Melissa Morewitz- Outside Reading #1

I read an excerpt from Roderick Nash's, "Wilderness and the American Mind,": Wilderness was the basic ingredient of American culture. From the raw materials of the physical wilderness, Americans built a civilization. With the idea of wilderness they sought to give their civilization identity and meaning." This reminded me of our discussion today about wilderness and its culture. It is true what Nash says about human beings using the wilderness to build its culture. Without the resources and inspiration of the wilderness, humans would not have been able to build homes and if it weren't for the guidance and structure of the wilderness, they would not have known how to survive nor would they have had a source of food. We took the raw materials of the wilderness long ago to build but now we are so advanced that we have machines to make building material and make everyday goods. In many ways, I think modern society has lost the vision of wilderness as the basis of culture; many have gotten so caught up in the material part of our culture that the wild culture has been forgotten.