Crazy Mountains: Learning from Wilderness to Weigh TechnologyState University of New York Press, 1995 M10 19 - 264 pages Reality is slipping away, writes David Strong in Crazy Mountains, and is being eroded by a glut of technological devices and commodities. But all is not lost if we learn to care for the things at the center of the good life. Written in the tradition of Walden and A River Runs Through It with philosophical clarity and literary power, this book opens with a vivid account of the Crazy Mountains of Montana, an island of high, craggy peaks, forest, meadows, and rushing streams, surrounded by the sweep of the high plains. A newly-bulldozed road and a planned timber sale jeopardize the wild character of the range and trigger the wide-ranging reflections of this remarkable book. Technology is transforming Earth in increasingly extensive ways, and Strong urges us to awaken from the spell of technology—from the unexamined belief that its devices and commodities make our lives good. He warns that even an environmental ethic can be subverted by the glamorous pull of the consumer culture. From wilderness we learn what things are real and how this reality can re-order our lives, our communities, and our nation. We learn another way to be. This is a one-of-a-kind book. It soars gracefully, yet presents a comprehensive vision of the challenge wilderness offers to our contemporary culture. |
Contents
The Danger to the Crazy Mountains | 15 |
The Environmentalists Reply | 43 |
The Other Story | 63 |
The Technological Subversion of Environmental | 75 |
Granting the Thing its Eloquence | 103 |
Learning from Wilderness | 117 |
To Consider Things Again | 145 |
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Albert Borgmann animating nature appeal backpack become boardfeet Borgmann bring Bugbee building challenge chapter claims clearcuts Colin Fletcher commodities consumption correlational coexistence Cottonwood Canyon Crazy Mountains Crazy Peak Creek devices disburden disclose domination Earth ecology ecosystem engagement environment environmental ethics everything experience feel fish Forest Service framework Gabriel Marcel Gallatin Gallatin National Forest gather heedless hikers hiking homecoming human Ibid kind Kyklopes lake Land Ethic Leopold literal wilderness lives logging means merely Montana morning natural things Odysseus peaks petty homocentrism Phaiakians philosophical present protect road rock Rolston salt marshes seems sense shows standpoint story T.S. Eliot technological culture television Thoreau timber sale tion trail trees turn understanding vision of technology Walden Pond wild land wild order wild places wild things wilderness of things wildlife Yellowstone York