How necessary is civilization?

Much of Ecology of Eden discusses the "Mountain" and the "Tower," Eisenberg's terms for wilderness and civilization, respectively. Arcadia, that perfect mix, lies somewhere in between. This reminded me of an earlier discussion this semester about what nature is. If humans are part of nature and human actions - including civilization - are therefore considered "natural," how can humanity be criticized? It seems that many would consider wilderness to be "true" nature to which humanity is opposed. This is the approach of Eisenberg, who considers how we must balance wilderness and civilization.

Does Eisenberg assume that civilization must exist? Human culture existed for millenia before the invention of civilization. Such cultures survived for incredibly long periods of time. Although they certainly had an impact on the rest of nature, their longevity suggests they must have been doing something right. Although the Native Americans on the east coast of America had no civilization, they lived in a fully humanized environment (although it was not humanized in the way familiar to Europeans). In the case of the Native Americans, I would consider their fully humanized situation to be desirable. Perhaps their fully humanized environment is sustainable, but ours (civilization) is self-destructive. Why, then, seek a balance between wilderness and civilization? If our civilization is inherently destructive, finding a balance seems a foolish task. Instead, maybe we should be fundamentally changing the nature of our civilization, perhaps even shifting away from civilization altogether.

One might say that our civilization is in the process of humanizing nature and that at some point in the future, we will succeed in fully humanizing the world. Just like changes no doubt took place when Native Americans introduced themselves to their environments, one might say that our culture is doing the same thing. But if this is the case, I have to wonder at what cost we are humanizing the world. Will people want to live in an asphalt world? Very likely not. So perhaps what I suggested in the previous paragraph stands - we need to seek alternatives to our civilization.

-Tyler Wake