Endgame Volume I_ The Problem of Civilization - Derrick Jensen [101]
I am not unique.
That is what is expected of all of us.
That is what is expected of the world, that it give to those in power until it has nothing left to give.
But do we need to live like this? Do we need these masters? Do we need to give ourselves away to those who do not hold our best interests at heart, and do we need to allow them to hollow us out, and to hollow out the places we love?
It’s very scary. Having been hollowed out, having been told time and again that we cannot exist without the social systems that lead to our degradation, it is very easy to come to believe we cannot live without them. No matter how much we hate our jobs, could we live without the capitalists who run the country? No matter how much we hate ExxonMobil, could we live without the oil it sucks from the earth and transforms into the very lifeblood of the industrial economy? No matter how much I hated my father, could I have lived without him? (Well, yes. I discovered quickly I could live without him, and have long done so. Since he no longer touches my life, I no longer even hate him.)
How deeply do we hold this belief that not only is civilization ���a high stage of social and cultural development,” but that we simply could not survive without it? How would we eat if we could not go to Safeway or Ray’s Food Place (or KFC or Carl’s Jr)? How would we clothe ourselves if we did not receive regular catalogs from J. Crew? I live now in the relatively stable climes of coastal northern California (average daily summer high, maybe sixty-five; average nightly winter low, maybe forty-five), but have lived most of my life where it gets cold: Colorado (last spring snow, June 16), northeastern Nevada (last spring freeze, July 4), North Idaho, and eastern Washington. Could I construct, using Stone Age tools, a shelter that would help keep me alive through a winter?
The answer to all of these is, not by myself.
But does that mean I—or you—could not survive without civilization?
That depends, first of all, on who you are. If you are a wild creature—although I doubt many Del Norte Salamanders will read this book, however much they may applaud (with their cute soft hands on stumpy little arms) my analysis—you could almost certainly live without civilization, and in fact almost certainly won’t live if it’s allowed to continue. I say “almost certainly” because while most nonhumans are harmed by civilization, nonhumans are by no means monolithic (part of our problem is so many of us consider “nature” to be something singular). Some—such as Norwegian rats, kudzu, and starlings—benefit mightily from civilization through the increase of their habitat and eradication of competitors and predators. Some microbes, too, benefit. Civilization has been such a boon to many microbes who feed off humans (especially overstressed humans in close quarters) that I’ve read persuasive arguments that microbes, not humans, are responsible for cities, which are in this perspective nothing more than microbe feedlots and factory farms. (These arguments always make me wonder if there are “human rights” activists among the microbes who complain about intolerable and “inmicrobane” living conditions humans are forced to endure in cities: “It’s okay to eat them,” say these viral activists, “but they should be allowed to live with dignity first!”)
Nonetheless, for blue whales, spotted owls, hammerhead sharks, and Javan rhinos to survive, civilization has to go.
Soon.
But who cares about nonhumans, right? If they can’t adapt to civilization, fuck ’em. We want to know about the only creatures who matter. Could humans survive without civilization?
Well, we have for more than 99 percent of our existence. But does that matter now? Could humans survive given current numbers? Perhaps more central to the concerns of most of the civilized, could we maintain our lifestyle (note that the question has not-so-subtly