Roderick Nash
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[edit] Scholarly Biography
Roderick Nash is a history and environmental studies professor at the University of California Santa Barbara. He received his Bachelor of Arts from Harvard University and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Nash is the author of nine books, most notably, Wilderness and the American Mind, and over 150 essays. Nash has been fascinated with the environment, especially natural history. His dissertation, done under the direction of Merle Curti, became what has come to be seen as one of the foundational texts of the field of environmental history. After witnessing a massive oil spill in Santa Barbara in 1969 he and a number of other faculty members became proactive within the University and founded an environmental studies program there. Since the initial 12 graduates in 1972, there have been 4000 graduates within 300 separate majors. Nash is a firm believer in environmental education and is also an avid white-water river rafter.
[edit] Wilderness and the American Mind
The main purpose of Nash’s most famous book is to detail out the progression of environmental thinking in the United States - more specifically, ideas about wilderness. While wilderness – in a strictly physical sense – has provided for the mass of the American economy; wilderness as a philosophical concept has provided America something to rally for and against, to harness and to allow be “untrammeled”. While wilderness has always had a love/hate relationship with civilization Nash states that if wilderness is to survive, we must, ironically, manage wilderness – at the very least, our behavior towards the wilderness must be managed. Nash’s presents America’s anthropocentric view as the main enemy to all wilderness preservation. While an ecocentric view is ideal and may work in the long run – it is too far fetched for most Americans to accept. Perhaps the preservation of nature and wilderness for the sake of holding resources out for the preservation of (our own) species would be more salient – even this is hard for people to grasp, to reach outside the present and look to the future. Maybe the simple preservation of the environment for the sake of our own generation’s recreation and health (oxygen sinks, etc.) could cause enough emotional stir to stow some profiteering. Nash also talks of how wilderness teaches us the value of humility. The problem is that humanity (Americans, it seems, especially) do not want to be humbled. Humans are a proud species which will do anything to defy being humbled. To this end, we have ripped the wildness from the wilderness and removed all that causes any threat to our existence. We have even gone to the extent of preventing animals from eating other animals because we value one over the other (i.e. protection of livestock). If wilderness teaches humility, humans must become better students because we, as humans, are currently raping our teacher.
