The Idea of Wilderness: Debunking New Primitivism

The natural world may be conceived as a system of concentric circles, and we now and then detect in nature slight dislocations, which apprise us that the surface on which we stand is not fixed, but sliding.[i] [1]                                                                                                  (John Elder)

In this review, I would like to look at Max Oelschlaeger’s seminal environmental text The Idea of Wilderness[ii] [2] (1991), an intellectual history of the Western world’s relationship to nature. This will be split into two parts: firstly, I will address the problematic dichotomy that The Idea of Wilderness is predicated on – the civilisation versus primitive binary – and examine the implications of positing primitivism as a solution to the current environmental crisis. I will then attempt to suggest an alternative approach for the modern environmentalist.

The Idea of Wildernesshas been a widely influential countercultural text, particularly on alternative eco-groups such as Earth First![iii] [3] Wilderness may have informed multiple strands of the ‘primitivist’ movement such as anarcho-primitivism. Oelschlaeger’s book may also guide environmental criticism from even mainstream perspectives – James Cameron’s Avatar (2009)[iv] [4] for example, has been described by primitivist John Zerzan as ‘an anarcho-primitivist blockbuster’[v] [5]. Although Wilderness is a long and useful overview of theological approaches to nature since the origins of early man, it is the initial smaller section on Paleolithic relations to wilderness that I would like to focus on. Oelschlaeger, who describes himself as a ‘posthistorist primitivist’[vi] [6], can be seen to favour the lifestyles of prehistoric peoples ‘who lived in harmony with nature’s economy’[vii] [7] over modern ones, although he does admit that we can’t go back[viii] [8]. Instead his intention is to ‘fashion an old-new way of being’[ix] [9].

The main aim of this part of the review is to take a science-based approach to point out the inconsistencies within Oelschlaeger’s ‘posthistoric primitivist’ examination of prehistoric hunter-gatherer cultures, whose life in ‘Eden’[x] [10] he believes to be essential in offering a vision of human potential. Primarily, I think that his summary of the impact that prehistoric peoples had on their environment lacks a strong scientific foundation. Oelschlaeger himself is not a scientist, but a skilled philosopher and religious studies scholar who draws heavily on (an admirable) Whiteheadian philosophy[xi] [11] but, it seems, little else. Although the impacts of climate change on primitive lifestyles are recognised in Wilderness, I would contend that these critical transitions are understated, as they explain the agricultural ‘fall’ much more succinctly than a change in social behaviours. This mainly stems from the author’s belief in hunter-gatherer societies as remaining in a harmonious stasis, whereas an array of recent studies (Asner et al., 2005[xii] [12]; Sasaki et al., 2011[xiii] [13], Greenpeace, 2009[xiv] [14] Putz et al., 2008[xv] [15], Letorneau et al., 2004[xvi] [16], Estes et al., 2011[xvii] [17]) have shown that such ‘sustainable’ lifestyles cause widespread environmental degradation. In particular, the impacts of prehistoric peoples on ecosystems (global expiration of megafauna, transformation of habitats) are not mentioned. As a result, I consider Wilderness’ stance on the environment inherently skewed, because of this misaligned vision of subsidence living. Instead, my perspective on the deep past is similar to that of John Evans, who describes himself an ‘unashamed proponent of environmental determinism’[xviii] [18]. Such a viewpoint also ties in with Wolfi Landstreicher’s perception that ‘revolutionary critique also absolutely rejects moral critique’[xix] [19], although I would like to build above Landstreicher’s impasse on resolution and suggest some more pragmatic solutions to our current environmental crisis.

Why are these distinctions important? Mostly because of the pervasive cultural influence of primitivism, and the articulation of the deep past by some environmentalists and environmental movements as an aspirational mode of living. To me, this is entirely impractical. There is an awful lot of guilt associated with being pro-environment, and much of this stems from the idea of an industrial ‘fall’ from grace. Overall, I would like to assert that primitivism is a moral and ideological choice rather than a ‘truth’ as such.

