Paul Weissfellner

INTD 105: Science Writing

Prof. Fenn

The Trouble with Wilderness Response

In his essay The Trouble with Wilderness, William Cronon lays out a comprehensive critique of the American concept of wilderness. He takes the reader through the history of wilderness and perceptions of it in America, from the standpoint that the entire idea of wilderness and the way that it is expressed is flawed and dangerous. From its origins as a forum for religious experiences  to a playground for the urban elite, wilderness has taken many forms. I found his descriptions of the issues with wilderness interesting, especially as he presented them as antithetical to all of mainstream environmentalism. I particularly liked his analysis of the effects of wilderness of the general views of nature as a whole. Nature is only valuable if it is untouched, but what really constitutes untouched? Humans have lived everywhere for thousands of years, and, more often than not, wilderness preserves an area where people had lived after kicking them out; it is not how nature was before humans. It’s how nature was when a certain group of humans arrived. At the end, Cronon brings it back to Haraway’s ideas of the cyborg, in that nature and humanity cannot be separated without dire philosophical consequences. My rock is no longer a representation of the struggle between humans and nature; rather, it is a monument to unity, to the natural and human-made systems that worked together to create it as it exists now.

Paul Weissfellner

The Cyborg Manifesto

According to Donna Haraway, human society is in the midst of a huge shift that wil redefine traditional relationships and reshape how humans view the world. The boundaries that once served to divide up the natural world so neatly are slowly shifting and dissolving, leaving a more confusing, holistic view of the world and everything in it; no longer are humans considered separate from animals or from machines. Indeed, in many capacities, humans often work so closely with one or both so as to be indistinguishable from each other. Another shift that Haraway talks about is from identity to affinity; that is, from groups that form simply because of who people are, to groups that form because people choose to be a part of them.

Haraway brings up interesting points, especially with regard to my rock. If there is no meaningful difference between humans and nature, then that does that mean for the rock? It sits at an intersection, but, according to her, that intersection does not even exist.

Paul Weissfellner                                                                    about 250 words

pw7@geneseo.edu

A Large Rock

by Paul Weissfellner

I see it whenever I leave my dorm to get to the main part of campus. Glistening wetly in the rain, gray speckled with red and brown, the rock marks a crossroads, both literally and figuratively; physically, it sits at the intersection of two paths, marking where residents of Onandaga split off from students who live in other dorms. It sits, sunken into the dirt, a silent observer. Surrounded by grass, it provides a focal point towards which to direct your attention as you walk back to South Village. Some may say that it is nothing more than a physical landmark, a natural reminder of the world within which we have built our structures, both social and physical, but they are missing the bigger picture. The rock is an testament to power, but it is ambiguous in its target. How did it get to where it is now? If it came to its place naturally, it is a monument to the persistence of nature, and a constant reassertion of the natural world’s power over this who live in it. If it was moved to this resting place, the meaning is flipped; it represents the success of humankind in reshaping nature, subjugating it to our will. It’s too big for humans alone to lift, so, if it was moved to it’s current location, it had to be by a crane or bulldozer. In this scenario, its very existence reinforces the authority, continuously sought but only recently found, of humans to shape the world around us.