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Wildness

7 November 2024

7 min read

It’s getting harder to be wild in this world

We’ve trapped and tamed wilderness into a commodity.

Elizabeth Wainwright

Elizabeth Wainwright is a writer, coach and walking guide. She's a former district councillor and has a background in international development.

Against a night sky a lit up face is blurred by the camera movement.

Under a Dartmoor night sky.

Yousef Salhamoud on Unsplash.

Some while back, my husband rearranged the books in our house, making sure that they were grouped together by theme. We have a lot of books, and there are now themes and sub-themes. It was quite an operation. Within the nature-related books, he created a separate shelf for books that have ‘wild’ in the title. We joked about it, but it made me think about how I’d noticed ideas of ‘wild’ pop up in lots of places in recent years: on clothing and stationery (with leaves or words like ‘keep growing’ printed), in shop windows (furniture displays draped in plastic greenery and fake animal skins), on social media (there are accounts that have ‘wild’ in the title connected to farming, conservation, publishing, personal development, coaching, poetry, business, and more), and in book shops (of which we apparently have only half the stock).

A quick online search on the topic of wilderness quickly leads me to conservation initiatives and statistics on the state of nature, but it also leads me to nature connection experiences, wild swimming, wild camping, soul work, and more. Wilderness becomes a pliable and hard-to-define term. It can relate to the natural world, to wildlife and natural spaces that have avoided human domination. It can also relate to the inner world, to spiritual experiences or to isolating and challenging times. But however you approach it, wilderness – inner, outer – seems to be having a hard time.

In recent months, wild camping has come under the spotlight. Dartmoor is the only place in England where wild camping is legal, and this this access helped to form me: as a teenager I hiked and camped with friends, encountered Dartmoor ponies trying to steal our food in the night, stomped through bogs and wolfed down boil-in-the-bag meals as the sun set. As an adult I’ve camped alone in a bivvy bag, my soul singing back to the Milky Way shining above me. Now, these experiences feel as much in need of protection as the nature they depend on, since a wealthy landowner decided to try and prevent people from undertaking this ancient practice of sleeping under the stars. The court case is ongoing, but it has highlighted the fragility of our access to nature here in England. Just 8 per cent of English countryside is accessible, and 3 per cent of rivers have an uncontested right to swim. Now, the last remaining right to sleep under the stars is under threat.

It is hard to know what we’re losing when it becomes harder and harder to see and touch the real thing.

We live in a time of crisis not just of the state of nature, but also of how we experience the natural world. In a recent study of nature connectedness, Britain was ranked lowest of all the countries surveyed. Our biodiversity is in crisis and so is our ability to encounter the natural world. This feels heightened by a way of being in the western world that sees us all living in our individual houses, working hard to pay for them, shuttling children and selves through schedules, spending fewer and fewer hours outside and with each other.

And this is not just a problem ‘out there’, because inner and outer landscapes are linked. It is unsurprising to me that in the UK at least, levels of good mental health, biodiversity, and access to nature have all been in decline. Disintegration of one is, I think, deeply connected to disintegration of the other.

These linked crises feel further threatened by the trapping and taming of ideas of wilderness, wrapping it into trends and materialism, commodifying it. There are some brilliant and essential initiatives helping to re-wild our inner and outer worlds. But there are also offerings that use wilderness imagery and the freedom and adventure associated with it to sell products and services, or as backdrop to human endeavour, or as a destination or resource for our consumption. I think a commodified wild can get in the way of the actual wilderness we need both externally and internally. This commodification is, I think, affecting our understanding of what the wild is and why it matters. It is hard to know what we’re losing when it becomes harder and harder to see and touch the real thing.