The ‘Heavenly’ Paleolithic

‘We can fantasise about living however we want, but the only sustainable level of technology is the stone age.’ (Derrick Jensen)[xx] [20]

If the word ‘civilisation’ is built on the Latin for civis – meaning city-dweller – this offers a good starting point for thinking about the civilisation/ primitive debate as a clash between rural/ urban lifestyles and the subsequent institutions that develop through the city. Primitivism is inherently bound to ruralism, and this is where the primitive/ civilisation dichotomy originates. Roughly, primitivism might be described as a movement originating from sources such as; ideas about the ‘Golden Age’, pastoral mythology, Henry David Thoreau, ‘primitive art’ – (Paul Gauguin etc), Henri Zizley and Emily Gravelle, John Zerzan, Herbert Schenidau’s Sacred Discontent, Claude Lévi-Strauss’ The Savage Mind, Paul Shephard and more recently, Oelschlaeger’s Wilderness. What unites these (texts) is the belief that Paleolithic hunter-gatherer societies, or in some cases rural nomadism – as the antithesis to urbanisation – represent positive, stable models of living, which were ‘undone’ by the Neolithic agricultural revolution. In many ways, primitivism is an apocalyptic rejection of industrialisation through a focus on lifestyle choices as a ‘sustainable’ mode of reform, such as foraging in the countryside. As Landstreicher notes, primitivism is in essence the revival of ‘humanist ideology with a twist: “primal” human nature becomes the “real” self we must discover and strive to attain.’[xxi] [21]

Firstly, from a scientific stance, when considering what is primitive it is important to assess what timelines are being used – what is prehistoric, what is a primitive human? At the beginning of Wilderness, Oelschlaeger states that:

No one knows for certain how long prehistoric people existed in an Edenlike condition of hunting-gathering, but 200,000 years or more is not an unreasonable estimate for the hegemony of the great hunt.[xxii] [22]

Any assessments of prehistory and Paleolithic history are always predicated on small, disparate bits of evidence. That is not to say that the study of prehistory is pointless, but any examination must note that, as when reviewing environmental history, there are as Michael Williams points out, ‘huge gaps in space and time’ (Williams, 2000[xxiii] [23]). Furthermore, such a history is not necessarily linear, but often tangential. In terms of the human history that Wilderness refers to, the very earliest evidence of Homo Sapiens does appear in Ethiopia, approx 190,000 BP[xxiv] [24] – butdid as a species we did not appear in Europe until at least 40,000 BP[xxv] [25]. Although earlier hominid species may have impacted the landscape, especially the Neanderthals (c. 250,000 – 28,000 BP[xxvi] [26]), it seems strange to lump us – the relatively new Homo Sapiens – within a long history of hominidevolution, as we are quite distinctive from other hominids in terms of physical characteristics, at the very least. Indeed, if referring to all hominids – reducing complex species differentiations drastically – Oelschlaeger’s timeline could actually begin approximately 500,000 BP, or even 5 ma (million years ago). This is an argument that is often wrangled over, with a general consensus of the modern human beginning at around 50,000 BP (Clark and Willermet, 1997[xxvii] [27]). Primarily though, the way such a grouping is stated in Wilderness implies a constant equilibrium – and therefore ‘Edenlike’ state – in the ways that prehistoric peoples evolved, diverged and lived. On the contrary, in evolutionary terms, Homo Sapiens gradually underwent quite extreme changes – cave dwelling in Africa, for example did not become established until 120,000 BP[xxviii] [28] – rather than remain in stasis until the end of the Paleolithic. There is strong evidence which points to a period where early Homo Sapiens (Cro-Magnon) co-existed and interbred with these other hominid species (Gleimer et al., 2011[xxix] [29]), including the Denisovans[xxx] [30], but there is also evidence of destruction to Neanderthal communities by violence from modern humans (including cannibalism[xxxi] [31]) and particularly by the spread of illness. Indeed, a good indicator for the demise of the Neanderthal appears to be the migration of infectious diseases from Africa by Homo Sapiens approx 30,000 BP (Sorenson, 2009[xxxii] [32]). Another reason could be the use of more efficient hunting technology by modern humans – harpoons, composite tools and possibly fishing nets[xxxiii] [33], as well as being more advanced culturally (Klein, 2003[xxxiv] [34]). Significantly, climate change may have also lead to the extinction of the Neanderthals (Chinnery, 2008[xxxv] [35]). This hardly seems to be the ‘harmonious paradise’[xxxvi] [36] that Wilderness refers to, nor a mythic time of a ‘great hunt’ in which competing technological prowess played a minimal role. In fact, it wasn’t until the relatively recent 20,000 BP that Homo Sapiens were the only hominid species left on earth[xxxvii] [37]. The population was perhaps around 10 million globally.[xxxviii] [38]

So, in regard to analysing human behaviour in a way that is comparable or useful, Oelschlaeger’s timelines seem much too long, right from the start. If the date of the Grotte Chauvet paintings in France is 32,000 BP[xxxix] [39], this may give a better idea as to the more manageable timelines we should be looking at for the modern human and what is ‘primitive’ in a realistic way. This situates our search well into the Upper Paleolithic.

