Cronon vs. Thoreau

Thoreau views nature as a place to get away from society and the destruction human beings bring to the natural world. Cronon even says in The Trouble with Wilderness; or Getting Back to the Wrong Nature, "For many Americans wilderness stands as the last remaning place where civilization, that all too human disease, has not fully infected the earth." This is somewhat of the Thoreau view that Cronon describes. However, this is far from how Cronon feels about nature. He pretty much mocks Thoreau's views of the natural world in his writing. Cronon says, "Far from being the one place on eath that stands apart from humanity, it [nature] is quite profoundly a human creation..." Cronon has a point here. The forests that we walk in in most of America (including the forests Thoreau resided in) are a result of human interaction. They are not the original forests that flanked this country. They are a result of clear cutting and replanting. Cronon takes Thoreau's ideas and picks out the superficiality and environmental destruction that is a part of our natural world today. What Thoreau thinks of as a place to get away from human interaction, human interaction (or interference) is in fact all around him. Thoreau and Cronon do however agree on the idea that, "No doubt all creatures that live on its surface are but parasites" (Thoreau). Although Cronon may not think all creatures on earth are simply parasites, Thoreau is making the connection that humans are parasites of the earth.