were that we had to go in pairs in the dark, and I was holding a towel around myself for Decency, although I am sure my partner did not care about the sight, or possibly even whether a bear got ahold of me. I remember the sight of my breath in the cold in the flashlight, and the involuntary constriction of all relevant muscles. We'd seen a fresh bear track in the mud by our campsite. I do not know how I got through that weekend without some kind of internal bladder injury.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:15 PM on April 24, 2018
but not the week after we've had national news which demonstrates that bathroom key rules have their own problems
I’m not disputing that bathroom key issues are a problem. I’m disputing that they are a problem for this author. Theres zero evidence that his problem with bathroom keys is because of their effect on indigent people or POC, and alot of evidence that he hates them for the reasons I suggested.
posted by mrmurbles at 6:21 PM on April 24, 2018 [7 favorites]
I’m not disputing that bathroom key issues are a problem. I’m disputing that they are a problem for this author. Theres zero evidence that his problem with bathroom keys is because of their effect on indigent people or POC, and alot of evidence that he hates them for the reasons I suggested.
posted by mrmurbles at 6:21 PM on April 24, 2018 [7 favorites]
This is a good enough place to ask why, despite my best efforts, I always have to pee at 3 am when I'm camping and never when I sleep indoors.
posted by AFABulous at 6:59 PM on April 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by AFABulous at 6:59 PM on April 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
I’m not disputing that bathroom key issues are a problem. I’m disputing that they are a problem for this author. Theres zero evidence that his problem with bathroom keys is because of their effect on indigent people or POC
I don't think his depth of understanding is necessarily relevant to his registration of a common issue. He's noticed that it's a tiny indignity to have to trade an id for a restroom key. Perhaps he hasn't considered how his privileges mitigate that problem to a mere minor point of occasional demoralization, or how that point might be one where dignity is entirely denied to someone else with fewer of the same privileges. Those things are nevertheless connected on a continuum, and treating concern over the former end of it as contemptible doesn't strike me as likely to contribute to the cause of reconsidering the latter end.
and alot of evidence that he hates them for the reasons I suggested.
There does seem to be some evidence that author holds unexamined views that are inadequate as complete social criticisms, which is usually a pretty safe bet in any case. But unpacking an accurate accusation of "libertarian level of privilege" based on an argument constructed from voluntary exchange and property rights that's quite libertarian in nature -- more explicitly so than anything written in the author's piece -- doesn't seem internally consistent to me, or particularly well substantiated by the text.
posted by wildblueyonder at 11:06 PM on April 24, 2018
I don't think his depth of understanding is necessarily relevant to his registration of a common issue. He's noticed that it's a tiny indignity to have to trade an id for a restroom key. Perhaps he hasn't considered how his privileges mitigate that problem to a mere minor point of occasional demoralization, or how that point might be one where dignity is entirely denied to someone else with fewer of the same privileges. Those things are nevertheless connected on a continuum, and treating concern over the former end of it as contemptible doesn't strike me as likely to contribute to the cause of reconsidering the latter end.
and alot of evidence that he hates them for the reasons I suggested.
There does seem to be some evidence that author holds unexamined views that are inadequate as complete social criticisms, which is usually a pretty safe bet in any case. But unpacking an accurate accusation of "libertarian level of privilege" based on an argument constructed from voluntary exchange and property rights that's quite libertarian in nature -- more explicitly so than anything written in the author's piece -- doesn't seem internally consistent to me, or particularly well substantiated by the text.
posted by wildblueyonder at 11:06 PM on April 24, 2018
One doesn’t have to be a libertarian to believe in the moral relevance of voluntary exchange and private property rights; I’m not a libertarian but I think they are morally relevant, just not moral absolutes. From a left-liberal perspective, need can trump private property, as can norms around discrimination and treating other people with dignity. I can’t see how this guy is in any category of situation that explains why his desires should trump other people’s rights, though. It may be that the only way we can meet the needs of the vulnerable is to make all bathrooms in premises open to the public effectively public property, but he would only be an incidental beneficiary of that change, it wouldn’t be made for him. And his basic objection—that he cannot live in New York without sometimes needing to shape his behaviour around other people’s rights—would remain.
posted by Aravis76 at 11:43 PM on April 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by Aravis76 at 11:43 PM on April 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
But unpacking an accurate accusation of "libertarian level of privilege" based on an argument constructed from voluntary exchange and property rights that's quite libertarian in nature -- more explicitly so than anything written in the author's piece -- doesn't seem internally consistent to me, or particularly well substantiated by the text.
It's not so much about what he wants in that particular case, as it is why he wants it. A fairer world would require him to acknowledge and be mindful of the people around him more than he does, not less, and that his stance on bathroom keys might benefit PoC or other marginalised groups is incidental, effectively an accident or byproduct of his self absorption, and there is nothing at all to indicate that his positions would align with justice in general.
posted by Dysk at 12:18 AM on April 25, 2018
It's not so much about what he wants in that particular case, as it is why he wants it. A fairer world would require him to acknowledge and be mindful of the people around him more than he does, not less, and that his stance on bathroom keys might benefit PoC or other marginalised groups is incidental, effectively an accident or byproduct of his self absorption, and there is nothing at all to indicate that his positions would align with justice in general.
posted by Dysk at 12:18 AM on April 25, 2018
I don't think his depth of understanding is necessarily relevant to his registration of a common issue.
...yes. Yes it is.
If he said it was a problem he had to get the key because that's how the lizard people track you, that would not indicate in any way shape or form that he had a problem with the exclusion of designated classes of people from being able to exist in public space without harassment.
posted by PMdixon at 5:38 AM on April 25, 2018 [4 favorites]
...yes. Yes it is.
If he said it was a problem he had to get the key because that's how the lizard people track you, that would not indicate in any way shape or form that he had a problem with the exclusion of designated classes of people from being able to exist in public space without harassment.
posted by PMdixon at 5:38 AM on April 25, 2018 [4 favorites]
Yes, I know that "who he is" informs "what he wrote". But combing through his reading habits and going "ah-ha, you didn't read anything by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie" or whatever is all that necessary
Yes it is because the entire reason he maintains a list of works that he's read is to convey information to his audience. When your entire reading history consists of MEN! and a this is what women think while dating you nonsense plus token Stein and Woolf (look, he went to college alright) is when it becomes relevant to his insights.
He is gleefully and proudly missing fully half of the world.
posted by lydhre at 6:44 AM on April 25, 2018 [3 favorites]
Yes it is because the entire reason he maintains a list of works that he's read is to convey information to his audience. When your entire reading history consists of MEN! and a this is what women think while dating you nonsense plus token Stein and Woolf (look, he went to college alright) is when it becomes relevant to his insights.
He is gleefully and proudly missing fully half of the world.
posted by lydhre at 6:44 AM on April 25, 2018 [3 favorites]
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What also highly conspicuous in its absence is the presence of any women in the piece. The author quotes Muir and thoreau etc without recognising how this dumb discourse in his head is powered and maintained by masculinity and responses to it.
There are interesting things to say about "wilderness", our idea of it, how masculinity fits into that. I didn't feel any of them were touched on in this piece.
You can be in the great outdoors without really looking outside I guess. The exterior view is much better than the interior one, though.
posted by smoke at 11:55 PM on April 23, 2018 [35 favorites]