Endgame Volume I_ The Problem of Civilization - Derrick Jensen [175]
Think about it. I’m not, for example, going to say I hope I eat something tomorrow. I’ll just do it. I don’t hope I take another breath right now, nor that I finish writing this sentence. I just do them.313 On the other hand, I hope that the next time I get on a plane, it doesn’t crash.314 To hope for some result means you have no agency concerning it.
So many people say they hope the dominant culture stops destroying the world. By saying that, they’ve guaranteed at least its short-term continuation, and given it a power it doesn’t have. They’ve also stepped away from their own power.
I do not hope coho salmon survive. I will do what it takes to make sure the dominant culture doesn’t drive them extinct. If coho want to leave because they don’t like how they’re being treated—and who could blame them?—I will say good-bye, and I will miss them, but if they do not want to leave, I will not allow civilization to kill them off. I will do whatever it takes.
I do not hope civilization comes down sooner rather than later. I will do what it takes to bring that about.
When we realize the degree of agency we actually do have, we no longer have to “hope” at all. We simply do the work. We make sure salmon survive. We make sure prairie dogs survive. We make sure tigers survive. We do whatever it takes.
Casey Maddox wrote that when philosophy dies, action begins. I would say in addition that when we stop hoping for external assistance, when we stop hoping that the awful situation we’re in will somehow resolve itself, when we stop hoping the situation will somehow not get worse, then we are finally free—truly free—to honestly start working to thoroughly resolve it. I would say when hope dies, action begins.
Hope may be fine—and adaptive—for prisoners, but free men and women don’t need it.
Are you a prisoner, or are you free?
People sometimes ask me, “If things are so bad, why don’t you just kill yourself?”
The answer is that life is really, really good. I am a complex enough being that I can hold in my heart the understanding that we are really, really fucked, and at the same time the understanding that life is really, really good. Not because we’re fucked, obviously, nor because of the things that are causing us to be fucked, but despite all that. We are fucked. Life is still good. We are really fucked. Life is still really good. We are so fucked. Life is still so good.
Many people are afraid to feel despair. They fear that if they allow themselves to perceive how desperate is our situation, they must then be perpetually miserable. They forget it is possible to feel many things at once. I am full of rage, sorrow, joy, love, hate, despair, happiness, satisfaction, dissatisfaction, and a thousand other feelings. They also forget that despair is an entirely appropriate response to a desperate situation. Many people probably also fear that if they allow themselves to perceive how desperate things are that they may be forced to actually do something to change their circumstances.
Despair or no, life is good. The other day I was lying by the pond outside my home, looking up through redwood needles made translucent by the sun. I was happy, and I thought, “What more could anyone want?”315 Life is so good. And that’s all the more reason to fight.
Another question people sometimes ask is, “If things are so bad, why don’t you just party?”
Well, the first answer is that I don’t really like parties. The second is that I’m having great fun. I love my life. I love life. This is true for most activists I know. We are doing what we love, fighting for what and whom we love.
I have no patience for those who use our desperate situation as an excuse for inaction.316 I’ve learned that if you deprive most of these people of that particular excuse they just find another, then another, then