Olivia Fan
Seminar in Comp.
12/12/2014
Edward
Abbey Writer or Anthropologist: A Critical Look at the ways in Witch Abbey
Constructs Himself in “Desert Solitude”
Edward Abbey’s
novel “Desert Solitude” may just seem like a well-put together polished journal
that catalogues his time spent in Arches national park, but it is important to
acknowledge Abbey wrote this book to serve a greater purpose. In the
introduction to this novel Abbey reminds readers that although much of it is
based on the time he spent in arches the desert serves as a “medium” not the
subject of the book. Abbey’s goal in desert of solitude is to take a step back
and observe humanity and culture in relation to nature. To make himself seem
credible Abbey composes himself to have desirable characteristics of a
successful anthropologist. His novel, composed of both fictional and true
events, works to highlight the qualities that make him an anthropologist and
omit the qualities that don’t. The final product, when compared to an actual
book of anthropological work, observe culture in similar ways to achieve a
final conclusion. I will be putting in parallel “Desert Solitude” and a book I
read for my pop-cluture class “Righteous Dopefiends”. Both were composed to get
across very similar messages.
“Righteous
Dopefieds” Is a book written by Philippe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg cataloging
the 12 years they spent with the Edgewater Homeless community. This community,
based in San Francisco, is full of heroine addicts that all make camp together
under the highway overpasses. It consists of interviews, field notes, and
pictures from there time spent there. It also talks about larger issues such as
treatment, changes in the demographic of San Francisco, legal action, and
education that tie into the community of homeless.
In order to observe Edward
Abbey as and anthropologist we must first understand what an anthropologist is.
Anthropology is a social science that studies humans both past and present. It
draws upon the natural sciences by studying the evolution of the species and
how they human behavior and evolution varies between different groups of
humans. It also draws on social sciences by discussing the organization of
Humans in culture, institutions, and social conflict. We will be looking at the
Sociocultural branch of Anthropology. These are the people who try and pick out
and interpreted a culture through these seven characteristics layed out by
Omohundro in his article “Think like an Anthropologist”,
“1.Cultures are integrated
2. Cultures are products of history.
3. Cultures can be changed, and they can cause change.
4. Cultures are strengthened by values.
5. Cultures are powerful determinants of behavior.
6. Cultures are largely composed and transmitted by
symbols.
7. Human
culture is unique in complexity and variability” (Omohundro 36).
Sociocultural Anthropologists are
the ones we think of traveling to far off destinations into the field and
living within a culture for years. Omohundro goes on in his article about the
parameters and definition of culture. He says, “…not only does culture provide
guidance on what to do, how to do it, and when, but culture also predicts and
interprets what others will do and say” (Omohundro 28). This prediction of
behavior is what makes a culture’s values clear through a consistent pattern.
Abbey constructs
himself as an anthropologist both through spiritual separation and physical
separation of himself from humanity. These are important characteristics in an
Anthropologist that allows culture to be observed objectively and without much
prejudice. In the beginning of his book he says, “Why I went [to Arches] no
longer matters what I found there is the subject of this book” (Abbey xi). By
not sharing with us his background Abbey’s life to readers is perceived to just
start in the desert. Without prior knowledge of his life in humanity he becomes
separated from humanity and our culture. From then on we think of Abbey as a
foreigner exploring our culture, and viewing it as objectively as possible. He
also doesn’t talk about his family at all during his book even though he was a
father. It seems like a large part of your life to exclude. The Abbey we know
is totally disconnected from any past in humanity. This cultural distance is
admired in anthropologist. Anthropologists have to find the perfect balance of
being close enough to observe the culture yet distant enough that you don’t
disturb it or become too involved in it. These will hurt the credibility of the
study because you could affect the culture or the culture could affect your
objectivity. In “Righteous Dopefiends” the anthropologists described the
struggle to stay both objective and find the right balance of involvement and
relationship needed to properly observe the community. They say, “At first, we
felt overwhelmed, irritated, and even betrayed by the frequent and often
manipulative requests for favors, spare change, and loans of money. We worried
about distorting our relationships by becoming patrons and buying friendship to
obtain our research data. At the same time, we had to participate in a moral
economy to avoid being ostracized by the network…we had to learn, therefore,
not to take their petty financial manipulations personally, and refrain from
judging them morally. Otherwise, we could not have entered their lives
respectfully and empathetically” (Bourgois and Schonberg 6). They talk about
the relationship between them and the community. On one hand they had to make
sure they didn’t disrupt or muddle their relationship as observer and observed,
yet on the other they needed to partake in order to stay in the community and
not be “ostracized”. The balance allows them to be objective and more open to
the community. Abbey does some of the
same things when describing the Cowboys and Indians. Abbey works as a rancher
with the cowboy. He observes them and their lives yet he leaves little impact.
