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From the Wilderness Act to the Monkey Wrench Gang: Seeking Wild Nature in American Environmental Writing, 1964-1975

Ryan, Michael C.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1193230655

Abstract Details

2007, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, English (Arts and Sciences).
When Congress passed the Wilderness Act into law in 1964, it signaled a great victory for an era of preservationists and American nature writers that included Aldo Leopold, Bob Marshall, Edwin Waye Teale, and Howard Zahniser. Setting aside great islands of wilderness in response to technological innovation, urbanization, and population growth for humans’ recreational and spiritual desires, the bill defined wilderness and civilization in binary opposition to each other and safeguarded over nine million acres of wild habitat. However, with the coming of the countercultural revolution and the “back to the earth” ethos it promoted, there arose a new, unique vision of wilderness preservation and living that complicated the philosophical underpinnings of the Wilderness Act. Writers Edward Abbey, Wendell Berry, Annie Dillard, John Haines, Jim Harrison, and Gary Snyder all emerge at this cultural moment with wilderness narratives that depict their individual acts of home-seeking in wilderness locales. As opposed to Wilderness Act ideology which defines wilderness as a virgin place untrammeled by man, where man is a visitor, who does not stay, these writers return to live off the wild lands and merge with the natural world. In contrast to envisaging wilderness parks as isolated retreats from culture, they denigrate recreational concepts of nature use, in favor of living hard scrabble lives dependent on their local ecosystems. Rather than looking only to scenic vistas for salvation, these authors argue for the need in appreciating and saving nature in one’s own backyard. And finally, as opposed to their activist predecessors, who worked within institutional, bureaucratic means to advocate for ecological issues, wilderness writers from the countercultural era turn their back on the establishment. These writers show that, despite the passage of the Wilderness Act, environmental degradation continued. They express a disgruntlement with the status quo, advocating a change in individual consciousness and personal lifestyle as a means of confronting environmental crisis. They advocate a call to action, which, as the decade wears on, grows ever more hostile. This discontented urge to act against technocratic rule and live in accordance with one’s primal desires comes to a head in Ed Abbey’s 1975 novel, The Monkey Wrench Gang. Abbey’s anarcho-comedic book promotes ecosabotage—attacks on property and machinery used in the exploitation and destruction of wild nature—as a viable means of environmental defense. The book fostered the radical environmental movement in America, and, for better or worse, it represents the counterculture’s lasting ecological legacy.
Robert DeMott (Advisor)
201 p.
nature; environment; counterculture; ecology; wilderness

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Ryan, M. C. (2007). From the Wilderness Act to the Monkey Wrench Gang: Seeking Wild Nature in American Environmental Writing, 1964-1975 [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1193230655

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Ryan, Michael. From the Wilderness Act to the Monkey Wrench Gang: Seeking Wild Nature in American Environmental Writing, 1964-1975. 2007. Ohio University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1193230655.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Ryan, Michael. "From the Wilderness Act to the Monkey Wrench Gang: Seeking Wild Nature in American Environmental Writing, 1964-1975." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University, 2007. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1193230655

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by Ohio University and OhioLINK.