Endgame Volume I_ The Problem of Civilization - Derrick Jensen [105]
Recently a few members of the Derrick Jensen discussion group faced this subject head on. One wrote, “Although I may detest what civilization is doing, I am literally filled with it. I don’t hunt, gather, or grow my own food, but buy it at diners and grocery stores. I clearly see how being civilized is like being in an abusive relationship, but I rely on this relationship for my food. And because civilization has taken over so much of the land and people, trying to live outside of it can be very hard and lonely.”
Someone responded, “At one point, the civilized would, and often did, run away from civilization to join the indigenous, to become Pequots, or Lakota, or Goths, or Celts. Unfortunately, by now there is nowhere you can run to get away from civilization. When escape is not an option, what can you do if you’re in an abusive relationship? The Burning Bed [a film about a woman who kills her abusive husband by burning him in his sleep] comes to mind.”
Another person: “Those who think they can live outside of civilization are gravely mistaken. The only reason some who think they’re living outside civ are left alone is they pose no real threat to the system and can easily be ‘dealt with’ if they do. They’re ‘allowed’ to live their ‘alternative’ lifestyles. As Ted Kaczynski stated some time ago, ‘You can have all the freedom you want as long as the authorities consider it unimportant.’ In order for anyone to really have the chance to truly live ‘outside’ civilization anymore, civilization has to go.”
This is all very true, and just another way of talking about civilization’s monopolization of perception (and the world). But what will happen if we follow the example of The Burning Bed?
In answer, one person expressed the concern that “we’ve been caged in civilization so long our natural instincts and awareness have been dulled to the point we no longer trust we have the ability—or even the ability to learn how—to survive in a noncivilized environment.”
Someone disagreed: “Perhaps I’m not seeing this clearly. I grew up in the country, and by the age of eight knew how to feed and shelter myself. If I could do it at eight, with no one teaching me, how much better could we all learn if we were being taught?”
The previous person responded: “I didn’t mean to imply we’ve individually lost the ability to learn the skills needed to survive outside civilization. I should have emphasized our lack of deep-seated faith in our abilities, based on a lack of intimacy with the places we live (and, I would add, six thousand years of propaganda telling us nature is dangerous and civilization benign). For example, I’ve chosen to devote my energies primarily to learning, practicing, and perpetuating primitive survival and hunting skills, with the hope that when civilization collapses, such valuable knowledge will make it through to those trying to re-form more humane cultures. But here’s my caveat: at one time I thought I’d become a competent survivalist. Then I had the opportunity to hunt with a half-Cherokee half-hillbilly who’d grown up in the backwoods of Appalachia, a man who could move with speed and stealth through thick underbrush, who could see and hear things in the forest I could not, who had a seemingly instinctual ability to know where to find animals based on the weather, season, time of day, and so on. This was a man possessing a deep-seated faith in his ability to survive in the wild. So while I think I have better survival skills and potential than most people, I have to admit I just don’t have the deep-seated faith that can only come through spending the vast majority of your time in direct contact with the natural world, as my friend did in his youth.
“There’s a broader problem, though, beyond individual survival, which is that of whole communities being able to learn to exist without the infrastructure of civilization. Again, I don’t mean to imply we can’t learn the needed skills. I just