‘Cowboy’ professor still won’t give up the myth of the West

Gregory Lockwood says the West needs more, not less, of the capital-M Myth of the cowboy. He’s talking about myth in the literary sense.

However, myth in the literary sense often becomes myth in the philosophical/religious sense, and Lockwood well proves that by waxing idolic over the cowboy, starting with citing the protagonist of the Louis L’Amour dime novel “Conagher” as a prototype for the cowboy hero the West needs today.

To that, I say bullshit, as I did in detail with a response to High Country News:

No, what really gets the goat of many people is NOT the "Cowboy Myth" but Western ranchers all too willing to rail against "welfare," except when it comes to paying below-market grazing rates on federal land.

As for myth with the small letter, “Conagher” illustrates the problem entirely. I read Louis L’Amour novels 20 years ago, until I outgrew two-dimensional characters and stereotyped plots.

As for myth, much more myth, Lockwood’s prototypical 19th-century cowboy may have been tolerant, but real-life Wyoming was the home of Matthew Shepherd. Beyond that, Louis L’Amour never wrote about a black, Indian or gay cowboy, though he did finally get an Indian protagonist in his last long book.

If you want a modern novelistic character for the West, why not choose Sgt. Jim Chee from Tony Hillerman’s books? He's a far more realistic model.

As for broader Western myths, let's not forget federal subsidies to the transcontinental railroad, federal military "subsidies" for settlers and ranchers alike to violate Indian treaties, subsidies of massive irrigation damns with below-market irrigation water prices and below-market hydroelectric prices, as just a few things refuting the myth, very much with Lockwood’s lower-case “m,” of the “independent” westerner in general.

A perfect example of this: In 1964, Barry Goldwater was all for privatizing the Tennessee Valley Authority, but the idea of charging market rates for Hoover Dam and Glen Canyon Dam electric power down in Phoenix? Nary a word ever crossed his lips.

In short, Mr. Lockwood, you explify why the authors you deride say the West needs to move beyond its myths — and its continued fascination with mythmaking.

Occasionally, HCN has a clunker in an issue, and this is definitely it.