just to save everyone the suspense: he "survived" so long by stealing resources earned by other people who worked for them. Apparently the so-called "hermit" didn't mind people that much.
He admits to this: "I stole. I was a thief. I repeatedly stole over many years. I knew it was wrong. Knew it was wrong, felt guilty about it every time, yet continued to do it."
If folks haven't already, the GQ article by Michael Finkel (linked in the older post oska pointed out) is worth the read:
I dont even think it's worth reading about him. He's a criminal who got away with it for a long time because of geography and the supply and demand relationship between cold weather and unoccupied cabins.
If you think of him in that terms, sure. I think much of the disappointment people have here is that they were expecting a man vs nature story and instead read about a thief who lived off the fat of the modern world. The responses in this thread differ from those from the earlier discussion [0] oska linked. I suspect it's due to the different titles and resulting expectations.
Personally, I didn't know about original thread when it was posted, and your original comment actually prompted me to find the GQ story and read it under the expectation that I was going to learn about a societal mooch.
What ended up making an impression was Christopher Knight's unique writing style, his observations on everyday interactions we take for granted ("I’m not used to seeing people’s faces," he said. "There’s too much information there. Aren’t you aware of it? Too much, too fast."), and how he survived those winters.
And yes, I get it, he stole. He used stolen propane tanks to fire up the stolen Coleman to melt snow in a stolen pot to drink water. But still, he fattened himself up for winter and camped in the winter months of Maine while not leaving behind footprints for 25 years. I was impressed. Yes it's not Primitive Technology [0] ingenuity, but Mr Knight is still an outlier and shared an experience I don't encounter every day.
Not leaving a footprint? I remember when this was on the local news - he had a helluva mess in the hobo camp he was living in. It's also not exactly a big secret that he was in the area stealing shit all those years - people knew, and some of them left stuff out for him.
A literal footprint: "The first snow usually came in November. Chris was always fearful about leaving a single boot print anywhere, which is impossible to avoid in a blanket of snow. And so for the next six months, until the spring thaw in April, Chris rarely strayed from his clearing in the woods."
The morality of his actions aside, it's a little disappointing because it's not as if he lived without human contact for all that time, there were always people in the visible distance but he just chose not to engage with them. There's recluses in every neighborhood who live like that. I think I was expecting more of a Robinson Crusoe/Castaway type situation.
I can see that. He's not Crusoe, but I still found his story interesting because this is someone I usually don't get a chance to talk to (as most recluses are).
And maybe it's my age and experience, but 25-27 years is a really impressive time span to be focused on doing one thing.
I would like to have learned more about how he feels about how the world has changed, he's like Rip Van Winkle or a time traveler in that respect. But most likely as a person who would voluntarily isolate himself from society in the first place, he probably doesn't care about the world.
I dont like articles that bait and switch. The title says "into the woods" when it should read "squatting in vacant cabins: how this homeless man lived off other peoples' supplies and shelter for a quarter century".
Well, he robbed vacation homes, so I don't know that owners were really put out as much as all that. What strikes me as funny is that he went to such lengths to rob them, it seems like gardening, hunting and fishing would have been easier. But I suppose it's possible it was the thrill of getting away with it that motivated him.
Hunting and fishing are not as calorically rewarding as what he could get concentrated in peanut butter and sweets. Read the GQ article, it's fascinating how he would intentionally get fat for the winter.
Robbery is robbery; the immorality of which has no dependency on how "put out" his victims were... as though it were for you or me to even make such a determination. He was a thief that stole stuff from people: nuff said. I hope at some point his victims got justice.
Burglary is not armed robbery. They are different in the eyes of the law, and justly so.
Theft of a candy bar carries a different penalty from theft of an automobile, and justly so.
A thief is a thief, and a criminal is a criminal, but not all crimes are identical. There is a difference between the rigidity of ethics, and the flexible punishment-must-fit-the-crime nature of justice.
Of course, you are correct in your statements, but contextual application in this discussion would appear to be in error on at least one point.
You are correct in that I used an term incorrectly: I shouldn't have said robbery, I should have simply said "theft". Robbery indicates force: there was no indication of direct force/intimidation that I saw. Point conceded.
Where I think your criticism is incorrect. Your examples differentiate based on the what the criminal was trying to get away with. Trying to steal a candy bar is different that trying to steal an automobile: the resources involved in obtaining a candy bar legitimately are much smaller than the resources dedicated to obtaining a car. You rightfully call out that distinction, they are different (as individual acts) and I would not disagree that they should be different in what answer justice should demand of the criminal. Where you go astray is that the context of my criticism of was that the original commentator was differentiating the severity of the crime not on the value of the property stolen, but on some perception of the of the victim's "need". So, it's not the difference of the value of the good taken, but a judgment on how important that should have been to the victim. This is a very important distinction and changes the validity of the ethical judgement. I assert that, whereas the value of the stolen item is correctly a part of the determining the severity of the transgression, the "need" of the victim is not a proper factor in determining the severity of the crime. (And yes, this is a generalization. If I steal a hospital respirator from a medical supply company showroom floor, it is different than if I steal it while it's in use by a patient... though even then the theft aspect should likely be seen as the same and there are just other, different ethical/legal crimes in addition to theft.)
I see where you're coming from, but to be succinct:
If your argument were correct, then duress would never serve as an acceptable defense.
I'm not saying that Chris was under duress (his situation was due to his own choices, not forced upon him), but the fact is, some accused criminals are able to defend their crimes by saying "my actions were necessary to avoid a serious, immediate danger in a situation that was forced upon me." That is a form of need and it is a legally workable defense, at least in the USA and UK.
Over a decade ago, a thief broke into my car and stole some items. The feeling of violation still burns within me now. It's terrible to think that someone was in my car, my space, and took my things, and used them for some unsavoury end.
In the grand scheme of the universe, those things are pretty minor. But they still hurt.
I don't know that I'd want to hurt the person or people who stole from me; I think that I'd like to get to know why he or they did it, that I'd like to see why that seemed like the right thing to do at the time. But it does hurt, even now.
> ... as though it were for you or me to even make such a determination.
Don't be ridiculous. Both you and the OP (and anybody else who wants to) are fully qualified to determine the morality of the situation for yourselves and discus it. Why would either of you not be?
as though it were for you or me to even make such a determination.
The article indicates that some of them put out pen and paper and tried to get him to leave a grocery list. He declined to cooperate, so they stopped.
I doesn't sound like some of these people were particularly bothered by him getting free groceries and otherwise leaving the place essentially untouched.
I am not saying that makes his choice "morally correct" or anything. But, you are trying to impose a determination here that dramatically differs from the evidence we have been presented for how some of these people felt about the situation.
One interesting aspect is that he did not contract any major (contagious) disease while not having access to a doctor or any medicine (beyond what he may have found/stolen from cabins, etc. He attributed his good health to being away from people (and thus disease). Also he was able to take good care of his Rx glasses for all those year. No loss or breakage.
I was wondering about his dental hygiene. I've never had a major toothache before, but I've heard they are off-the-charts painful. Maybe he went to the dentist, too, off his stolen goods ?
If folks haven't already, the GQ article by Michael Finkel (linked in the older post oska pointed out) is worth the read:
The Strange & Curious Tale of the Last True Hermit - http://www.gq.com/story/the-last-true-hermit?printable=true