to the President’s policy of favoring therntourism and recreation industries at thernexpense of mining, timber, and agriculture.rnIn January, the administration announcedrnan 18-month moratorium onrnroadbuilding into 30 million acres of federallyrnowned land, while a bipartisan billrnrecently introduced in the House of Representativesrnwould end all timber salesrnand logging operations in the nationalrnforests. Michael Dombeck, the ForestrnService chief, explained that his agencyrnis simply rediscovering its original mandaternas restorer and protector of the nationalrnforest lands, while Robert Stanton,rndirector of the Park Service, identifiedrnhis constituency as urbanites wanting tornestablish a cultural and historical rapportrnwith a national treasure.rnEnvironmentalists, when they are beingrnprudent by making nice with therngreat unwashed, talk about the culturalrnenrichment that occurs when Americansrnrediscover their heritage. They explainrnthat they are concerned for people whornhave lost all contact with, and feeling for,rnnature and propose to help them regrowrnthe roots they have severed. Of coursernthe rootgrowing essential to the processrnthey envision is literal rather thanrnmetaphorical: the way to reestablish arnconnection with nature is to work with itrnand develop it, not to play in it, admire it,rnor put it on videocamera. Environmentalism,rnwhatever the environmentalistsrnsay, is not about bringing people closer tornnature; it is about separating them stillrnfurther from it.rnAs with ever}’ ism, the principal cluernto environmentalism is the nature of thernpeople who created it. If environmentalismrnwere really about rootedness inrnnature, it would be predominantly anrnagrarian movement, invented and championedrnby rural people. Actually, thernmovement is a product of the suburbs,rnthe brainchild of people born and bredrnin an environment that is more limbornthan reality. Environmentalists are mostlyrnupper-middle to upper-class people,rnprofessionals and technocrats educatedrnbeyond their capacity for both wisdomrnand common sense, fundamentally ignorantrnof what they profess to love mostrnbecause they have failed to acquire a realrnexperience of it. In this respect, ofrncourse, they are no different from othersrnof their class who are not environmentalists.rnThis is why the novels of ErnestrnHemingway are currently out of fashion,rna vagary of the public taste having nothingrnto do with macho matings in sleepingrnbags or Robert Cohen’s nose. InrnHemingway’s day, as now, Americansrnwho paid attention to serious literaturernwere the educated men and women ofrnthe middle and upper-middle classes.rnWhere they differ from their counterpartsrntoday is in their background, theirrnexperience, their place of growing up.rnMiddle-aged readers of fiction before thern1960’s might be city-bred, countr’-bred,rnor Main Streeters. Whichever they werern(well-to-do urbanites, like Hemingway’srnfamily, vacationed in the countr}’ then)rnthey remembered how it was to hook arntiout, row a boat around a point in a lake,rnwait out a big blow in a rustic cabin, raiserna tent and cook flapjacks over a campfire.rnNowadays, by contrast, this type of generalrnreader no longer exists. Purchasersrnand readers of books are overwhelminglyrnpeople of suburban upbringing and experience.rnFor them “Big Two-HeartedrnRiver” conveys no shock of recognition;rnto the extent that it has any effect at all,rnthe story serves as an unpleasant reminderrnthat even artists and people ofrntalent, not very long ago, grew up inrnHicksville and amused themselves likernrednecks.rnThe yokel’s fear and suspicion of thernbig city and its inhabitants has been summerrnstock in American culture —thernsource of innumerable japes, gags, andrngigs—for a century and a half, yet the cityrnslicker has fears and suspicions of hisrnown. In an astounding passage from a recentrnbook, the late Diana Trilling describesrnher and her husband’s apprehensionsrnon the eve of the outbreak of war inrnEurope in 1939:rnThe idea that fascism is the consequencernof war, even a war againstrnfascism, lasted long and traveledrnfar among the intellectuals of Lionel’srnand my generation. . . . [W]ernand our friends contemplated whatrnthe war had in store for our youngrnairmen when they would nornlonger have their giant bombers torncommand and had to resume theirrnold civilian lives. How could onernexpect them to return to their factoriesrnand gas stations?rnSo far as this bizarre speculation makesrnany sense at all, it does so only if the readerrnassumes that the factories Mrs.rnTrilling had in mind are in Omaha, Nebraska,rnthe gas stations in Bill, Wyoming,rnand Holly Springs, Mississippi.rnWhat do environmentalists want?rnThis much we know, they and their water-rncarriers in the federal governmentrnhaving said as much: the destruction ofrntraditional industrialism in the West, andrnits replacement by soft industrialismtourism,rnrecreation, and “cultural enrichment.”rnIn the Southwest especially,rnthe process of dispossession, destiuction,rnand displacement is already well advanced,rnas environmental groups file suitrnto bring logging to a halt in the forests ofrnArizona and New Mexico, bid againstrnranchers seeking to renew their grazingrnleases, and gain control over privaternproperty by appeals to the EndangeredrnSpecies Act.rnAnd this much we may infer, fromrntheir actions as well as from their peculiarrnvagueness, their thimdering silencesrn—to say nothing of such crackpotrnschemes as turning the Plains states fromrnthe Missouri River to the Rocky Mountainsrninto a commons for the Americanrnbison to run on. Environmentalistsrnenvision nothing less than the eventualrnremoval of rural Americans from therncountryside, which will thereupon berndeclared pristine lands which everyrnAmerican will be required to obtain arnpermit to visit, as today one needs a permitrnto explore the Grand Canyon andrnCanyonlands National Park. This action,rnnecessarily protracted in its duration,rnwill recreate the American hinterlandrnas a vast wilderness preserve tornwhich only members of the elite nationalrn(and international) class will be grantedrnaccess for the purpose of “necessaryrndevelopment in the national interest.”rnRelocated in the great post-industrialrncities of America, the unregenerate andrnbarbarian redneck population will be domesticatedrnthrough safe technocraticrnemployment and reeducated in the doctrinesrnof political correctness, multiculturalism,rnglobalism, free trade, and worldrneco-government. Their guns will be takenrnfrom them, and so will their beer andrntheir red-eye. All blood sports, includingrnfishing, will be prohibited, while convictionrnon a charge of square-dancing orrnlistening to country-western music willrnbe punishable by an overnight in thernslammer. At long last, America will havernbeen made safe for rocks, grizzly bears,rnpeople of color, and Democracy.rnWhoever finds this prophecy extremernand absurdist needs only to recall that wernlive in a country whose First Lady hasrnexpressed the desire to redefine what itrnmeans to be a human being living in thern20th century.