Essay/Term paper: Civilize the wilderness

Essay, term paper, research paper:  College Essays

Civilize the Wilderness


Wilderness, why civilize it? This is an interesting question, and one
that is hard to answer. Why not just leave the wilderness alone, and let it
grow and decide it's own beginnings and ends? Does civilizing the wilderness
make it better or worse? In what ways is it better or worse if we leave it
alone or it we civilize it? These are all excellent questions and are all
worthwhile to think about.
Western culture has tried to civilize the wilderness for quite sometime
now, but is it really something we should be doing? In the point of view of
many, the wilderness should be civilized to accommodate for the increasing
number of people in the world. We should also civilize it because we need the
extra room and because we cannot live in uncivilized areas of the wilderness, at
least not with all of the comforts of home. What effects will civilizing the
wilderness now have in the future? Many questions can arise when contemplating
civilizing the wilderness.
The wilderness is being civilized for one main reason. That reason is
technology. Technology plays an important role in everyone's lives today.
Without it, we would not have computers, fax machines, cellular phones, and all
of the modern conveniences that we have today. The fact is, that many people
believe that the wilderness is like an unborn country. A country that has
nothing and is striving to become more advanced. We see this as an opportunity
to better it and make it seem like we are actually helping. But, are we really
helping? In my opinion, no. I feel that we are destroying something natural
and something of beauty.
In many ways we are making the wilderness worse by civilizing it. We
put unnatural objects into the wilderness, and it destroys the wilderness'
natural beauty. Thoreau's ideal is to pretty much leave the wilderness as it is.
If you need to inhabit it, don't use anything that does not come from within it.
For example, Thoreau built his cabin from the trees that were in the wilderness
that surrounded it. In this way, civilizing the wilderness is okay. The way we
are civilizing it, is not okay. Too just clear-cut an entire forest, then build
a house, an in ground swimming pool, and put up a satellite dish, is not exactly
ideal to keeping the wilderness natural.
To destroy the beauty of the wilderness by civilizing it in the way that
we are, we are throwing away a place that we can go and get away from it all.
If we keep on civilizing the wilderness the way we are right now, who says that
there will be any left in the future for us. Will all we have left are the
images of the wilderness that the books we have read give us, or will we stop in
time to save some wilderness? I'm really not sure, but I would like to see the
wilderness survive and be able to exist with us, and not have us destroy it all.
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