{"id":7744,"date":"2020-07-27T07:12:43","date_gmt":"2020-07-27T07:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=7744"},"modified":"2020-07-27T07:12:43","modified_gmt":"2020-07-27T07:12:43","slug":"so-john-muir-human-after-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2020\/07\/27\/so-john-muir-human-after-all\/","title":{"rendered":"So, John Muir, human after all"},"content":{"rendered":"

It appears that John Muir (1838\u00a0\u2013 1914) was not a perfect human being after all. \u00a0Despite his huge contributions to conservation in the USA with lasting legacies to this day, it seems he was a product of his time. \u00a0He was, in other words, mired in the social attitudes prevalent in his day. \u00a0In passing I note that some of the pioneers of the women's suffrage movement in the UK were similarly so caught up. \u00a0Not even they were perfect, being, in effect, no better than they should have been. \u00a0Most people weren't, of course; that's the nature of contemporary prevalent social attitudes.<\/p>\n

Muir stands accused of\u00a0thinking badly of the indigenous peoples of North America and of people of color. \u00a0He was also, it seems, friends with the eugenicist\u00a0Henry Fairfield Osborn. \u00a0Michael Brune,\u00a0the executive director of the conservation charity that Muir founded, the Sierra Club<\/a>, is quoted in the Times<\/a> thus:<\/p>\n

\"Muir was not immune to the racism peddled by many in the early conservation movement. \u00a0He made derogatory comments about black people and indigenous peoples that drew on deeply harmful racist stereotypes, though his views evolved later in his life. \u00a0As the most iconic figure in Sierra Club history, Muir\u2019s words and actions carry an especially heavy weight. \u00a0They continue to hurt and alienate indigenous people and people of color who come into contact with the Sierra Club<\/em>.\"<\/p>\n

What are we to make of this? \u00a0Shall we shun the Sierra Club or the\u00a0John Muir Trust<\/a>? \u00a0Call for their disbanding? \u00a0Cease to mark John Muir Day? \u00a0Take down all statues of him? \u00a0Wipe his contribution from the conservation record? \u00a0Concrete over Yosemite? \u00a0Some might call for somesuch actions, but I'm not one of them. \u00a0Shall we think just a little (or a lot) less of Muir's contributions to conservation as we weigh what he achieved on the scales of moral justice? \u00a0Some will, perhaps. \u00a0But why should we? \u00a0Such contributions (which we value) stand no matter how abject the rest of his life might have been. \u00a0So do we need to think a little less of the man, taken in the round? \u00a0Well, yes, perhaps we do; but surely only a little, given how great his contributions were, and when he was born. \u00a0He might have lived a better life had he arrived on Earth in 1958 (rather than 1838), but then Yosemite might well have been wrecked by the time he got to see it.<\/p>\n

I read a lot about Muir last year as there is a chapter in the forthcoming book by Paul Vare and myself about him [*<\/strong>]. \u00a0None of this controversy was evident in what I read, including on the Sierra Club website. \u00a0The chapter examines Muir's life (from Dunbar to California) in the context of the theory of significant life experience, exploring to what extent his upbringing and early experiences contributed to what he was able to achieve. \u00a0They all did, of course, in the sense that the child is father to the man. \u00a0Brune notes that his views evolved later in his life\u00a0which suggests that experience managed to overcome an upbringing which was one in which obedience and the fear of God was beaten into him by his religious father and his pedagogue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It appears that John Muir (1838\u00a0\u2013 1914) was not a perfect human being after all. \u00a0Despite his huge contributions to conservation in the USA with lasting legacies to this day, it seems he was a product of his time. \u00a0He...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7744\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}