To Carry the Light

To Elon Musk empathy may seem like a weakness but to lovers of public lands, it is a light that still shines bright.

Light. I’ve always thought of empathy - the ability to understand and value the feelings and experiences of others — as a kind of light that passes between human beings. To practice empathy is to acknowledge and respect that light within all of us. To see and value the light of another is the very definition of empathy, and a huge step towards what it means to be human. Elon Musk it seems, doesn’t think so.

In a rambling three hour podcast on the Joe Rogan Experience in February, Musk called empathy the “fundamental weakness of Western civilization” and claimed our way of life was threatened by, in his words, “civilizational suicidal empathy.”

Those phrases have stuck with me like burrs ever since. I carried them along during my walks on the beaches of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore the last few weeks, partly for the cocksure prickliness of such flamboyant statements and partly because of where I was walking, public lands.

The popularity, shared benefits, and mere existence of public lands may well be among the best counter arguments to Musk’s bombastic contention. The federal government manages some 640 million acres in the U.S. including 84 million acres of national park units, 193 million acres of national forests, and an astounding 245 million acres managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Combined, some 28% of the nation’s landmass is held in the public trust, lands that we as a nation share and manage both for our own benefit and for the benefit of others.

In virtually every piece of enabling legislation, in every act that created, defined, or enhanced the management of our public lands, there are found the fingerprints of empathy, a looking out for the good of others. The 1872 Yellowstone Act defined national parks as “a pleasuring ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.” The National Park Organic Act that created the National Park Service in 1916 calls for parks to be managed in such a manner as to leave them “unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.” The 1964 Wilderness Act was meant “to secure for the American people of present and future generations the benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness.” The 1973 Endangered Species Act looked to better safeguard “for the benefit of all citizens, the Nation’s heritage in fish, wildlife, and plants.”

Even the bill that created these Apostle Islands as a national lakeshore in 1970 speaks of doing so “for the benefit, inspiration, education, recreational use, and enjoyment of the public.”

If empathy truly is an appreciation of the value inherent in the feelings and experiences of others, then protecting and managing our public lands for the benefit of all, of this and future generations, is surely an act of national empathy.

Each year our these lands are visited by over 500 million members of the public. Nowhere in any of those enabling legislations does it parse “the public” by economic class, by gender or race or religion. National parks are places for all of us, a diverse population enjoying the benefits and experiences of a wide diversity of landscapes, shared with others and bearing future generations always in mind.

Public lands are wellsprings of clean air and clean water - things that all of us have a right to and share. They offer opportunities for solitude, the chance to stare directly into the face of nature to understand what a power it can have over human life and our souls.

Public lands are critical habitat for wildlife that remind us of other life forms and their rights to the resources of nature, ensuring us we are not alone on the planet.

It is estimated that 98% of the remaining grizzy bears in the United States are found on public lands. At least 50% of the breeding distribution of over 300 habitat-specific bird species in the U.S. occurs there. Some 125 of the 764 rare plant species listed in the Endangered Species Act occur on public land.

Certainly those who recreate on public lands often seek individual achievement such as reaching a summit or running a challenging section of whitewater. Still, most of us follow the rules not only for our own good but for the good of others. We pack out our litter, for instance, not because it is easier for us but because we do not want to lessen the experience for those who come after us. We don’t blare our music along the trail (at least some of us don’t) both to heighten our own experience of nature and out of empathy for the experience of others.

We share the space, both because we seek a certain experience ourselves and out of respect for the feelings and experience of others. We do it because we care, for each other and for the land. In short, because we have empathy.

Far from being a weakness, the empathy symbolized by the shared use of public lands seems a strength, the very definition of what it means to be civilized. One of the things which allows civilization to rise above mere barbarianism is an understanding of, and dare I say, a love for the feelings, rights, and experiences of others. In other words, empathy.

In that way, empathy is a defining element of Western civilization rather than a threat to it. Without empathy, there would be no hospitals (the caring for others), no public libraries (the free sharing of knowledge), no judicial system or “jury of our peers.” We would not have public schools to educate others or public museums. We would have no public lands.

Our national parks, national forests, wilderness areas, and wildlife preserves, are living, breathing symbols of empathy, of caring about something beyond ourselves and our own personal pleasures. The way we treat public land may well be a bellwether of how we treat each other. “We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us,” wrote Aldo Leopold in A Sand County Almanac. “When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” That feeling of being a part of a community, whether with the land or with humans or both, requires empathy and was the very foundation upon which Leopold based his land ethic.

"A land ethic is a moral code of conduct that stems from these interconnected caring relationships," he wrote. “The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.”

That “land” includes our parks, preserves, forests, lakeshores, and more, or collectively: our public lands.

Coming to the conclusion that Musk was wrong as I walked along the lakeshore these last few weeks was the easy part. Much more frightening was the revelation that came in its wake.

If Musk and his ilk really see empathy as a weakness, then what lies at the core of the battle for our public lands is not simply potential profits from oil and gas or timber, but a fundamental lack of empathy and a blatant dismissal of its value. If empathy is a light, we are battling leaders who have darkness at their core. And that may be the most frightening thing of all.

In the face of that darkness, we can only keep pushing, keep protesting, keep using our voices, and reaching out to others with empathy, for as Martin Luther King once wrote, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.” And who knows, maybe someday even Elon Musk will come to see the light.

— Jeff Rennicke (all photography by the author unless otherwise noted).