荒野观念的转变与美国国家公园的起源

The Changing of the Wilderness Idea and the Origin of the U.S. National Parks

19世纪后期美国设立国家公园的主要目的是为了保护壮美的荒野景观,并将其作为人民大众的旅游娱乐场所,这是美国荒野观念发生巨大历史转变的结果。从殖民地时代开始,受欧洲传统文化和现实境遇的影响,美国主流社会对荒野普遍持厌恶与征服的态度。然而,随着浪漫主义与民族主义思潮的兴起与发展,荒野尤其是壮美的荒野景观被美国知识精英塑造成为彰显美国独特性和构建国家认同的工具,具有了崇高的精神文化价值;美国城市—工业社会导致的人与自然的疏离,使荒野旅游成为人们应对城市弊病的“解毒剂”,从而赋予了荒野景观作为旅游对象和旅游资源的社会经济价值;与此同时,欧美民主、平等思想向景观领域的扩展,确立了公园向人民大众开放的公益属性,为以国家公园形式来保障公众平等地访问和享受荒野景观的权利奠定了思想和现实基础。荒野观念的转变孕育了“为了人民的利益与愉悦”而将壮美的荒野景观保留为“公园或游乐场”的国家公园思想,最终促成了国家公园在美国的诞生。

During the late 19th century,the primary purpose of U.S.national parks was to preserve the wilderness landscape within public parks for tourism,which reflected great historical changes in the idea of the American wilderness.Since colonial times,the American mainstream looked to the wilderness as something to conquer.However,with the development of nationalism and romanticism,American intellectual elites reshaped the idea of the wilderness,especially the spectacular landscape into a tool to demonstrate the uniqueness of and national identity of America,and gave the wilderness sublime spiritual and cultural value.The alienation of humans and nature resulting from urbanization and industrialization inspired Americans demand of wilderness tourism as the antidote to resolve city problems,and thus the value of the wilderness landscape for tourism grew increasingly prominent;at the same time,the extension of democracy and equality in Europe and America prompted the idea of protecting the wilderness landscape as a public resource,which laid a foundation to guarantee the public s access to the wilderness landscape by creating national parks.The changing of the wilderness idea cultivated the idea of national parks preserving the wildness landscape as“park or pleasuring ground”“for the benefit and enjoyment of the people”,which eventually promoted the creation of national parks in the United States.