The documentary Grizzly Man closely chronicles the story of
Timothy Treadwell, the Alaskan bear-hermit, as he attempts to connect on both a
spiritual and physical level with the Alaskan wilderness and specifically the
grizzly bears that roam Kodiak Island. For
Treadwell, it isn’t enough to live in nature near Alaska’s bears. He has to physically interact with them in
order to protect and “become” a bear. At
the end, it’s revealed that Treadwell and his partner had been killed in 2003
by a grizzly bear that had become desperate for food. In meeting his demise, Treadwell had finally
become “part of a bear”.
Grizzly Man is easy to discredit as simply representing the
ideals of a bipolar, disillusioned outcast, however, there are general themes
that Treadwell’s life represents that raise questions about our own ideals of
nature. Perhaps one of the major points
that Treadwell’s life raises is that our society has a tendency to romanticize
our relationship with nature. When we
see the foxes in Grizzly Man, our hearts inflate with affection for the “cute
thing”. We all would love to curl up
next to a red fox in the Alaskan wilderness.
This gut reaction to want to curl up and embrace nature is part of being
human. Our ancestors grew up hunting and
gathering off the land. However, today,
many of us lack an understanding of the pure power of nature, and the hardships
life in nature brings. Today, we have a
tendency to romanticize nature as being a pure, friendly sanctuary just as
Treadwell did. This romantic reaction
contrasts with Herzog’s belief that nature is a hard, corrupt, violent place. Throughout Grizzly Man, he makes a point to
make us know his beliefs about how we should interact with nature. Instead of “returning to nature”, we should
give nature as much space as possible.
Nothing good can come out of man attempting to return to nature. While
both Herzog and Treadwell love nature and deeply appreciate its power, they
have deeply contrasting views of how man should interact with and protect
it.
One place where these contrasting views of nature are deeply
apparent is in the environmental movement.
Perhaps more than anywhere else in our society, the community that makes
up the environmental movement romanticizes our relationship with nature. Instead of trying to “decouple” from nature,
and leave as much space for it to grow freely, many environmentalists assert policy
changes that would encourage us to return to our origins. Cities, nuclear energy, natural gas, and
economic development are the enemies of the Alaskan bears. Instead, man should return to living a rural
life powered by distributed energy sources such as wind and solar power. The origins of such beliefs are interesting. “Back to the Wild” environmentalism
originated with the first industrial revolution in the mid-19th
century. Romantics saw the changes and
destruction that was associated with the rise of the steam engine and textile
mill and started to argue that the only way to undo this destruction was to
return to our early agrarian society. In
stark contrast to the romantics within the environmental community are
ecological pragmatists. Instead of
viewing nature romantically, they argue that the best way to preserve nature is
to create as much room for her to grow freely through technological
innovation. Nuclear energy uses far less
energy than wind power for example. While eco-modernists don’t necessarily share
Herzog’s ideals that nature is violent, they agree that man should limit
interactions with her.
The contrasting beliefs within the environmental movement
are similar to the contrasting beliefs of Herzog and Treadwell. While Treadwell looks at nature in a romantic
way, Herzog looks at nature as a corrupt, violent place. Similarly, the majority of the environmental
movement looks at nature from Treadwell’s perspective. A small minority known as the eco-pragmatists
or modernists looks at the preservation of nature from the perspective of “we
have to decouple from it”. While these people’s ideals strongly contrast,
they all share a passion for preserving nature.
This is what is critical to recognize.
Evan,
ReplyDeleteYou make excellent points regarding the idealistic "back to the wild" concept and the faults with this theory. So often people talk about the idea of living off the land and deep with in the wild without looking at the negative aspects of that type of lifestyle. Many of us would be completely lost in the wild.
You also make a point about the way we look at the woods and their inhabitants. A fox is a wild creature, one that could cause a human serious harm. However we imagine domesticating it. This brings the question of the true nature of wild beasts. As humans we like to believe that we could change them by showing them love, similarly to Treadwell and the bears.
I'm amazed you managed to mention nuclear power, but I really do appreciate the way that you connected the perspectives on nature to different environmentalist views.
I understand the views of ecological pragmatists, but for me the only issue I have is that we are made of the same elements of nature. Therefor separating from is is impossible. Everything we have developed and know is made of the same elements, every "man made" substance came from an organic substance. We live in a closed atmosphere, everything we develop is only another form of matter that was part of nature before.
ReplyDeleteI do agree however that romanticizing the "living off the land" is ridiculous. We would die. If anything we are messing with nature more in that aspect. If we went back to living off the land everyone would move out of cities and therefore take over the only wilderness we have left. We would destroy our resources even more. I really like how you pointed out that even with contrasting views, both environmentalists and ecological pragmatists want the same thing, to save nature. I haven't heard of this view, and its really opened my ideas of the future for saving resources and the natural world.