The answer was John Muir. Muir and I share many attributes, and I've lived my life in many ways parallel to his, reading his works and repeating his adventures.
It is hard when your hero falls from grace. The first times it happened were when I read things he wrote that I disagreed with: his opinions on fire and irrigated agriculture were not helpful, and likely harmful given his influence. Examples:
Example 1: John Muir did not recognize the benefits of wildfires and cultural burning practices to California's cultures and ecosystems. He actively crusaded against fire and all dangers to forests--but failed to recognize that fire maintained healthy forests, despite its killing of individual trees. This mindset was perhaps forgivable if not understandable at the time. But how could the man with acute observational skills who discovered glaciers in the Sierra miss how essential fire is to California's ecosystems--and not figure out that lack of fire would be so detrimental, resulting in larger more destructive fires? Should we topple him from his pedestal for his lack of foresight in one area, and dismiss the value of his wonderful and foundational contributions in other areas?
Example 2: John Muir's essay "California Agriculture" is excited boosterism, a celebration of all that is beautiful about irrigated agriculture, but ignoring the perils of the overdevelopment our land and rivers, as well as threats to terminal lakes: "...a considerable portion of the waters of all these rivers continue to reach their old deathbeds in the desert - Owens, Walker, Carson, Pyramid and Winnamuca lakes - showing that in these valleys there still is room for coming farmers."
He concludes the essay: "...Californians have only to see to it that the forests on which the regular and manageable flow of the rivers depend are preserved, that storage reservoirs are made at the foot of the Range and all the bounty of the mountains may be put to use. Then will theirs be the most foodful and beautiful of all the lowland valleys of like extent in the world." The lack of foresight on this one is particularly disturbing, given Muir's crusade against Hetch Hetchy Reservoir and the incredible level of destruction (and often inequality) that overdevelopment of irrigated agriculture has wrought in California.
Earlier in the essay he says "The snow fountains of the Sierra Nevada are placed just where they may do the most good and are sufficient to water every rod of the Valley..." --perhaps his boosterism was just a hydrology vs. acreage miscalculation, like his lack of recognition that terminal lakes need water. How could he miss these basic things? He held a high opinion of farmers, and these words show he saw them as allies in protecting forests--but could he foresee the full impacts of our over-built water infrastructure 100 years later?
Again, this one is harder to forgive him for. But we don't need to topple Muir completely for this--we just need to recognize that his incredibly inspirational and influential observational powers and writings and adventures were often effective (albeit at times short-sighted) in achieving his agenda of preserving icons of beauty in the mountains, and that he failed to extend his preservation message to the ecosystems threatened in the settled lowlands. This worldview has certainly been harmful, resulting in zoning some areas protected (to the point of excluding Native Americans) and implying that a free-for-all is okay everywhere else. That is the double-sided legacy of our National Parks--by protecting some areas, you automatically are saying that other areas are less-worthy. We must recognize this, yet keep it in context when judging Muir--it is not so much a critique of him or his approach, but a historical artifact of the American approach of preservation vs. utilization. Muir's failing was that he didn't preserve more in the face of development gobbling up everything else (and broaden the definition of "preserve" to include Native and low-impact cultural practices).
Example 3: Here is one last example along the lines of number 2. John Muir edited a publication called "Picturesque California: The Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Slope." Two sections were authored by Charles Howard Shinn: "The Land of the Redwood" and "The Foothill Region of the Northern Coast Range: Sonoma, Napa, and Solano Valleys."
It is this latter piece that touts a shocking vision for wine country: "the chaparral ridges are wholly waste and useless...," and "...these waste waters will flow in narrow fertilizing channels past almond and apricot...," and "Over hundreds of square miles of as yet uncultivated hillsides all the elements of successful horticulture are waiting to be utilized everywhere to the same extent as they already are in a few famous localities." And "The subduing of these vast hillsides, slow and costly though it must prove, is really the problem before California now, and will be for many years to come." And "...it is only the full conquest of the whole beautiful and fertile 'hill-country' which can harmonize and fulfill the possibilities of the champaign regions of California." And "Every available acre must come under the yoke of careful tillage, even to the terracing of slopes that seem too steep to climb." Wow. Pause a moment to let those words sink in.
So this makes me just want to put my head in my hands. How could John Muir, as editor, let pass words like "waste", "useless", "subduing", "conquest", as well as the overall message that all the steepest hillsides should be terraced so as to make this part of California into "such a country as Italy, Southern France, or the famous Rhine-lands"? His name on this as editor is shameful, given that it puts forward a totally destructive development campaign--literally "totally". But I have not investigated the full context of his editorship, so I am reluctant to judge Muir too harshly for another's writings.
In the context of an entire life, and an entire body of writings, these failings--while significant historically--are just not a big part of Muir's popular legacy. When you think of John Muir, you think of the good stuff. And the failings must be forgiven--no one is perfect, and it is not fair to judge this in hindsight. Digging into the details of someone's life is the best way to reveal that we are all humans with failings.
When I first heard inklings that John Muir had fallen from favor, it shocked me as much as it did Raymond Barnett in this excellent look into John Muir's purported racism. What was the motive for taking down John Muir? It must have been people trying to denigrate his larger message, the lessons of his life and writings. Since those messages were extremely important in environmental history, and continue to be relevant today, one could chalk it up to extractive industry trying to create divisiveness within the environmental community by attacking one of its heroes.
