Being Human in the New West

By Jacob Cowgill, Unfiltered 3-08-05

I find this concept of the New West an interesting and important one. New implies an old and we Westerners are well beyond the Old West, especially since it has largely been a myth anyway, only ever really existing in the minds of those who wanted to be cowboys and cowgirls, frontiersmen and mountain men. It is okay to romanticize things as it is often the basis for lofty aspirations and a large part of my love for the West stems from my tendency to romanticize it. And the romanticizing of a place and of a myth has produced some of the most incredible art. But when we're not romanticizing this place, we're often forgetting about the complete picture of living in the West with its myriad of issues and the accompanying discords. I think conflict is a large part of the New West and a large part of what defines the New West. Conflict is certainly not unknown in these parts or in this current era, but the conflict I'm referring to seems to go beyond the standard contention that is a natural part of humanity.

Humanity, human nature, human--this, I feel, is where we begin. The New West is about conflict, and consequently its health and vitality is in resolution. But it is resolution on a human scale. We need to remove ourselves from our groups and our labels and deal with one another as human beings. We fight and squabble as environmentalists and loggers and forest supervisors, forgetting the entire time that we are human beings and that we are dealing with other human beings. The attitude of the New West must be that of empathy and understanding, or at least an attempt at understanding, and of a certain amount of selflessness, of giving up a little in order to gain a lot, as long as everybody else is doing the same. We need fewer knee jerks and more handshakes.

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