Hunter-Forager Degradation of Habitats

Local variations aside […] our prehistoric ancestors lived well by hunting and foraging […] we come from that green world of the hunter-gatherers.[xl] [40]

One big hole in Oelschlaeger’s pro-primitivist argument is that no mention is made of the impacts that hunter-gatherers have on ecosystems, particularly the degradation of ecosystems through biodiversity loss. This may partly be due to the emergence of a body of papers after Wilderness was published (1991) which have revealed just how vital complex biodiversity networks are in supporting ecosystems, most specifically the role [and removal] of top predators in tropical forests and savannah grasslands, as well as the effects of harvesting NFTPs (Non-Timber Forest Products). In particular, James Estes’ 2011 paper ‘Trophic Downgrading of Planet Earth’has revealed how the removal of large apex consumers ‘may be humankind’s most pervasive influence on nature […] recent research reveals extensive cascading effects of their disappearance in marine, terrestrial, and freshwater ecosystems worldwide’ (Estes et al., 2011[xli] [41]). However, it has been contended for a long time that prehistoric peoples hunted Paleolithic megafauna to mass extinction and thereby caused widespread ecosystem degradation.[xlii] [42] This is an important point because it is a key indicator that the transition from hunter-gatherer to agricultural lifestyles was, alongside climate change, driven by the (eventual) lack of sustainability of the hunter-gatherer way of life and directly challenges Wilderness’ view of prehistoric lifestyles as environmentally ‘harmonious’[xliii] [43]. It also undoes the romantic notion of ‘the Great Hunt’ prevalent among self-proclaimed ‘Paleolithic counterrevolutionaries’[xliv] [44].

The extinction of megafauna globally was most likely a combination of hunting and climate feedback loops (Klein, 1992[xlv] [45]), but in particular data from North America and Australia ‘show a continuing high extinction rate at the time of first human colonization’ (Redman, 1999[xlvi] [46]; Bell and Walker 1992:153[xlvii] [47]). Damning evidence has recently arisen that on the Australian mainland, previously a closed system for millions of years ‘90% of the megafauna became extinct 46 ka (thousand years ago), soon after the first archaeological evidence for human colonisation of the continent’ (Turneya et al., 2008[xlviii] [48]).Whilst the extirpation of megafauna on the North American continent remains a matter of active debate, it is looking more likely that the ‘cataclysmic extinction wave at the very end of the Pleistocene’ (Alroy, 2001[xlix] [49]) of large mammals on the American continent – roughly 12,000 BP – was due to the initial entrance of humans in the New World (Martin and Klein, 1984; Redman, 1991, Alroy, 2001). One estimate states that at 13,400 BP  (the first solid evidence of large human populations in the Americas) hunting rates would have driven ‘73% of large herbivore species into extinction’ (Alroy, 2001). Whilst previously ‘overkill’ scenarios have seemed implausible, additional knock-on factors such as the impact of human hunting on the overall consumption of plant resources by herbivores’ (from ¼ - ½ total rates) ‘imply a major disruption of ecosystem function at the continental scale, with potentially severe consequences for vegetational structure, the size of vegetational carbon sinks, watershed dynamics, insect and small vertebrate population dynamics.’ (Alroy, 2001) i.e., a total weakening of ecosystems which would have eventually led to a point of collapse. Primarily, although bands and populations of hunters would have been small, the enormity of the megafaunal biomass of the Upper Paleolithic would have meant that large specialised predators and prey were incredibly dependent on a large available amount of biomass to be sustained, and were therefore very vulnerable[l] [50] – the kill rate for large mammals not having to be very high at all to cause extinction, at around 20% annual removal rate (Redman 1999; Martin 1972, 1984)[li] [51]. These sorts of figures directly contradict Oelschlaeger’s assertion that ‘Harmony with rather than exploitation of the natural world was a guiding principle for the Paleolithic mind and remains a cardinal commitment among modern aborigines.’[lii] [52] They also challenge Wilderness’ categorical denial of ‘the notion that early humans must have experienced boom or bust cycles.’[liii] [53] Dan Janzen in his assessment of the history of the Guanacaste reserve has come to similar conclusions, noting the arrival of ‘specialised big game hunters’[liv] [54] circa 11,000 BP led to ‘the wave of extinction of New World megafauna that rendered neotropical habitats permanently, strongly and universally human-impacted’[lv] [55]. These are similar to the knock-on effects currently seen on the ‘sustainable’ logging of tropical forests (Asner et al., 2006[lvi] [56]; Sasaki et al., 2011), which leads to highly degraded ecosystems susceptible to immediate collapse from climate change, fire and disease (Asner et al., 2005; Putz et al., 2008). As Oelschlaeger rightly points out, ‘there is no absolute answer, no single variable that explains everything’[lvii] [57], but these are strong indicators that hunter-gatherer or primitive lifestyles were not ‘Edenlike’ in the sense of living in a harmonious existence with existing environmental structures, or that the vision in Wilderness of a primitive biotic community in communication with the ‘Magna Mater’ was so eternal or self-sustaining.

