[at-l] The Other MacKaye Vision

[texas12step at nym.hush.com (texas12step@nym.hush.com)]

Rafe Bustin wrote:
>Texas12Step wrote:
>>Rafe Bustin wrote:
>>>Texas12Step wrote:

>>>>As the catalyst for what was to become the Appalachian
>>>>Trail, the essay rightly deserves historical recognition.
>>>>However, the main premises on which his pitch for it was
>>>>based are morally repugnant and shockingly naive.

>>>Whew.  What exactly is it that you find "morally
>>>repugnant", Tex?

>>I thought I'd made it plain in the preceding paragraph --
>>the one you chose not to include in your reply. Here it
>>is again:

>>>Indeed. His Appalachian Trail essay is steeped in the
>>>angst popular among trendy "intellectuals" of the day.
>>>MacKaye thought he'd found in his vision of ridgeline
>>>footpath cum labor camps a piece of the collectivist's
>>>Holy Grail: A moral equivalent of war, and he is quite
>>>open about the need to plan people's leisure (eyes narrow)
>>>and "increase the efficiency of our spare time" (facial
>>>tic) by harnessing this "undeveloped power" for the
>>>health of society (reaches for revolver).

>>Get it? I find it repugnant that MacKaye in his essay has
>>the arrogance to play philosopher-king over how people's
>>*leisure* should be best spent to address an alleged
>>"problem of living" -- that to his mind, not even one's
>>idle time should be their own, but rather a tappable
>>resource on which *his* values can lay claim.

>When you phrase it like that, in the most negative
>and pejorative terms, you make MacKaye out to be
>a monster, or at the very best, an effete eastern
>liberal duped and seduced by Bolshevism.

We're not discussing the man; we are discussing his
reasoning -- the philosophical premises -- behind his 
vision as expressed in his 1921 essay. I know nothing
of Benton MacKaye beyond those few writings of his to 
which I have been exposed, and I honestly don't care
to know more of him because it's irrelevant to the 
issue at hand.

That said, do I think his essay makes him a monster?
No, though I'm certainly not as charitable as Jim was
earlier. MacKaye's thinking may have been to an extent
a "product of the society he lived in," but there were
far too many of his contemporaries who knew better, and
understood the implications of such thinking, for it 
to be brushed off as mere adherence to orthodoxy.

To me, an "excusable" orthodoxy would be, oh, herding 
into voting booths every first Tuesday after the first
Monday in November.

>I mean, why beat around the bush, eh?

<guffaw>

>If MacKaye was an advocate of "social engineering"
>and if the AT is the fruit or embodiment of "social
>engineering," then one would have to conclude that
>social engineering is a powerful force for good.

>In any case, that's the lesson I take from it.

Knowing this, I *could* partake in Schadenfreude guilt-
free when it's your turn in the social engineering
barrel.

But I won't.

TXIIS