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Title Page

Premises

Dedication

APOCALYPSE

FIVE STORIES

CIVILIZATION

CLEAN WATER

CATASTROPHE

VIOLENCE

IRREDEEMABLE

COUNTERVIOLENCE

LISTENING TO THE LAND

CARRYING CAPACITY

THE NEEDS OF THE NATURAL WORLD

PREDATOR AND PREY

CHOICES

ABUSE

A CULTURE OF OCCUPATION

WHY CIVILIZATION IS KILLING THE WORLD, PART I

WHY CIVILIZATION IS KILLING THE WORLD, PART II

BRINGING DOWN CIVILIZATION, PART I

A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE

HATRED

LOVE DOES NOT IMPLY PACIFISM

IT’S TIME TO GET OUT

COURAGE

HOPE

THE CIVILIZED WILL SMILE AS THEY TEAR YOU LIMB FROM LIMB

THEIR INSANITY WAS PERMANENT

ROMANTIC NIHILISM

NECK DEEP IN DENIAL

MAKING IT HAPPEN

FULCRUMS

VIOLENCE

SPENDING OUR WAY TO SUSTAINABILITY

EMPATHY AND ITS OTHER

SHOULD WE FIGHT BACK?

STAR WARS

Acknowledgements

Notes

Bibliography

About the Author

Copyright Page

Also by Derrick Jensen

Railroads and Clearcuts

Listening to the Land

A Language Older Than Words

Standup Tragedy (live CD)

The Culture of Make Believe

The Other Side of Darkness (live CD)

Strangely Like War

Walking on Water

Welcome to the Machine

Premises

PREMISE ONE: Civilization is not and can never be sustainable. This is especially true for industrial civilization.

PREMISE TWO: Traditional communities do not often voluntarily give up or sell the resources on which their communities are based until their communities have been destroyed. They also do not willingly allow their landbases to be damaged so that other resources—gold, oil, and so on—can be extracted. It follows that those who want the resources will do what they can to destroy traditional communities.

PREMISE THREE: Our way of living—industrial civilization—is based on, requires, and would collapse very quickly without persistent and widespread violence.

PREMISEFOUR: Civilization is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted yet often unarticulated hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized. Violence done by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher is unthinkable, and when it does occur is regarded with shock, horror, and the fetishization of the victims.

PREMISE FIVE: The property of those higher on the hierarchy is more valuable than the lives of those below. It is acceptable for those above to increase the amount of property they control—in everyday language, to make money—by destroying or taking the lives of those below. This is called production. If those below damage the property of those above, those above may kill or otherwise destroy the lives of those below. This is called justice.

PREMISE SIX: Civilization is not redeemable. This culture will not undergo any sort of voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living. If we do not put a halt to it, civilization will continue to immiserate the vast majority of humans and to degrade the planet until it (civilization, and probably the planet) collapses. The effects of this degradation will continue to harm humans and nonhumans for a very long time.

PREMISE SEVEN: The longer we wait for civilization to crash—or the longer we wait before we ourselves bring it down—the messier the crash will be, and the worse things will be for those humans and nonhumans who live during it, and for those who come after.

PREMISE EIGHT: The needs of the natural world are more important than the needs of the economic system.

Another way to put Premise Eight: Any economic or social system that does not benefit the natural communities on which it is based is unsustainable, immoral, and stupid. Sustainability, morality, and intelligence (as well as justice) require the dismantling of any such economic or social system, or at the very least disallowing it from damaging your landbase.

PREMISE NINE: Although there will clearly someday be far fewer humans than there are at present, there are many ways this reduction in population may occur (or be achieved, depending on the passivity