If real wilderness is everywhere but where we need it right now, how might we re-find it – in the natural world, but also within ourselves and our communities? Answering that question is work that many people are focused on now in all kinds of ways, and a short essay cannot begin to offer a full response. I will write more on this topic. But the question I have in mind at the moment is, how do we invoke wildness and wonder in the landscape of the modern world? – a physical landscape that is being stripped of nature, but also a social landscape that can often diminish our humanity. Perhaps a simpler way to ask the same question is, how do we not just survive life but get excited about it? – How do we love ourselves, our neighbours, and creation enough to deeply and truly care for these things?

Time stops, something says: here, look at this, it is everything.

There are of course structures, systems, and powers that need to change so that people can move out of mere survival, and so that the wild world is restored. I am not exploring those things here. Here, I want to simply share three things that lately, have energised my ability to feel the love, the excitement, and the desire to cherish and protect our hearts, our relationships, and the generous world that hosts us all. Perhaps by reawakening these things, we might find motivation and sustenance for tackling structures and systems.

First, I have been noticing what my young daughter notices. The light shining off a puddle; the way an ant crawls on her hand; the bright silver moon in the sky. I have never struggled to access the exhilaration of the natural world, but seeing through her eyes, I am doing so again. Time stops, something says: here, look at this, it is everything. The medieval mystic Julian of Norwich saw the wonder of the world, and God’s love for it, in a single hazelnut. She recounts her visions in her book Revelations of Divine Love. Sometimes connecting with the specific can help us see and face the global.

Second, there are authors who help me summon wildness and wonder in the landscape of the modern world, and in a future Seen & Unseen piece I’ll take us on a tour of some of those I love the most. Some of the authors are ancient. In Psalm 78, I read “…they forgot what he had done, the wonders he had shown them”, and “…they kept on sinning; in spite of his wonders, they did not believe.” If sin is a kind of disconnection, perhaps our disconnection from creation might lead our gaze to turn inward, and to land on things that do not call forth the best of humanity, rather than the wonder of each other and the world around us. That we are able to forget wonder is something we must remember and work to counter.

Third, I have been thinking through the encounters that have most exposed me to wilderness of the world and of my soul and of relationship – both the uplifting and the challenging. Encountering the vastness of that shining and vertigo-inducing Dartmoor night sky; encountering others in relationships that have helped me slip my skin and enter their unknowability and fragility and beauty; encountering contexts that seem too broken for repair and yet still light enters in. It is in these encounters that I first found God dwelling, and when I followed his trail, I noticed that throughout the Bible there are many people who experience the challenges, joy, and lessons of the wilderness. Wilderness is not just beauty – it can also be unknowable, disorienting, scary. For 40 days in the wilderness, but also in the beauty of the lily of the field and birds of the air, Jesus is right there with us, showing that God can meet us in beauty and barrenness, in wonder and in despair. Again and again in the Bible I see how God loves the world, how he calls it constantly to life through resurrection, through re-creation, through that three-in-oneness of father/son/holy spirit, of self/other/world, of body/encounter/mystery.

Now, I think our souls and societies might benefit from investing in relationships first conjured in Eden: with a garden, with a human, with God and the mystery he points us to. These things feed each other; when one suffers so do the others. As we face a disintegrating and increasingly commodified natural world, a mental health crisis, and an epidemic of loneliness, I think we are being called back to that garden, and to the kinds of wildness it made possible. I’ll look forward to exploring these themes more.

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Politics

Virtues

27 September 2024

8 min read

The emerging frontier: renewing courage in geopolitics

Narcissistic moralising needs to stop, and we can learn from Churchill too.

Emerson Csorba and Gal Treger

Emerson writes on geopolitics. Gal is a tech investor.

Military personnel, wearing camoflague uniform crowd round a computer monitor.

U.S. Space Force guardians assess a threat.

U.S. Space Force.

In August 1939, the Polish poet Kazimierz Wierzyński reflected on a “Peaceful bliss which had become Europe’s chloroform.” Yet, then as now, crises shake us from moments of calm, especially when we abandon vigilance. We let our guards down, nonchalance replacing serious deliberation toward action.

