Manifesto for a New American Landscape
I want a new American landscape.
I want to imagine a new kind of landscape, a new wilderness, a new geographically located ideology of land, for America. Instead of an uninhabited expanse of spiritual, commercial, aesthetic, and social resources to be mined; instead of an idealized, iconized, generalized landscape representing the ideas of bravery, strength, capitalist Americanism, the frontier, and conquest; instead of a blank landscape standing for concepts of nature and humanness, for all that is good, pure, and morally whole, I want a landscape that is real. We don’t need a landscape which is really just a representation of ideas; we need something we can depend on, something we can live with, something we can be a part of.
I want to build a new American landscape. And it will be American because it will be the land of this place; I can see why they wanted to rename the continent Turtle Island: it is a search for a name which can encompass not only the boundaries of the United States, but all the biomes and ecosystems those lands touch. This landscape is the actual physical land of this continent, both what lies within the United States, and what does not. This landscape is about the mountains that grow up from it, the trees that grow in it, the people who log it for paper, firewood, or houses, the animals that live in or migrate through it, the food that grows in it-both wild and cultivated, the shores that touch it, bringing a complex mix of nutrients, animals, weather, and travelers. This new landscape will be grounded; it will be the ground.
Instead of mapping multitudes of outdated, colonialist, environmentalist, moralist, transcendentalist ideas onto the idea of the land of this continent, I want the land itself. This is what we glorify, this is what we depend on, what we live for, what we live on, what we live with. To deny our complete and total dependence on, interaction with, and need for the landscape of this continent is like denying the air we have to breathe and the water we have to drink.
This landscape is that air, is that water.
Instead of a landscape that represents ideas with no room for people, no room for interaction, and no room caring, I want a landscape that represents the actual, living land of this place. It is a land where millions of living creatures go about their lives, interacting whether they like it or not. It is a land where people walk upon sidewalks, eat food that grew in the plains, cut trees, and raise animals. It is a land where birds migrate, where buffalo wander, where trees grow, mountains sink, rain falls.
If we are going to live peacefully with the land we cannot live with a landscape that tells us that nature, the earth, is something that is separate from us. We need a new landscape. A landscape that is the air we breathe, the crops we grow, the dirt our foolish practices erode, the raccoons who live off of our waste, waters we drink, swim in, and fish from. We need a landscape with room in it for humans, for human dependence.
This is a landscape we can live with.
I want to imagine a new kind of landscape, a new wilderness, a new geographically located ideology of land, for America. Instead of an uninhabited expanse of spiritual, commercial, aesthetic, and social resources to be mined; instead of an idealized, iconized, generalized landscape representing the ideas of bravery, strength, capitalist Americanism, the frontier, and conquest; instead of a blank landscape standing for concepts of nature and humanness, for all that is good, pure, and morally whole, I want a landscape that is real. We don’t need a landscape which is really just a representation of ideas; we need something we can depend on, something we can live with, something we can be a part of.
I want to build a new American landscape. And it will be American because it will be the land of this place; I can see why they wanted to rename the continent Turtle Island: it is a search for a name which can encompass not only the boundaries of the United States, but all the biomes and ecosystems those lands touch. This landscape is the actual physical land of this continent, both what lies within the United States, and what does not. This landscape is about the mountains that grow up from it, the trees that grow in it, the people who log it for paper, firewood, or houses, the animals that live in or migrate through it, the food that grows in it-both wild and cultivated, the shores that touch it, bringing a complex mix of nutrients, animals, weather, and travelers. This new landscape will be grounded; it will be the ground.
Instead of mapping multitudes of outdated, colonialist, environmentalist, moralist, transcendentalist ideas onto the idea of the land of this continent, I want the land itself. This is what we glorify, this is what we depend on, what we live for, what we live on, what we live with. To deny our complete and total dependence on, interaction with, and need for the landscape of this continent is like denying the air we have to breathe and the water we have to drink.
This landscape is that air, is that water.
Instead of a landscape that represents ideas with no room for people, no room for interaction, and no room caring, I want a landscape that represents the actual, living land of this place. It is a land where millions of living creatures go about their lives, interacting whether they like it or not. It is a land where people walk upon sidewalks, eat food that grew in the plains, cut trees, and raise animals. It is a land where birds migrate, where buffalo wander, where trees grow, mountains sink, rain falls.
If we are going to live peacefully with the land we cannot live with a landscape that tells us that nature, the earth, is something that is separate from us. We need a new landscape. A landscape that is the air we breathe, the crops we grow, the dirt our foolish practices erode, the raccoons who live off of our waste, waters we drink, swim in, and fish from. We need a landscape with room in it for humans, for human dependence.
This is a landscape we can live with.