I’d like to resurrect this thread and, if folks are willing to join me, take it in a new direction right now: a new variation on the theme of “noble savage.”
Here’s how I feel/think about the celebration (some might call it “romanticism”) of indigenous cultures:
Indigenous/nature-based societies are comprised of people who can and do maintain healthy, stable relationships among each other and with their surroundings. I think that this can serve as a great definition of what it means to be noble (not a racist descriptor of indigenous societies in the least, since it describes a behavior) – and for me, simply contemplating the knowledge that people can and have lived that way for over a million years gives me the kind of peace of mind I need. (In other words, I need to remind myself over and over that people are not inherently flawed.)
Allowing myself that peace of mind has inspired some pretty exalted sentiments. Those sentiments in turn are my main motivation for rewilding. I want a close-knit, highly functioning society. I want to live without pollution, litter, or sidewalks. I want to escape the myriad forms of destruction surrounding me in the city. I want direct, intimate experience as opposed to mediated interaction (exchanging money for goods, communicating using technology, etc.). These wants are all emotions that stem from unfulfilled needs, and when I reclaim those needs and direct my wants toward them, I feel a sense of completeness. Even if I’m not very public with these emotions, they are there, and they are powerful.
The reasoning is there too, of course. I understand that civilization is socially and ecologically unsustainable. I understand that the socio-historic position of a civilized society which spans the globe shares striking similarities with past civilizations as they were about to collapse… and I understand that while rewilding doesn’t guarantee that I’ll survive a (probably violent) crash, it can give me huge advantages if I do survive past collapse. I understand that rewilding doesn’t mean giving anything up, just re-adapting myself, and trading one paradigm for another (indigenous people have art, and music, and those other innately human behaviors that I love).
But these “understandings”, in the end, don’t motivate me. I’ve had to learn for myself recently that I can’t make a whole lot of progress in rewilding until I accept and celebrate the knowledge that rewilding just feels better.
That means, of course, that I’m claiming a preference. We’re taught in civilization that acting from preference or emotion is always problematic, and that acting from reason is a mark of maturity. We’re also taught to distrust, deny, or subordinate our emotions and instincts. After all, we get good grades if we put reason above emotion, and we keep our jobs if we elevate abstract justifications for why we should work over how we feel while working. We can “win friends and influence people” if we demonstrate that we are the most reasonable, the most metered, the least likely to yield to emotion (a “distraction” from reality).
I have found that appealing to emotion can be just as valid as appealing to reason when making an argument for rewilding. Showing someone the grace of rewilding rather than telling them is inherently an emotional appeal, and it effectively convinces people of rewilding’s virtues. At the very least, when you talk to a person’s emotions and deep unfulfilled needs instead of talking to their intellect–when you embrace their personal stories–even if they don’t agree, they notice an odd, refreshing feeling of friendly disagreement.
(One more unvoiced knock against reasoning: since it’s not pure logic, it too sits in the gray areas – and therefore, it can be twisted and used to destroy (theology, science) as easily as the emotional faculties can be manipulated to destructive ends (Rush Limbaugh, advertising). Growth economics, for example, takes pains not to appeal to emotion. Oh no, instead it appeals to reason, and perpetuates behavior that is so extreme and anti-social, growth economists may as well be psychopaths holding everyone hostage at gunpoint.)
So I’m a romantic, and I nearly idealize indigenous societies (they provide for more human needs than this society does, after all!), and there’s nothing flawed about that. It’s not necessary or productive to feel embarrased about seeing indigenous people (and envisioning future nature-based societies) on an emotional level, and when I elevate those societies by saying “this is what I want” (instead of “this is what is reasonable”), I’m not acting from an irresponsible “id”, racist stereotyping, liberal white guilt, or any other condition involving reason “tainted” by emotion.
I remember being very young, walking in the forest and prairie, and wondering if I would find a group of people to live with there. Those were romantic (I’ll use that word) visions of a life that felt less boring and more emotionally intimate than anything else I had experienced. Those were not reasoned actions, they were strictly emotional and instinctual, and I can trust those motivations. I had not learned yet to justify and analyze despair – or if I had learned something of that detached behavior, being close to nature gave me temporary sanctuary from it. I trusted the way I felt as a participant in nature. The staff of The Economist (the way this thread began), however, doesn’t trust the motivations of that 6 year old child, and no amount of appeal to reason will inspire me to agree with them.