He is able to observe the changes in them. Abbey states they are “dying off or transforming them
selves by tortuous degrees into something quite different. The originals are
nearly gone and will soon be lost forever in the overwhelming crowd” (Abby
111). He explains that cowboys have given in to the new “mechanized and
automated”(109) food market. Although he is very opinionated on the subject it
is clear he does not express this opinion to the actual cowboys. We realize he
is no longer involved in their lives after studying them when he starts to fantasize
what became of them.
Edward Abbey
continues to separate himself even more from culture and humanity through his
spirituality. A good chunk of the book focuses on Abbey’s mysticism. He tends
to mock the more traditional ideas of religion in his book in favor of
something more natural. He describes the Glen Canyon as “Eden, a portion of the
earth’s original paradise” (Abbey 152). He then goes on to describe what he
means by paradise by saying,
“…when I write of paradise I mean Paradise, not the banal Heaven of the
saints. When I write ‘paradise’ I mean not only apple trees and golden
women but also scorpions and tarantulas and flies, rattlesnakes and Gila
monsters, sandstorms, volcanoes and earthquakes, bacteria and bear, cactus,
yucca, bladderweed, ocotillo and mesquite, flash floods and quicksand, and yes
–disease and death and the rotting of flesh” (Abbey 167). His paradise is
Natures course and the circle of life that is independent of Humanity’s take
over. Comparing that to typical ideas about Eden being free of death and a
paradise of total bliss and innocents it reminds me of a poem called “In the
Garden” by Sheryle St. Germain. It’s about Turkey vultures. She explains, “They were vegetarian then. There
were no roadside kills,
no bones to pick, no dead flesh to bloom, ripen.
And
they were happy.
They could not imagine
what they would become” (Germain Verse
2-3). Abbey would love the Vultures as scavengers and not believe they were
ever vegetarian even in the garden. Abbey respects nature the way it is because
he believes everything is full filling a role. He is not disgusted by death
and carnage. Abbeys spiritual beliefs also show a reluctance to identify
with humanity. After seeing the dam built at Glen Canyon he has to think of
himself as separate from humanity to fight off self-loathing. Although he
admits he cannot perfectly separate himself from humanity and become part of
the desert it is not for lack of trying. He says in the beginning of the book
that he would risk everything including himself for nature.
But
what are the goals of Anthropologists? Why did Abbey need to seem so smart,
critical, and objective? Why did he need to be taken seriously? There is in
fact a more specific reason behind the choice of “Righteous Dopefiends” as the
book I compare to Abbey. “Righteous Dopefiends” is a Grey Zone study. Grey Zone
was a term first used to describe anthropological work being done in
concentration camps created by the Nazis. When studying these camps they looked
at the authority figures in the system. They looked at Nazis, and the hierarchy
within the camps, and more specifically the Jews who helped Nazis keep the
others in check. It would be really easy to villainize these people, and many
have, but by blaming them you alleviate the responsibility of other parties.
Grey Zone means the blame is not black and white, and cant be placed on one or
two groups of people. This work tries to identify the entire system of
injustice in order to completely fix the issue. All of this is explained in
“Righteous Dopefiends” and is a constant theme throughout the book. On specific
example is happens when Scotty a member of the community dies of an overdose.
