Has anyone read this book, or plan on seeing the movie that is coming out later this month? I want to read the book and see the movie.
It is about a young man who ditched civilized life, and lived in the Alaskan wilderness foraging for edible plants and hunting for his meat. He survived for around 112 days, and died living in a bus in Alaska.
The cause of his death is unknown, but in a journal, he speculated that he ate some bad potato seeds.
[quote=“jhereg, post:2, topic:400”]Ah, McCandless. Yeah, he crops up semi-regularly here.
See here for an example.[/quote]
From what little I have read, he did seem to be very inadequately prepared for his adventure that led to his death. Furthermore, I don’t know how anyone could survive long term very easily being alone.
It’s probably a matter of perspective. He had previously spent quite a bit of time alone in the wilderness (not Alaska, mind) and walked out just fine.
To me, the 2 big takeaways are:
Knowledge of your area isn’t trivial knowledge, it’s crucial knowledge
Eventually you will do something stupid.
[quote=“jhereg, post:4, topic:400”]To me, the 2 big takeaways are:
Knowledge of your area isn’t trivial knowledge, it’s crucial knowledge
Eventually you will do something stupid.[/quote]
Heh. Nice summary, jhereg. That seems to be it, in a nutshell.
I plan on seeing the movie and reading the book. But I can’t help to see his foolishness in going out there all alone. If I were to ever abandon civilization compeltely and go out into the woods for any extended period of time, I would have at least one other person with me, but a group of people would be ideal.
I almost decided not to reply to this topic, but it’s just so hard to resist discussing him. Alot of people here know I have a problem with McCandless. My tirade of him in another post was probably premature considering I hadn’t read the book at that time, but I did it because I was familiar with many particulars of his situation. Well now I have read the book, so I am in a more proper position to critique him.
It's probably a matter of perspective. He had previously spent quite a bit of time alone in the wilderness (not Alaska, mind) and walked out just fine.
Not really. He didn’t spend much time alone in the wilderness at all. He spent most of his time wandering on the roads. Sure, he spent maybe a couple of days in the desert, and he had the canoe trip down the Colorado River, but those were definitely not an “alone in the wilderness” type situations.
I must admit though after reading the book, I basically like the guy and I can certainly relate to him in many ways. But he had these lofty ideals and seemed more interested in philosophy than in reconnection with the natural world. I mean the guy brought ten books with him which made for the bulk of what he carried out there.
For me, it all comes down to this: Lack of humility and lack of respect for the land. Not because he was alone, as so many here seem to believe, but because of being simply underprepared and overconfident.
I’ll happily back you on “overconfident”, to an extent, even “Lack of humility & lack of respect for the land”. How’s that for a compromise? 
For me, it all comes down to this: Lack of humility and lack of respect for the land. Not because he was alone, as so many here seem to believe, but because of being simply underprepared and overconfident.
I think going it alone represents the ultimate in “lack of humility” and “lack of respect for the land”. No aboriginal would think to try to live alone – because they respected the land.
No aboriginal would think to try to live alone
You’re right. Why would they? They wouldn’t want to because they had strong relationships and cultural identities and were basically very happy. I have never argued against the fact that a tribe is the best society humans can have. In fact it’s the only kind of society that works and the one we are best adapted to, and additionally the one that makes us happiest. No argument here. I’ve discussed elsewhere what I believe on the subject of living alone and I won’t elaborate anymore here.
I just think McCandless is a bad example to use as proof that going it alone is impossible. He didn’t have nearly the skill and experience of others who have done better.
Y’all got it?
Try to look at it from a noncommital standpoint, assuming that he was not a rewilder and simply a regular person. He got fed up with sociotcy and the life he was living, and changed it. I dont think very many (If any) on this forum can say that much( to the same degree of change). Why not embrace anyone who attemps to leave mainstraim life and values? Isnt anyone who gets up and walks away from all of that worthy of at least some praise?
I agree totally.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the internet provides us with access to deeper critiques (and knowledge) that we can assimilate into our own worldview at a rapid pace and hence appear all knowing and critical of various choices he (and others like him) made. Quite frankly, where would we all be if we never had access to the likes of this forum and the countless anti-civ critiques that we generally learned about (one way or another) via the net? In my opinion most of us would be lucky if we ever got anywhere near McCandless’ depth of insight (and action). He never had access to any of the material we do.