Climate Change and Transitions

Whilst these extreme effects of human habitation [i.e. expiration of megafauna, huge land-use changes] may be viewed, as Oelschlaeger suggests, as symptoms of a ‘mutation’ that has spread out of control[lviii] [58], I would like to argue the opposite. Essentially, just as anthropogenic activities may exacerbate climatic effects on ecosystems, they are also caused and propelled by those same effects, as well as a host of other factors. This underscores the importance of environmental determinism and points away from an oft-alluded sense of ‘blame’, which both elevates and subverts humans in relation to their environment. Whilst in Wilderness Oelschlaeger may fear that ‘an almost total humanising of the earth’s landscape looms on the horizon’[lix] [59], it could be easily argued that such a ‘humanising’ already took place in prehistoric times, and does not represent such a divide as may at first be perceived. Perhaps the best example can be seen in the transition between the Mesolithic period and Neolithic agriculture in Britain c. 8,000 BP: a country that has retained some of the best geological and paleobotanical evidence on record. What is interesting about this specific example, is until the end of the last Ice Age (c. 11,000 BP), Britain was a ‘treeless open tundra, similar to northern Norway, Lapland and northern Siberia today,’[lx] [60] which, as the climate warmed, developed forest ecosystems which were from the start modified by prehistoric peoples to some degree. Whilst it has become increasingly unclear whether the drastic shift in British tree taxa post 10,000 BP ‘was a totally natural response to climatic phenomena or was humanly induced’ (Williams, 2000), there are indicators which show that, in Britain at least, the transition from a hunter-gatherer culture to agriculture was (1) dramatically caused by climate change (2) instigated from the start by a gradual cycle of anthropogenic/ environmental factors which operated within symbiotic feedback loops, without having to recourse to a traditional agricultural ‘fall from grace’ argument.

(1) The End of the Last Ice Age

By dating humankind back to 200,000 BP (or 200 ka), Wilderness to a certain degree ignores the enormous impact that five successive different glaciation periods have had on human evolution. We are currently living in the earth’s fifth ice age – the Quaternary Ice Age, beginning 2.8 ma – which has been characterised by periods of glaciation and interglacials on roughly 40 ka cycles, and later 100ka cycles[1] [61], to the current interglacial period beginning after the Holocene (Flandrian interglacial) at around 11 ka/ 10,000 BP[lxi] [62]. These drastic climatic shifts have certainly resulted in great anthropogenic modification of the landscape – but within a cyclical pattern. Whilst Oelschlaeger does cover the important impact of climate change on hunter-gatherer societies, I feel that his acknowledgement is brief and strongly conflicts with his established motif that Paleolithic societies lived in harmony with nature. Indeed it seems that, in particular with the period of warming occurring 8,000 BP during the Mesolithic, such a radical restructuring of the environment through climate change would change human lifestyles forever by leading to the development of agriculture, rather than the other way around.