A shroud of darkness has descended on the world over recent years, with new conflicts emerging just as – or perhaps because – democratic populations turn inward. These conflicts – whether the Russia-Ukraine War, the Israel-Gaza War, or the US-UK led battles in the Red Sea – demonstrate the courage of peoples sacrificing for their nations, families, histories, and traditions.

Yet, in much of the political West, narcissism – rather than courage – has become the focal point of our culture.

Christopher Lasch describes this narcissism in The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations as a conceit of the present. Lasch notes that we have become a consumer society focused on individual self-absorption that leads to present-focus, sense of isolation, and disconnection from history.

The psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argues in The Heart of Man: Its Genius for Good and Evil that narcissism is an attachment to “self-image,” which “distorts rational judgment.” Yet, Fromm later reflects “If the feeling which the Greek poet expressed in Antigone’s words, ‘There is nothing more wonderful than man,’ could become an experience shared by all, certainly a great step forward would have been taken.”

This wonder of man is in the freedom to act in a world that is yet to be determined.

This is a position of “deep faith.” It encourages full participation in the world, affirming the self through action, though always in relation to something much greater.

The philosopher and theologian Paul Tillich similarly states “this is just what participation means: being a part of something from which one is, at the same time, separate. Literally, participation means ‘taking part,’ in the sense of ‘sharing’ or ‘having in common.’” We play, as legendary Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne once said, "For everyone that came before us, and everyone that will come after us."

If common history is needed as our foundation for current action in geopolitics, to what then might we turn?

We propose a refocusing and modern renewal of alliances underpinned by Winston Churchill’s A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, a project he initiated in the early 1930s as the threats of Nazism and Fascism had taken centre stage.

This refocusing reprioritises courage in geopolitics, maintaining the light amid descending darkness. It is badly needed given the modern tendency to look inward rather than to sources of value outside of the self.

This is a pathway to vigilance in anticipation of the thief in the night, who may arrive at an unexpected hour.

Churchill – recently demonised by influential conspiracy theorists – emphasises the common cultural and political heritage of the English-Speaking Peoples, including the rule of law, individual rights and parliamentary democracy, which shaped the modern world.

Churchill reminds us of the global influence of English-Speaking Peoples in spreading democratic ideals and governance structures across the world, believing that the global spread of these ideas was instrumental in shaping modern life. He underscores the unity of the English-Speaking Peoples in facing global challenges, particularly in the context of the World War he foresaw. And he viewed the cooperation between the UK, the US, and other Allied nations as crucial to the survival of freedom and democracy.

It is important, now as much as ever, that we remind ourselves of Churchill’s wise words, building on them to address with courage the challenges of our present times.

Specifically, we must adapt Churchill’s emphasis on the English-Speaking Peoples to a focus on nations working at the frontiers of Western civilisation to resist rising darkness which seeks to corrupt the good. Ones not necessarily actually speaking English too.

Building on these unique and complementary strengths, these agile nations united as upholders of the values of English-Speaking Peoples should reindustrialize, rearm, redraft and recommit to a common goal in a world of increasing geopolitical conflict.

The sharing of expertise and overall close collaboration between these agile nations can facilitate rapid preparation for conflict at any moment, proactively addressing Wierzyński's dangerous “peaceful bliss.”

In other words, this is a pathway to vigilance in anticipation of the thief in the night, who may arrive at an unexpected hour.

Renewed partnership is necessary between these nations. There is a need for these nations to re-assert their historical courage, underpinned by vital modern capabilities.

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Alongside the United States as the focal point, these nations are Canada on the Arctic frontier; the United Kingdom as a Northern frontier; Poland as the Eastern frontier; Israel as the Southeastern frontier towards the Eurasian landmass, and Australia, with its recent experiences confronting neighbour China, on the Far East frontier.

