Civilization Deprivation
Upon the termination of the recent academic year, with all of its stresses and excesses, I had the pleasure of leaving it all behind thousands of miles away on a leisurely backpacking trip in the middle of the southern-Utah nowhere. These trips are fantastically fun in their own right: aimlessly exploring interesting places, talking with friends and family, and speculating on the origins of spectacular biological and geologic sights rarely become old. While all of these experiences are certainly valuable, the act of forcibly depriving oneself of civilization is another merit of trekking into middle of nowhere which is more often overlooked and more necessary.
Thoreau remarks, in his characteristically draconian way, that:
"I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got rid of. Better if they had been born in the open pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have seen with clearer eyes what field they were called to labor in."[1]
Although the meandering pontification of Walden verges on hyperbole and even contradiction, his central claim is intact. Civilization is inherently, in some capacity, oppressive, in spite of the innumerable benefits it provides. By civilization I refer to association of people for some kind of purpose. The benefits of such association is almost incalculable. Consider two features of civilization which benefit me in particular: the economy and academia. They are able to provide their advantage by virtue of their association of people. An economy is surely impossible without individuals coordinating activity amongst themselves. The pace of progress in academic work would be impossible without people communicating, criticizing, and proposing ideas.
The complex network of human association that makes civilization such a wonderful thing, however, is precisely what renders it dangerous. It doesn't require much effort to think of the negative effects that civilization produces. With its endless procession of wars, the history of Europe suffices, for example. But even at its very best, civilization has inescapable negative consequences for the individual. A classic example of this is etiquette. Association with other people and the desire to reap the benefits of this association leads one to severely regulate one's behavior to achieve acceptance. Hygiene is a similar matter: while generally good, its importance is taken so seriously by civilized society, that the slightest sign of uncleanliness is a justification for ostracism. Even in academia, particularly in the humanities and social sciences, acceptance into a given field is contingent on accepting the "right" ideas and being argumentative to the point of pedantry. While there are occasionally iconoclasts who can break the prevailing paradigm of research (e.g. Milton Friedman), the vast majority of academics do not shift paradigms.
From this discussion I conclude that civilization is, at best, an slight annoyance. But even slight annoyances cannot be tolerated indefinitely. The only solution seems to be to temporarily sever the link with civilization and totally escape all social pressures. In other words, go backpacking. Don't think about etiquette, don't think about hygiene, and enjoy being in an environment that no human could ever have created.
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