Firstly, it is important to state that, as Francis Pryor notes, ‘The actual impact on the landscape of the bands of Paleolithic hunters who inhabited Britain during the warmer episodes of the Ice Ages was probably very slight, so slight that almost all traces of their presence have been removed by the subsequent erosion of water and ice.’[lxii] [63] Yet alongside this, one must consider just how much environmental ‘damage’ could be done in a continent in the grip of an ice age. During the Devensian glacial ‘Europe received roughly half the rainfall it gets today, mostly in the summer months. Globally, summer temperatures were 4-8 Celsius colder than today […] wind speeds were higher and dust storms were common as the wind picked up material from enlarged deserts and glacier margins.’[lxiii] [64] Such a landscape was hardly fruitful, but merely a zone for subsidence living at its very basics, where the hunting of arctic game on a treeless tundra would have been the only way to live. Britain originally extended almost as far east as Norway, with ‘the majority of the population of north-western Europe  […] living on the undulating plains [as hunter-gatherers] which are today beneath the North Sea.’[lxiv] [65] I have already covered on how this seemingly ‘eternal’ way of life was not in fact sustainable. However, a far more immediate impact on Paleolithic life was to occur with the onset of the (current) Flandrian interglacial, as Pryor summarises:

As sea levels began to rise after about 10,000 BC it is very likely that the population would have been subject to considerable stress, as people were forced to abandon some of their richest hunting grounds [… yet also as the climate warmed] soon the open, treeless plains were populated by birch and pine woodland, known as boreal forest. In Britain and northern Europe the post-glacial boreal forest phase can be dated to 7700-5500 BC or thereabouts. Its end conveniently coincides more or less with the onset of the Neolithic.[lxv] [66]

It seems unlikely that the end of the new forest phase ‘conveniently’ coincides with the beginning of the Neolithic. Wilderness does recognise the impact of these changes, noting that flooding drove hunter-gatherers into permanent settlements and a milder climate ushered in the onset of agriculture. Yet this acknowledgement directly contradicts Oelschlaeger’s tentative claim that perhaps ‘the agricultural revolution is simply a pathological manifestation of an inherently flawed nature’[lxvi] [67]. It also shows that the awareness of distinctions between ‘wildness’ and ‘farming’ is not some kind of skewed mutation caused by human consciousness, but rather a response to an environment which is always in flux. There was a drastic climate change, but not a moral ‘fall’.

(2) Hunter-gatherer Land-use Change

Once humans became agriculturalists, the almost paradisiacal character of prehistory was irretrievably lost.[lxvii] [68]

H.C. Darby has suggested that‘[p]robably the most important single factor that has changed the European landscape (and many other landscapes also) is the clearing of the woodland’[lxviii] [69]. If this is read alongside William’s contention that ‘early human impacts on forests of North America and those of the tropical world were immense’ (Williams, 2000[lxix] [70]) and that ‘deforestation […] may be about as old as the human occupation of the earth itself, controlled fire being perhaps co-terminous with the emergence of Homo erectus some half a million years ago’[lxx] [71] (Williams, 2000), a binary between measuring ancient anthropogenic impacts on landscape and forest loss emerges. Indeed, prehistoric clearing dramatically increased with the spread of people during the Holocene – a population boom created by a milder climate and therefore greater abundance of resources. Previously the prevailing consensus had been (following the logic of Grahame Clark in the 1950s) that the end of the Mesolithic indigenous, hunter-gatherer cultures were the ‘fag-end’ of the Paleolithic, to be engulfed by successive waves of Neolithic proto- agriculturalists. Yet this now seems to be questionable, mainly because Mesolithic cultures were sophisticated than expected – and had a far greater impact on forest clearing than once thought. In particular this is because ‘animals other than the dog were probably domesticated in continental Europe, while in Britain there is evidence of cultivation, clearing and use of fire for game hunting’. (Williams, 2000) This directly contradicts Oelschlaeger’s assertion that hunter-gatherer technology was merely used to

Process what the Great Mother provided […] There was no evidence of attempts to dominate nature technologically, as in using fire to clear forest for cropland (although fire might have been used near the end of prehistory for driving game).[lxxi] [72]

