Tea at Trianon: On the Pacific Crest Trail, Hikers Are Not Happy

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, August 8, 2024

On the Pacific Crest Trail, Hikers Are Not Happy

When art is not appreciated. Personally, I think that people should respect public property. You can do what you want on your own land but not on land that belongs to everybody. From Backpack:

We’ve all come across something similar along one hiking trail or another: “fairy houses” made of sticks, rock stacks along riverbanks, designs made out of pebbles on the ground. Some hikers delight in these surprises, while others detest them. Many experienced hikers are quick to call foul on Leave No Trace violations. But is there a line between harmless tokens of creative expression and true negative impact on the environment?

In response to those clay figurines, many Facebook users were loud and clear: Nature is no place for human art of any kind.

Commenter Kat Sink wrote, “I’m an artist and I love art but wild, natural places are not where these belong. In the wild, they are trash.”

Others took a more lenient approach: “Lighten up! A giggle on the trail from an artist is fine by me,” wrote Facebook user Mike Zawatsky.

Others pointed out that this problem is small potatoes in comparison to heavy littering that exists in certain high-traffic areas. “I’d much rather see a painted rock than discarded tissue,” wrote another commenter.

It’s a fair point: Stumbling upon a mouse-sized cabin made of twigs or a lump of clay that blends into its surroundings is generally far less offensive than walking a trail littered with Snickers wrappers and cloudy Mountain Dew bottles—and something easily dismantled or made of materials found in the area is unlikely to cause lasting ecological harm. But for some hikers, any aesthetic reminder of other humans detracts from an otherwise uninterrupted experience of nature. (Read more.)