Endgame Volume I_ The Problem of Civilization - Derrick Jensen [204]
Or perhaps the fulcrums are social. Perhaps instead of (or in addition to) removing individual CEOs, we need to change the social institutions that themselves amplify the destructive efforts of these individuals. Charles Hurwitz does not kill redwoods by cutting them down. He kills them by ordering them cut down, or even more abstractly, by ordering someone to maximize profits. Are there counterlevers we can use to pry away his levers of power? Are there social means by which we can do that?
Or perhaps, as was also true of the Nazis, some of the fulcrums are infrastructural. John Muir is famously noted as saying, “God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools.” The thing is, a fool couldn’t cut down trees by him or herself. I used to think that we were fighting an incredibly difficult battle in part because it takes a thousand years of living to make an ancient tree, while any fool can come along with a chainsaw and cut it down in an hour or two. I’ve since realized that’s all wrong. The truth is that thriving on a living planet is easy—the whole forest, for example, conspires to grow that tree and every other, and we don’t have to do anything special except leave it alone—while cutting down a tree is actually a very difficult process involving the entire global economy. I wouldn’t care how many ancient redwoods Charles Hurwitz cut down, if he did it all by himself, scratching pathetically with bloodied nails at bark, gnawing with bloody teeth at heartwood, sometimes picking up rocks to make stone axes. To cut down a big tree you need the entire mining infrastructure for the metals necessary for chainsaws (or a hundred years ago, whipsaws); the entire oil infrastructure for gas to run the chainsaws, and for trucks to transport the dead trees to market where they will be sold and shipped to some distant place (once Charles had downed the tree by himself, I would wish him luck transporting it without the assistance of the global economy); and so on. It takes a whole lot of fools to cut down a tree, and if we break the infrastructural chain at any point, they won’t be able to do it.
The same is true, of course, for the rest of this culture’s destructive activities, from vivisection to factory farming to vacuuming the oceans to paving the grasslands to irradiating the planet: every one of this economy’s destructive activities requires immense amounts of energy and worldwide economic, infrastructural, military, and police support to accomplish. If any one of these supports fail—I want to emphasize, if any one of these supports fail—the destructive activities will be curtailed. Where do we place our levers?
Or maybe the fulcrums are all of the above. Maybe changing people’s hearts has a place. Maybe so do all the others, and maybe we should pursue them all, according to our gifts, proclivities, and opportunities.
The bottom line so far as fulcrums and bottlenecks: What will it take to stop this culture of death before it kills the planet?385
VIOLENCE
I believe there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those who do the oppressing. I believe there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone, and those who want to continue the system of exploitation. I believe there will be that kind of a clash, but I don’t think it will be based on the color of the skin.
Malcolm X386
I’M SURE BY NOW WE’VE ALL HEARD THE CLICHÉ ABOUT HOW ESKIMOS have something like ninety-seven words for snow. It ends up that’s kind of bullshit. First, they’re not Eskimos, but Inuits. Second, the translations for their words for snow aren’t all that exciting, kind of like “fluffy snow,” “hard snow,” “cold snow,” and so