Evans also disputes this claim, noting the anthropogenic propagation of grass, heather and specific tree taxa, as well as the debilitating effect of Mesolithic fires on the composition of the forest.[lxxii] [73] Williams’ observation that tree lines in places such as the Pennines were below the maximum point at which trees could grow corresponds to Pryor’s contention that Paleolithic peoples used fire not only to clear large tracts of woodlands, but for ritual purposes[lxxiii] [74]. Delcourt asserts that the use of fire would have lead to increased frequency and magnitude in forest clearing.[lxxiv] [75]. Indeed, some scientists claim that all forest fires are anthropogenically induced, being extremely rare in nature (the fires in the Australian outback most likely a result of degradation and thinning over millennia). These developments have been underscored by discoveries of permanent settlements underneath shelters previously thought to be temporary, suggesting a greater degree of settlement pre-agriculture than thought[lxxv] [76]. The disjunction of nomadic life post-glaciation led to a greater permanence of settlement, fostering ‘feelings of ownership’[lxxvi] [77]. Wilderness on the other hand, claims that ‘the hunting way of life—viewed either ideologically or materially—did not foster the accumulation of property’[lxxvii] [78]. Overall, there is now clear scientific agreement about the effects of hunter-gatherer culture on ecosystem degradation, whether through bushmeat hunting, weakening of biodiversity networks through tropic cascades or fire (Redford, 1992[lxxviii] [79]; Corlett, 2009[lxxix] [80]; Brodie, 2010[lxxx] [81]; Gibson et al., 2011[lxxxi] [82]).

So what does this mean? Essentially that humans in Britain impacted the landscape quite substantially before agriculture – that human modification of the landscape is in a sense a ‘natural’ progression, or simply a continuation of primitive practices, and in a ‘moral’ sense is not linked so specifically to industrial land-use change or a technological fall from grace. Furthermore, there is evidence ‘for similar processes of early forest disturbance with clearing […] beginning to unfold for other parts of the world’ (Williams, 2000). Indeed, it seems that the vision of primitivism as a founding state of harmony with nature in The Idea of Wilderness is inherently flawed. Despite this poor start to Oelschlaeger’s text, his excellent account of the ‘long and tangled idea of wilderness that begins with the Ancient Sumerians and Egyptians’[lxxxii] [83] is well worth reading. However, the implications of my reading of this starting point as flawed does throw up some questions regarding the theological separation of primitivism from deep ecology, and the questionable aims of current primitivist movements as a means of addressing the present-day environmental crisis. I would now like to move onto these points.

Separating Primitivism/ Mysticism from Deep Ecology

The idea of wild nature as a source of human existence is gaining a public hearing. This idea questions the long-entrenched civilized-primitive dichotomy, a bifurcation grounded in an assumption that human story lies in our triumph over a hostile nature.[lxxxiii] [84]

If Oelschlaeger’s primitivism is not science-based but a mythical and moral quest in itself, then aligning this contention with deep ecological thought, and the real-world ecological consequences of the anthropogenic degradation of ecosystems, becomes problematic. In many senses this primitivist aesthetic is similar to that practiced by the traditional apocalyptic counterrevolutionary poet whose spirit has been channelled by Blake, Whitman and Ginsberg to name a few. Essentially, its power lies in recourse to myth and transcendence. Despite his excellent dissection of various religious theologies and responses to the idea of nature and wilderness throughout the rest of the book, Oelschlaeger fails to note the correlation between his commentary on tribes such as the ‘Yahweh [who] were agriculturists who longed to live free from the oppression of the hieratic nation-states’, and his own primitivist theology. Likewise when asserting John Passmore’s observation that ‘Genesis salved [man’s] conscience’[lxxxiv] [85], parallels are not drawn with primitivism’s call for a redeeming sort of mysticism and its usage of Paleolithic models as a ‘heavenly state’. In particular, Wilderness’ observation that the rebellious Yahweh tribes perceived nature religions as sustained by ‘empty rituals’ in the Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic – specifically, as‘”cold cultures” frozen in place by a “slavish awe of mighty cities, temples and tombs”’[lxxxv] [86] – could be read as an apt mirror of post-historic primitivism’s own reaction to the post-industrialised, globalised world. This view of urban areas as places of abomination resonates with the apocalyptic poetry of Robinson Jeffers and signals a drive to return to a shepherd mythology which, in many senses (as previously discussed), is not a practical answer to the current issues surrounding ecological degradation. Such a move also strengthens the shepherd/ farmer binary which Oelschlaeger himself comments on, as merely acting as a signifier: a protective cultural shield to paper over the psychological cracks caused by destructive land-use change.