Each of these nations serves as a regional center of power and influence: Canada in the Arctic and Atlantic; the US into the Caribbean and broader Latin America; Israel in the Middle East with the Abraham Accords and North Africa; Poland into Central and Eastern Europe, and Australia in the Indo-Pacific. Each of these nations possesses vital agility, given their small geographical sizes or populations.

These frontier nations respond to United States CIA Director William Burns’ 2023 Ditchley Lecture, in which he focused on “[hedging middle power countries who] see little benefit and lots of risk in monogamous geopolitical relationships. Instead, we’re likely to see more countries pursue more open relationships than we were accustomed to over several post-Cold War decades of unipolarity.” The focus here is courage with a long-term view, building a frontier-focused alliance rather than seeking relations based on short-term material interest only.

In this frontier model, it is currently Israel demonstrating the courage to uphold the values captured in Churchill’s account of the English-Speaking Peoples. Hamas’ brutal October 7th attack was predicated on the notion that over the last decades, Israel transformed into a consumer society, focused on short-term economic incentives and leisure pursuits. Israel provides technology and experience in fighting modern wars of various types, as well as persistence and proactiveness that other nations must quickly recover.

Canada is historically a frontier nation of courage, reflected for instance in its contributions to WWI and WWII victories, as well as in the often-quiet contributions that Canadians make to peacekeeping efforts across the globe. But Canada can take bolder action, given its strategic Northern location and proximity to the Arctic, with its vast natural resources including critical minerals supply and its vast freshwater reserves. It can become a more influential global player amid trade wars, helping reduce dependence on Chinese resources.

The United Kingdom’s combination of common law, property rights, financial markets and freedom of the press are important strengths. As Nigel Biggar finds in his Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning, the UK has historically championed free markets generating economic opportunities for diverse peoples; established peace where internal strife previously existed, protected the rural poor from wicked landlords, and provided civil service and judiciary systems to reduce corruption.

Poland, as noted by Radoslaw Sikorski in a recent speech, shares with the United Kingdom “the same strategic vision. It is based on the fundamental assumption that international law is the guardian of peace and stability.” Poland also “consistently supports close, comprehensive cooperation between the UK and the EU’s security and defence frameworks” with continued focus on strengthening its military capabilities. And, of course, Poland is keenly aware of the threat of war which which is ever-present on its border.

Australia has, over the last decade, demonstrated evident success in facing the threat of China on its doorstep, this ever-present threat producing a group of leaders across government, private and media sectors that are as sharp, worldly and realist in nature as any in the Commonwealth.

Renewed partnership is necessary between these nations. There is a need for these nations to re-assert their historical courage, underpinned by vital modern capabilities. C.S. Lewis, in his famous Screwtape Letters, shows that “courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point of highest reality.” Each of these frontier nations has historically demonstrated success in the face of testing.

Our focus cannot be narcissistic moralising – too often the case in today’s geopolitics – which is the product of the serpent’s advice in the Garden of Eden, in which our eyes will be opened as we “become as gods knowing good and evil.” We must not allow others to twist our sense of history, such that we begin to exalt ourselves in the present moment rather than adopting attitudes of service, sacrifice and worship of that which is unfathomably greater and farther-reaching.

Instead, it must be – as we have seen with Churchill, and as described by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his incredible commentary on the story of the Garden of Eden, to act.

As Bonhoeffer writes, “If the Holy Scripture insists with such great urgency on doing, that is because it wishes to take away from man every possibility of self-justification before God on the basis of his own knowledge of good and evil… The error of the Pharisees, therefore, did not lie in their extremely strict insistence on the necessity for action, but rather in their failure to act. ‘They say, and do not do it.’”

The frontier model we propose facilitates such action, prepared with the necessary capabilities and coordination for the considerable challenges before us.

We must remember that to participate in the world with deep faith – courage – has been and always will be the basis for human freedom.

Indeed, this is the task of the nations: united by the common heritage of English-Speaking Peoples, acting with faith in the good, always at the frontier.