[at-l] The Other MacKaye Vision

[jbullar1 at twcny.rr.com (Jim Bullard)]

At 10:11 PM 7/25/2005 -0400, Raphael Bustin wrote:
>At 05:00 PM 7/25/2005 -0700, TXIIS wrote:
>
>>Knowing this, I *could* partake in Schadenfreude guilt-
>>free when it's your turn in the social engineering
>>barrel.
>>
>>But I won't.
>
>I'm relieved and humbled by your kindness,
>generosity, and empathy.
>
>Politics = social engineering.  So what.  Deal
>with it.  True whether it comes from left or right,
>whether it comes from Ghandi or Ghengis Khan.
>
>Speaking personally, your condemnations of MacKaye
>(his philosophy, of course) are still too vague to take
>seriously.

Sigh. I go off to Canada for a week (no hiking to report) and I come back 
to yet another debate about what MacKaye really meant to do when he 
proposed the AT. Did he mean to engage in social engineering? Yes, I'm sure 
he did have that in mind though I doubt that like TXIIS he had any notions 
of enforcing his vision with a gun to anyone's head. I suspect he saw it 
more in terms of providing opportunities for meaningful recreation in an 
area of the country where wild lands were rapidly disappearing. If it 
appealed to you, it would be there for you to enjoy. OTOH Did he mean to 
preserve wilderness at the expense of ignoring the needs of humans? I also 
doubt that, although I'm certain he foresaw the total disappearance of wild 
lands East of the Mississippi if something weren't done to protect portions 
of it from 'civilization'.

I've studied utopian theories. The trouble with being too far on the left 
(socialist) or the right (capitalist) is that you tend to get too wrapped 
up in a rosy vision of the world that works only for those who think like 
you. The beauty of democracy when it works (it isn't working very well in 
the US right now) is that people with opposing views of what would make the 
society ideal get together and come up with something they can both live 
with rather than one side shoving its view down the throat of the other. 
That way no one has to "love it or leave it". We all get to love it in the 
same way we love our significant others. We love them even if they aren't 
'perfect' because nobody/nothing in the world is perfect for everyone.

FWIW The trail we have is not the trail MacKaye envisioned but democracy 
worked pretty well to make it happen after MacKaye inspired it and most of 
the folks who love it are pretty happy with what happened and grateful to 
MacKaye for proposing it. Also FWIW MacKaye seems to have been pretty proud 
of it even though it didn't happen exactly the way he envisioned it. If we 
work at it we can insure that it continues to be there for future 
generations to enjoy. I don't think it is necessary to analyze MacKaye's 
writings for hidden meanings in order to do that. Instead we need only a 
simple formula which I hereby propose:
1) The trail *must* remain continuous. This is a top priority.
2) The trail should be protected from the encroachment of development.
3) In so far as possible it should be a reasonable facsimile of wilderness.
4) Wherever/whenever the corridor can be enlarged to enhance #3, we should 
do it.

Exactly what constitutes each of the above is more than enough to debate 
and still achieve the goal. Reading what MacKaye wrote is interesting and 
can inform our individual understanding of the issues. Debating what 
MacKaye *really* meant by what he wrote and assigning either dark motives 
or godlike wisdom to it may be entertaining for the academically minded but 
is of limited practical use in actually preserving the AT. Remember that it 
was built by Avery and hundreds of volunteers (the democracy part), not by 
the purity of the thinker's vision. It will survive in the future (or not) 
the same way.