This is not to bash the figure of the nomad or shepherd, however perhaps such a role role has more significance as a cultural mediator and not as an environmental ‘problem solver’. This becomes apparent in Wilderness’ reverence for myth and ‘sacred time’[lxxxvi] [87] in reaction to reductive modernist thought which does indeed view nature as a ‘stockpile of resources’[lxxxvii] [88]. In the same way that we are told that the Hebrew prophets ‘were the first to dissociate themselves from the restrictive confines of culture and associate truth with the supernatural’[lxxxviii] [89], Oelschlaeger is keen to place his faith in a sense of biotic holism and ‘expanding levels of consciousness’, rather than scientific investigation. Schneidau’s observation of modernism as ‘an alchemy to transform wilderness and civilisation using myths at a tremendous rate’[lxxxix] [90], seems to have generated more of a reactionary than a pragmatic stance here, as Oelschlaeger comments in the first page of Wilderness:

I need not address factually the looming global eco-crisis, since that hoary potential now urgently presses itself on the earth’s people […] the wilderness within the human soul and without […] Much about our culture encourages me to think that evolution in consciousness may yet forestall massive extinctions.=[xc] [91]

This faith in mysticism I view as inherently problematic because it is so at odds with practical attempts to monitor ecosystems – a process which is heavily dependent on abstract scientific observation. This clash becomes particularly acute when Oelschlaeger accuses Galileo of being ‘unholistic’ because he observed outside nature using instruments (telescopes) – leading to a cold sort of abstraction.[xci] [92] This seems borderline petty, although it is important to retain mediators between specialists in science. Oelschlaeger has a big problem with the replacement of Aristotelian synergism with casual explanation[xcii] [93]  – that is to say, not only the mechanistic outlook of nature as a machine, but the downgrading of direct perception or intuition to secondary and tertiary qualities[xciii] [94], as a pose to scientific investigation using technology as a primary quality. Whilst being interesting points, one wonders how rooted in pragmatism this is at all, considering that people as witnesses have been proven consistently unreliable, as well-verified by phenomena involving sightings of criminals, faith-based apparitions and mass-hallucinations. One good example of the effects of a total reliance on these ‘secondary’ qualities is Keith Thomas’ Religion and the Decline of Magic, which documents popular beliefs in sixteenth and seventeenth-century England – some of which may seem staggering now, but as Thomas notes, frequent apparitions seen in the sky were at the time taken very seriously:

These counterparts of our flying saucers might assume bizarre forms [army of horse, wrecked ships, angels…] but usually they illustrated that in hallucination, no less than in ordinary vision, human perception is governed by stereotypes inherited from the particular society in which men live.[xciv] [95]

On the quantum level this gets more interesting, but overall this decrying of rationalism in the face of mysticism I believe to be so impractical in terms of addressing the climate problem, that Oelschlaeger’s comments in this regard are simply worth ignoring.

However, there is a second strand to this argument, which also means pushing against the (current) modernist notion of nature as a machine. In this sense Oelschlaeger is quite right to criticise the modernist philosophy that ‘the natural world came to be conceived as valueless until humanised’[xcv] [96]. He is also correct to draw on Whitehead and recognise that ‘nature [is] a spontaneous and naturally organised system in which all parts are harmoniously interrelated’[xcvi] [97]. In one sense, nature is mythic because we now know how complex and irreplaceable it is in terms of a biological technology – it cannot be manufactured or made. I would say though that this signifies a great need to move away from primitivism and towards deep ecology, the tenets of which I would like to cover separately.

Laurence Buell has made an interesting observation about first versus second wave environmental criticism as moving from a sole focus on the nonhuman environment, to a recognition that ‘natural and built environments, [revisionists point out], are long since mixed up.’[xcvii] [98] In this sense, Wilderness’ emphasis on a paradisiacal hunter-gatherer wilderness could be seen as aligned to this first wave tendency. The growing awareness of the importance of biodiversity networks asserts the linkage of the human with the ‘natural’, whether we like or not. This is akin to Thoreau’s ‘crypo-evolutionary’[xcviii] [99] recognition in Walden that a railway line exposed by a sandbank both is part of and metamorphosises life-processes – revealing that not only earth’s forms, ‘but the institutions upon it, are plastic’[xcix] [100] (in an elastic sense).

