American Exceptionalism

Lately I’ve been reading Edward Abbey. God knows I love a good nature story, particularly one that reminds me what a great collection of natural wonders we have here in this country. And while it would be a stretch to say that Abbey subscribed to any notion of American exceptionalism given his drawn out contempt for our “society” I couldn’t help but be thankful as I wandered through sand dunes in Truro, Mass. this past week, that Abbey and his predecessors had the common sense to cherish pure, natural, land.

I’ve always been drawn to the outdoors. My parents took me canoeing mere days after I was born. Yet surprisingly, I never considered that my passion for the outdoors could translate into an informative, intriguing, and ultimately moving educational experience until my sophomore year at St. Lawrence when I decided that I wanted to pursue a minor in outdoor studies.

Many times on tour, when I mention that I’m an outdoor studies minor, people wonder what exactly that entails. The outdoor studies program at St. Lawrence is an investigation of the natural world and the relationship humanity has established with it. Through the lenses of science, literature, and philosophy the program develops a holistic vision of the outdoors and its relationship to us.

My outdoor studies education has informed and, in many ways, reinvented my outlook on the natural world, particularly the world that exists right in my backyard: the Adirondacks. Here at St. Lawrence, we truly are privileged with our proximity to the Adirondack region. The park offers innumerable opportunities for wilderness recreation. A few weeks ago while hiking with some SLU students I was taken aback, as I always am, by the sheer magnitude of the wilderness that exists in the Adirondacks. Sprawling out for miles and miles in every direction is a pristine sea of trees, lakes, and mountains.

This landscape was the same one that attracted famed painters of the Hudson River School to the area in the 1800s. American legends like Cole and Gifford were able to create dramatic, sublime portraits of the wilderness that made foreign doubters eat their words. These men had uncovered the American picturesque. The United States, since its founding, has strived to define its own identity; notably one that deviated from that our European forefathers. For these landscapists to unearth the remarkable aspects of the natural wonderland that is the American wild was to also create something uniquely “American”. Even today, the natural world in America maintains an air of unexplored frontier which ultimately fosters the same, big, American dreams of old and drives young spirits toward big mountains, big skies, and whatever lies just beyond the horizon.

You know, manifest destiny and all that.

It seems to me that the natural world that exists here in the United States, in a very spiritual way, is coextensive with the American ethos. We remain a rugged group of people who still emphasize the virtues of hard work, competition, and nationalism. Since returning from my abroad experience last December, a sense of newfound patriotism has welled up within me and I’m convinced, particularly when I stand at the summit of one of the high peaks or surveying virgin sand along the Cape Cod seashore, of America’s natural exceptionalism. For all of the airtime that we entertain for fame and wealth in this country, we are also fascinated with the rustic and simple lifestyle that many of our pioneering ancestors inherited. In addition I’m forever grateful for the hard work of conservationists throughout history that preserve the stunning panoramas I so often encounter out in the wild. We have within our borders 10% of the entire world’s protected land. I know for a fact that Abbey would roll over in his grave if we didn’t strive to keep it that way.