How The Avatar relates to "The Trrouble with Wilderness"

   In the movie, The Avatar, the humans want to make the Na'vi move from their land so that they can collect Unobtanium from underneath their home. The humans are the master narrative, because they believe they are the dominant culture which is better than the Na'vi culture, who they consider to be savages due to their lack of technology and their way of life. There is a dualistic viewpoint of the Na'vi compared to the humans in the movie. The Na'vi are seen as emotional, natural, ignorant, and wild. The humans value themselves as rational, human, knowledgeable, and civilized. The Paradigm both cultures value clash when the Na'vi don't want to give up their home to the humans because to them it is sacred. Using William Cronon's article on "The Trouble with Wilderness", there is a difference in views of nature and the best way to live with it relating to the movie The Avatar.
   There are different views of nature between the Na'vi and humans. Humans view nature as mechanistic, where nature is dead. They believe that nature is for their use. A clip from the movie that shows this is the talk between Parker and Grace about Jake joining her group of researchers of the Na'vi. Parker wants the Na'vi to become more humanistic by giving them schools and teaching them language so that they can easily integrate with human cultures when they are moved of their land; so humans can dig up the Unobtanium. A very Anthropocentric view of the world because He thinks everything revolves around human interest and humans are the most important species. Colonel just wants Jake to get information on the Na'vi to either "force their cooperation or hammer them hard" off their land. On Pandora, the humans just see it as the next frontier to expand to and use for their own good, regardeless of the natives that already live on the land. On the other hand, the Na'vi possess an holistic/organic worldview. Their world is interconnected through the trees and plants. After Jake first meets Neytiri the Seeds of the sacred tree save him from being killed because it is telling her that he is needed and should not be killed for he has some purpose to the Na'vi and to nature in the future . Another example of the holistic view is when Grace is trying to persuade Parker not to destroy more trees in the Na'vi's home. She explains that the wealth of the land is not just in the dirt but all around. The trees communicate like the nervous system but more advanced. The nature of the land inspires awe and admiration or is sublime through this connection of communication through the trees and the Na'vi. It is nothing like the humans have seen before and Grace wants to help preserve this sublime land. The land is a place of romanticism. To the Na'vi it is a place away from human ethic and they use their feeling and intution to live their life. They follow the ways of the nature around them to live not the socially constructed ideas of the humans like listening to and worshiping the tree of souls. The Na'vi's (narrative) self is distinguished through their interaction and harmony with nature and that is what defines them as different from humans.

   The reason the Na'vi fight back to protect their land is because it is precious and irreplaceable.  Their way of life is surrounded by the interaction between the land and them.  They are able to coexist with the land and not destroy it due to their way of living. In Cronon's article he says that the only way for humans to "live naturally on earth is to follow the hunter-gathers back into the wilderness Eden and abandon virtually everything that civilization has given us"(19). To live like this we would stop hurting the environment and be able to coexist with nature much like the Na'vi. 

    The views of the world differ for the Na'vi and the humans based on their environment and ideas of nature. The Humans see nature to be used and the Na'vi see nature as precious and coexist with nature. The only way to not harm nature as seen by Cronon is to live as hunter-gathers and not destroy the forests. In his view the Na'vi is what humans should aim to become more like or to follow their example.