[quote=“Ando, post:10, topic:400”]You’re right. Why would they? They wouldn’t want to because they had strong relationships and cultural identities and were basically very happy. I have never argued against the fact that a tribe is the best society humans can have. In fact it’s the only kind of society that works and the one we are best adapted to, and additionally the one that makes us happiest. No argument here. I’ve discussed elsewhere what I believe on the subject of living alone and I won’t elaborate anymore here.
I just think McCandless is a bad example to use as proof that going it alone is impossible. He didn’t have nearly the skill and experience of others who have done better.
Y’all got it?[/quote]
I don’t think any of us who harp on this issue, hold McCandless up as a proof that going it alone is impossible. Rather that he is a good example of what can go wrong when you go it alone. I don’t even think it’s necessarily impossible to go it alone. And I am eager to hear about the experiences of people who do go it alone. I encourage TheJoker to make his attempts into the wild and come back and talk to us about it in the same way that I encourage Scout’s forays.
We’re all after the same thing, I think: freedom from civilization and reclaiming our identity as free humans. But that means different things to different people. I think Willem’s forays into rewilding thought and language and sense of place, Scout’s experiments in primitive skills and balancing wild actions with a civilized setting, Jason’s treatises on collapse and bioregions and mythologies, Penny’s record of failures, jhereg’s struggle to share his rewilding mindset with his family – all represent the same thing that the “get out there even if I go alone” crowd is after: reclaiming that wild life.
But we do it in different ways, and we value different aspects of it. I can live with the civ. I’m good at hating it. I pay my rent and all my other dues and feel repressed by it, and that’s part of how I get by. I seek to reclaim what I can reclaim within the current (albeit unhealthy) support system that I have with this life.
Others can’t live with the civ. I respect that desire to get out and get away. But I will never hesitate to try to temper it with what wisdom I have gained in my own attempts at rewilding.
The funny thing is that neither aspect really can work. I don’t think I can turn feral while living in the suburbs anymore than I think someone can turn feral by getting out of civilization alone. But I do think that I have less chance of killing myself by taking the slow route, gathering momentum and friends and (hopefully, eventually) a tribe before I walk away from Omelas.
OK. Solidly put Rix.
“I think going it alone represents the ultimate in “lack of humility” and “lack of respect for the land”.”
This seems an incredible overgeneralization to me.
I spend most of my time alone. Not generally in the deep wilderness, because I kind of like survival and don’t have the skills to stay there permanently. But for increasingly long periods and increasingly further away from civilization as my capabilities increase. Actually, most of the time I’m in the city I’m alone too, for that matter.
How is this lacking respect for the land?
Even if I overestimate my capabilities and end up cougar food someday, that’s a natural enough end and I still don’t see how that is lacking respect for the land.
Now if I did it in a way that put other people at risk or caused a change in the way others were “allowed” to interact with a particular part of the wilderness then there is an argument to be made for it being disrespectful, but even there my interaction with nature doesn’t seem to be at issue as much as my interaction with other people.
I flatly reject the notion that my relationship with the natural world is in any way harmed by my choice to generally not involve other people in my travels.
It’s more dangerous to be out there alone. But I find it more rewarding as well because I’ve never been so in tune with someone that they didn’t echo to some degree the very babble of humanity that I go to the woods to escape.
This seems an incredible overgeneralization to me.
You note quite rightly that I overgeneralized. I perhaps went too far the opposite direction in reacting to a situation like McCandless’s.
But your situation, doesn’t sound like the same kind of thing we have discussed in this thread. It sounds like you make excursions on your own, not like you seek to find a sustainable existence that excludes other people.
By “lack of respect for the land” I meant more along the lines of a lack of respect for the “laws of life” as Quinn described them. That humans evolved to live in tribes as much as bees evolved to live in hives and wolves evolved to live in packs.
It's more dangerous to be out there alone. But I find it more rewarding as well because I've never been so in tune with someone that they didn't echo to some degree the very babble of humanity that I go to the woods to escape.
Do you really want to escape the babble of all humanity, or just civilized humanity?