Well none of my camping experience was anything like that there was a certain amount of enjoyment from it. I do like getting out away from the city but sleeping on the ground with bugs and other denizens of the wild? I just dunno anymore. We invented houses, indoor plumbing, use electricity for bloody good reasons and I have come to really appreciate it. I am good with getting a room at a nearby motel and having a nice comfy bed and shower over sleeping under the stars. But I have never grokked the āget back to natureā thing cause nature wants to fucking kill us.
BM in particular I first learned of it when I hung out with a juggling club regularly (and thatās an oddly very white activity as to my experience with it and I have no clue why) and it was more a just hang out and do your performance art for everyone in the crazy camp thing. I never had the $$$ to manage a trip out and by the time I was gainfully employed enough it had kinda gotten to the jump the shark stage.
I wouldnāt completely disagree, but I find ignorance and selfishness are quite sufficient in most cases. Where thereās a historical power imbalance, this very human ignorance and selfishness makes people blind to the harm they are doing to others, even if they do care. I donāt think itās possible to look at anything to do with white culture and say āthis is entirely unproblematicā, but I donāt think white people are uniquely evil either, and there are contributions from white cultures that are valuable. In the case of some white culturesā relationship with nature, each culture has a narrative about this and while it may have problematic elements, it can have huge benefits. National parks are one largely white introduction that has protected parts of nature that would otherwise have been destroyed. Iām sure there was a lot of romanticism and lack of self-awareness involved in the decision to create them, but Iām glad the decision was made.
This is true. I lived there in the late 80s, early 90s and remember visiting another school and all the kids wanting to touch this one kidās hair. He was white, and blonde, but it was the closest thing to black peopleās hair that most of us had ever seenā¦
There are quite a few Asians in Keswick these days.
Maybe itās like that in the US (although Iād observe that the āoutdoorsyā brigade there - the romantics at least - seem far more likely to wax lyrical about Thoreau or John Muir than Tecumseh) - but in the UK or Europe there is much less emphasis on the folksy, and the natives were decimated much earlier and more thoroughly so donāt really impinge upon the experience - no-one goes camping so they can feel closer to the Beaker Peopleā¦
Damn, you caught us. We tried to fool you into thinking that we liked getting out of the city for some fresh air, toasting smores around a campfire, and sleeping under the stars, but you uncovered the truth! We were malevolently lording our dominion over the spirits of the previous occupants the whole time. (And if you think thatās bad, wait until you find out what those birdwatchers are really up to.)
lol, history is what happened in the past, it was already enacted back then. whatever weāre enacting in the present day, itās not our history. in fact, if we did do that, then nothing would ever change.
The great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do.
Do you not think there might exist a middle-ground, between historical determinism operating against a blank slate of human potential, and biological determinism shaping contingent social experiences? Iām in there somewhere.