Sustaining Present-day Primitivism

Texts such as The Idea of Wilderness continue to inform the real-life actions of environmental and primitivist groups. One example was Mark Boyle’s 2009 self-righteous Guardian article ‘My Year of Living Without Money’ in which he practiced a subsidence approach to living using approaches such as foraging and coppicing[c] [101]. or The Anarchist Library’s 2012 anthology Reconsidering Primitivism, Technology, & the Wild in which primitivists such as Witch Hazel assert that

‘Much [of primitivism] is super-practical, yet subversive, in its unending questioning of the distance between our lives and the web of life we inhabit, including: rediscovering and practicing forager lifeways; fusing this nearly lost knowledge with more modern forms of ecological/low-impact living’.[ci] [102]

Not only were primitive lifestyles inherently unsustainable anyway, as I have previously demonstrated, but prehistoric peoples lived in much smaller population densities – around 10 million Homo Sapiens worldwide in 20,000 BP. Unfortunately, as we have now got a planetary population of 7 billion, the idea of leading a nomadic lifestyle in 2012 borders on lunacy. This partly to do with the advancement of enclosure and ‘humanisation’ of nearly every space on earth, but in a moral sense – if appealing to primitivism in its own form as a moral argument – in a world of collapsed, damaged and degrading ecosystems and biodiversity networks any extra strain is very damaging. These extra stresses can be in the effect of ‘sustainable’ logging on tropical forests, the harvesting of NTFPs and in particular, bushmeat hunting.

In terms of resource efficiency in an overpopulated world, urban areas greatly outstrip countryside living.[cii] [103] Furthermore, spreading smallholdings or scattering the population leads to increased damaging effect of road-building: roads being so integral to nomadic lifestyles (bike, eco-car, bus). It is ironic that neoliberal agendas have also overseen massive increases in road building and road building advocacy – the road as a place being perfectly suited to neoliberal theology (abstraction of the driver, shielding from others, observation from a heightened viewpoint).

So, we need a utilitarian solution, not one which can only be used by a privileged few (foragers, primitivists, eco-communes etc.) And frankly one which is realistic and not annoying – nobody wants to go and live in a shed and eat berries for very long.

New Environmentalism

As mentioned at the start of this review, I would like to conclude by building on Wolfi Landstreicher’s impasse at the end of his critique on civilisation. Whilst Landsteicher ‘hope[s] that without presenting a model, I have given some idea of what a revolutionary critique of civilization might look like’[ciii] [104], I would like to lay out a brief vision of what a more practical approach to environmentalism might be:

Technology which was both propelled and created by climate changes can also help us get out of it – in fact despite the environmental damage it has caused, without technology we would not know about climate change, our own prehistoric effects on the environment, natural history etc. But by this I don’t mean simplistic geoengineering solutions to climate change such as sulfur sprays or iron filings in the sea, as they are one-word answers to incredibly complex environmental problems. Instead we have reached the age of the quantum computer and a new era of ecosystem science. Satellites, new approaches to modelling and data, planetary mapping, emerging research and a growing body of scientific knowledge about the way that ecosystems operate have lifted the lid on our previous ignorance about the way the planet operates. In particular, the internet and the opportunity to pool such data (as in for example, the CAIT tool) gives us a chance of tackling the climate issue (and environmental degradation) rationally using a wide spectrum of tools and approaches, both market-driven and under state governance. One good example of this complex approach can be seen in the Princeton wedges[civ] [105] – an approach to tackling climate change. ‘New Environmentalism’ would therefore be about futuristic and strategic land-use changes, employing the use of restoration mosaics, urban areas, designated wildlife zones and plantations for agriculture (including tree plantations instead of ‘production forests’). It would also lead to the development of hyper-urban areas in order to support human populations in ways which would not unrealistically change modern lifestyles, such as resorting to a hunter-gatherer existence.

In particular, the chances for ecosystem restoration through the recognition and manipulation of biological networks are perhaps the most exciting development. The World Resources Institute has complied a fascinating map for restoration[cv] [106] and there are several ongoing successful restoration projects taking place around the globe such as the ACG (Area de Conservacion Guanacaste), which has been pioneering restoration for the last 40 years.  It can be said to have achieved many of its protection objectives (for example stopping fires), and has regenerated 40,000 ha of former pastureland into forest. In total the park area was 1,470 km2 of 2004.[cvi] [107] Such approaches strongly differentiate from primitivist theology – building on an allegory of ‘the fall’, a phobia of technology and a desire for the ‘golden-age’ – in that combating deforestation and ecosystem degradation will not be out of guilt but as a positive tool/ force that will enhance human life. The key issue with this is that it will potentially require a greater degree of state control and probably the sacrifice of a neoliberal agenda which is at odds with controlling land-use change in a utilitarian sense (and for example, measuring carbon dioxide and environmental rights as discussed by Naomi Klein[cvii] [108]).