This had to be it. What else could be the purpose of taking down John Muir? Someone who did so much to preserve and celebrate nature, and change the attitudes of many?
The Sierra Club's recent attack on Muir in a piece called "Pulling Down Our Monuments" initially baffled me. I wondered what they are trying to achieve by attacking their founder? What are they hoping to accomplish? The first time around, it was hard to read it without defensiveness--they were attacking my hero. But ignoring the three paragraphs that address Muir, I could acknowledge the rest of the piece was good and raised important points.
So what about the parts about Muir? They cite this article by Justin Nobel for Muir's "derogatory comments about Black people and Indigenous peoples that drew on deeply harmful racist stereotypes, though his views evolved later in his life." Some points in that Nobel article are rebutted by Barnett's piece (linked above), which explains that Muir was not racist toward Native Americans, and only by reading his works out-of-context can one arrive at that conclusion. The evolution of Muir's views is a good thing. It is also good to acknowledge those harmful writings from earlier in his life, so that we can all agree he was an imperfect human--and creating monuments out of imperfect humans is a dangerous business. Perhaps that is our takeaway--no one is perfect, and thus no one should be elevated into a monument, lest their imperfections be elevated along with their more laudable qualities.
In the context of an entire life, and an entire body of writings, these failings--while significant historically--are just not a big part of Muir's popular legacy. When you think of John Muir, you think of the good stuff. And the failings must be forgiven--no one is perfect, and it is not fair to judge this in hindsight. Digging into the details of someone's life is the best way to reveal that we are all humans with failings.
When I first heard inklings that John Muir had fallen from favor, it shocked me as much as it did Raymond Barnett in this excellent look into John Muir's purported racism. What was the motive for taking down John Muir? It must have been people trying to denigrate his larger message, the lessons of his life and writings. Since those messages were extremely important in environmental history, and continue to be relevant today, one could chalk it up to extractive industry trying to create divisiveness within the environmental community by attacking one of its heroes.
This had to be it. What else could be the purpose of taking down John Muir? Someone who did so much to preserve and celebrate nature, and change the attitudes of many?
The Sierra Club's recent attack on Muir in a piece called "Pulling Down Our Monuments" initially baffled me. I wondered what they are trying to achieve by attacking their founder? What are they hoping to accomplish? The first time around, it was hard to read it without defensiveness--they were attacking my hero. But ignoring the three paragraphs that address Muir, I could acknowledge the rest of the piece was good and raised important points.
So what about the parts about Muir? They cite this article by Justin Nobel for Muir's "derogatory comments about Black people and Indigenous peoples that drew on deeply harmful racist stereotypes, though his views evolved later in his life." Some points in that Nobel article are rebutted by Barnett's piece (linked above), which explains that Muir was not racist toward Native Americans, and only by reading his works out-of-context can one arrive at that conclusion. The evolution of Muir's views is a good thing. It is also good to acknowledge those harmful writings from earlier in his life, so that we can all agree he was an imperfect human--and creating monuments out of imperfect humans is a dangerous business. Perhaps that is our takeaway--no one is perfect, and thus no one should be elevated into a monument, lest their imperfections be elevated along with their more laudable qualities.
In the Sierra Club's three paragraphs that address Muir, their remaining point seems to be that Muir had associations and friendships with white supremacists and racists, therefore he was racist. In other words, by not being anti-racist, he was being racist. Perhaps this is unforgivable today, but context is important--was he one of the better human beings 150 years ago? Or even today--was he a better human than me? (Answer: probably). Was he actively making the world a better place? Can we judge him for not doing enough? Associating with powerful figures was necessary for him to accomplish his aims, and it is unfortunate that John Muir apparently wasn't anti-racist around those figures. Judging historical figures by modern standards is popular right now, but that is hard to do without exhaustive research. Perhaps Muir advanced anti-racism more because he associated with these figures and was able to influence them? A letter about Muir quoted in the Barnett article stated:
"He (Muir) not only excels in argument, but always takes the highest ground - - is always on the right side. He told Colonel Boyce the other night that Boyce's position was that of a champion for a mean, brutal policy. It was with regard to Indian extermination, and that Boyce would be ashamed to carry it with one Indian in personal conflict.... Further, Muir is so truthful that he not only will never embellish sketch or word-picture by any imaginary addition, but even retains every unsightly feature lest his picture should not be true."
So what is the right answer about John Muir--should he be celebrated? The right answer is the truth, and the truth is complex. Perhaps John Muir was elevated too high, and needs to be toppled somewhat, in the same way our National Parks are not necessarily more bio-diverse or wild than a settled place, and need to be less-glamorized in order to allow the beauty of the vacant lot down the street to be appreciated. But we need inspiration, and heroes from history are a part of that--as well as beautiful places like Yosemite.
We tend to make saints out of our heroes. But they are not saints. Let's allow public figures (including all the fallible founders of environmental organizations) to be imperfect people, and still celebrate their contributions, while calling them on their failings.
Muir tended to use religious language, so perhaps it is appropriate to close with this: Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
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