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I like a lot of his work but there are a few thing sI don't like about him his view on nature can be a little bit elitist like "if you ain't rappelling down a canyon with an old army pack and going off into the desert for weeks at a time, you ain't poo poo" i like doing that sort of thing but a lot of people don't and i would still be thrilled if the squares of the world wanted to enjoy nature and learn to love, respect, and appreciate it... you won't really have that (realistically speaking) unless you have things like e.g. roads to get you there, and i just got the impression when reading the monkey wrench gang that one of the things he was opposing was developing infrastructure to help people come out and enjoy the desert because he was upset that all of these lamewads were going to be coming for tourism and he just wanted to be alone in the desert in other words he had sort of a relativistic nativist approach to enjoying nature - if you're not already here and steeepd in outdoor culture then gently caress you like i respect his views on industry not intruding into pristine nature and even on taking direct action to stop it, which is also what a lot of mmonkey wrench gang was about, but then they spent a lot of time opposing a bridge/road being built and talking about all those city folk who would soon be flooding their beautiful lonely desert... it's been a while since i read that so maybe i'm mis-remembering i might be wrong about his views about eco-tourism but generally i think it can be a good thing and while I sometimes feel sad to see a once-empty place in nature become more popular, I can't really be mad about it because hell yes I'm glad all these people are enjoying this place now (just please don't gently caress it up) also i heard he was kind of a jerk esp. to women
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Dec 21, 2015 21:20
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 08:51 |
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Also there's only so much land, you're gonna have to learn to share it eventually, if you can make people admire it and love it like you do then that's better than people hating it and wanting to turn it into a mall
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Dec 22, 2015 04:39
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I like wilderness areas a lot for that reason. Idk maybe I'm misreading him i just think a lot of people simply won't ever go enjoy nature if it's all hard to get to, so there has to be some hard ones and some easy ones. I like the hard ones but I'm glad the easy ones are there, for people who i could never convince to go backpacking, or who can't. And i feel like Abbey was kind of like "gently caress all nature appreciation that isn't hardcore backpacking" but i might be reading into him falsely.
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Dec 22, 2015 20:51
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Piso Mojado posted:the only edward abbey book i ever read was "The Monkey Wrench Gang". Its been over a decade since i read it so the details are a little fuzzy, but I remember that there were two characters who drive around and burn down billboards along the interstate in the book. I think they call it Highway Re-beautification or something like that. When i drive in the midwest and see a lot of crazy right-wing billboards ad nauseum, I always think of that and am slightly tempted to commit a little ecoterrorism of my own hehe. same
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Dec 22, 2015 22:06
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Levitate posted:I remember the monkey wrench gang advocated drinking and driving yeah that part pissed me off a lot, he went into excruciating detail about haYwood getting wasted while driving 
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Dec 22, 2015 22:26
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idk abbey strikes me as the kind of guy who would get wasted and drive around the desert and if he got pulled over he'd grumble "it's MY loving desert" and about how in his day all the cops knew him and he could do whatever he wanted... Haywood felt a lot like a self insert to me
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Dec 22, 2015 22:49
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 08:51 |
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I do like the extensive details he gave about how to disable construction vehicles though 
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Dec 22, 2015 22:50
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