Note: I adapted this from a response to a post of mine on my philosophy forum


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To me, that there's a single place that is at once romantic, at once fantastical, at once so open to our inquiries really strikes me. All things in theory have that about them. Yet, to have a place just strike the senses that way, to have something capable of evoking such wonder, now that's something. Philosophy begins always with a wonder, a wonder about things. Yet, the wonder itself isn't the philosophical, and Yellowstone by itself isn't philosophical. That people abuse it in the way that it has been over the years suggests that wonder isn't enough for thoughtfulness.




Yet, we need it. We need things that make us wonder. Niagara Falls used to make people wonder until they turned it into a sickening little resort.




Descartes, interestingly, had disparaging things to say about "wonder." For the modern thinker, the issue was control. If we could understand the cause, then we can remove the uncertainty that this causes us. So, science turns toward eradication of diseases, improving technology to "help our lives", crime prevention, and all sorts of things that make life safe and predictable. However, we do all this also at the cost of destroying wonder, and Descartes recognized this although he approved of it. Yellowstone is one of the last bastions where it is quite okay for people to feel unsafe, where they know that that hike through bear country might be their last (and besides some basic management strategies, the government isn't going to try to make you absolutely safe). It's a place that hasn't tried to impose an absolute control over the wondrous.




Wonder isn't enough, but it is necessary. We kill life, we kill reasoning, when we kill that which makes us wonder. We need that uneasiness, that discomfort, that pain that comes from a wondrous thing. As we try to understand it, as we try to come to grips with it, we cannot do so at the exasperation of the wonder. The more we know about it, the more we should wonder.




Killing buffalo that leave Yellowstone is an issue of control. It is not okay for the livestock interest in Montana to suppose that even the most minimal of risk is worth living with, even when that amount of risk has been greatly exaggerated. The wild for these people is only okay so long as it does not encroach on any sense of saftey that they have. The wonder of Yellowstone is dangerous to them; it threatens their security.




The wonder that drives philosophy threatens people too. It may be that everything you ever held to be true is a horrible lie. Even when that risk is greatly minimized, it remains a threat to people. So, people cling to "the facts" of things, which are usually just rhetorical devices used to keep them from having to face the wonder. We like our little controlled cages, though they are always penetrable no matter how hard we try to reinforce them. Yellowstone, however, is one of the last places that is appreciated for not being a cage. It is one of the few things that are left in our experience that naturally cause us to wonder. The philosopher is seen as a pernicious prodder because he dreams up fantastical things with "no grounding in reality." Indeed, the philosopher sometimes has to force images to stir up the wonder in others. Yet, Yellowstone provides real fodder. Fish can be boiled on freezing waters in the middle of winter. We know now how this is possible, but it does not destroy the wonder because we marvel still at its rarity. We know how petrified forests like those in Yellowstone were built, how it is that much of Yellowstone can be a volcano bed, how the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone was carved, why there can be so many geysers, why the Earth under Yellowstone is so hot, why there are so many earthquakes, why there is such a diversity of life and wildflowers. We can explain all these things, but that there are all these things for explanation is itself a wonder that can never be quelched. Since Yellowstone is always changing, since people are living and breathing under it and interacting with it in different ways, there is always an awesome dynamism to this place. And, it strikes us this way naturally. It is not forced, although it continues to threaten us.




Yellowstone is truly wondrous, and wonder is the beginning of any philosophy. So, let's wonder where the buffalo still roam, where the heat and the cold dance and play on a painted canvas. Let's embrace the dangerous wonder of Yellowstone that calls on us to think and even potentially to be disturbed.