Everyone in the Edgewater Community blames Petey, Scotty’s best friend, for his
death. They believe that Petey didn’t do his best to revive Scotty, and that he
wasn’t watching him close enough. But Bourgois and Schonberg beg the question
“Who is the Killer?” (Bourgois and Schonberg 210). Bourgois and Schonberg say,
“Perhaps by assigning individual blame for Scotty’s death, the Edgewater
homeless were able to hide their anxiety over their own everyday vulnerability
to accidental overdose” (Bourgois and Schonberg 212). By using Petey as a
scapegoat they ignore the larger issues at play. They ignore the shift in the
community to white collar jobs that made them homeless; they ignore Scotty’s
complaints that he wasn’t being treated well enough at the hospital; they
ignore the shift from treatment to criminalization of drugs; they ignore shifts
in funding for their education about drugs that promotes only abstinence; they
ignore the cycle of violence and addiction; they also ignore their own flaws
and addiction. They think “Oh if I just avoid people like Petty who don’t have
my back I’ll be fine” when that is not the case. The goal of Grey Zone work is
to shine a light on all these systems that prevent communities like the
Edgewater community from getting better. Edward Abbey is the same way. In his
“field work” he identifies specific problems some witch seem very localized to
the arches area. He talks about the tourist, and the greedy Shepard’s and
miners, he talks about the dam the government builds in Glen Canyon, and the
casinos and industrial ranching that take over the Indians and Cowboys. Yet he
tells us he doesn’t blame them necessarily. He is sad for their loss, but he
can acknowledge they are a part of a bigger system. Abbey in not saying save
this one canyon, he’s not asking us to let the wolves eat our sheep, he’s not
asking us to live in the desert all alone, and he’s not asking us to save just
the cowboys. Abbey’s real asking us to acknowledge our culture and see it’s
other side. Abbey is criticizing progress, something consumer culture is all
about, because with that progress comes destruction. Omohundro would say our
culture predicts this pattern of destruction. He would say it’s a “comfortable
habit” (Omohundro 38). Abbey has described growth as cancerous in "Desert Solitude" and in some of his other pieces. Abbey is asking us to acknowledge
nature and acknowledge the chaos we cause in it. He believes a bigger system is
at play, and wants us to focus on the larger issue rather then the plethora of
other smaller issues it causes. When talking about construction projects in
national parts he dives deeper into the real issue of progress by saying, “Wilderness preservation,
like a hundred other good causes, will be forgotten under the overwhelming
pressure of a struggle for mere survival and sanity in a completely urbanized,
completely industrialized, ever more crowded environment”(Abbey 52). You can
see why in his eyes progress is cancerous, and why objectively from the
perspective he creates, as an outsider to humanities strive for progress and as
the voice of nature, progress is slowly killing us.
The ending of “Desert Solitude” comes as a bit
of a surprise. In the last chapter Abbey admits he is leaving the desert and
returning for New York. He says, “After twenty-six weeks of sunlight and stars, wind and sky and
golden sand, I want to hear once more the crackle of clamshells on the floor of
the bar in the Clam Broth House in Hoboken. I long for a view of the jolly,
rosy faces on 42nd Street and the cheerful throngs on the sidewalks
of Atlantic Avenue… I grow weary of nobody’s company but my own” (Abbey 265). Why would Abbey
include this ending when he simply could have left it out or written a new one?
After all his work to construct his credibility why would he ruin with this
end? The ending destroys the boundary that is necessary between an
anthropologist and their work. Edward Abbey might not be the perfect
anthropologist, but his ending is not uncommon in the field of anthropology.
Often the most passionate anthropologist get too involved in the culture they
are studying. It is obviously cautioned against and many need to make sure they
develop self-reflexivity so they know when they need to step back. But it’s
human nature and once in the while just like Abbey someone falls through the
cracks. Abbeys mistake makes him believable and more relatable to us.
Edward
Abbey’s work is loosely based off structures of Grey Zone studies. Although in
the end he cannot remain perfectly objective he creates himself as an
anthropologist throughout the whole book. He does this through a certain amount
of created distance from humanity, he works to observe human culture as the
outsider he has constructed himself to be, and in the end this serves as a way
to get his point across to the readers by identifying the system of injustice
we force upon nature. He wants us to understand it in our progressive culture
that will ultimately end up failing not only nature, but also humanity.
