Jack Turners Definition Of Wilderness

To define something constrains it and ties it down, confining an idea to a rubric. To define wilderness constrains and attempts to tame the wild, thus removing what makes it what it is. When one attempts to say what is and is not a part of wilderness one must first look at Lyndon B. Johnson’s term in office when he signed the Wilderness Act. In 1964 the government decided what a Wilderness would be by law. However, his definition is just made up of words on a page, words that do not truly define wilderness. The legal term Wilderness and the wilderness around us are two distinct beings living on opposite ends of the spectrum. The legal definition of a wilderness is somewhat inaccurate, and wilderness is all that is wild in the world, anything
He opens with a narrative story about his experience in a cave. Turner tells this story to describe what a “wild” experience is. The idea of the beauty, magic, and wildness that places contain is introduced in this anecdote According to Turner; he ruined this “wild” experience by taking photographs of the pictographs and disturbing the area that had been abandoned for many, many years. By Turner’s definition of wild, his presence in the cave, capturing its unmanned beauty, ruined the “wild” factor because he disturbed a deserted area. His interpretation of wilderness goes more along the lines of the Wilderness Act, but not the definition of wilderness. In fact, the pictographs in the caves could even be cause to declare the land no longer wilderness according to the Wilderness Act because of the presence of pictographs, which are man -made, and by law anything disturbed by humans is no longer protected as a wilderness. According to Turner himself when he took the pictures and then talked to people about his new-found treasures he took the wild out of them and removing them from wilderness. However, just because someone takes a picture or sees the beauty of the world it does not ruin how wild and beautiful it is. Humans are a wild species, we developed just like everything else and so our actions are part of being wild and the wilderness around