Endgame Volume I_ The Problem of Civilization - Derrick Jensen [49]
Had someone brought down civilization before the slave trade took hold, 100 million Africans would not have been sacrificed on that particular altar of economic production. Native cultures might still live untraumatized on their own land all across that continent. There probably would be, as there always was, plenty to eat.
If someone had brought down civilization one hundred and fifty years ago, those who came after probably could still eat passenger pigeons and Eskimo curlews. They could surely eat bison and pronghorn antelope. They could undoubtedly eat salmon, cod, lobster. The people who came after would not have to worry about dioxin, radiation poisoning, organochloride carcinogens, or the extreme weather and ecological flux that characterize global warming. They would not have to worry about escaped genetically engineered plants and animals. There probably would have been, as almost always, plenty to eat.
If civilization lasts another one or two hundred years, will the people then say of us, “Why did they not take it down?” Will they be as furious with us as I am with those who came before and stood by? I could very well hear those people who come after saying, “If they had taken it down, we would still have earthworms to feed the soil. We would have redwoods, and we would have oaks in California. We would still have frogs. We would still have other amphibians. I am starving because there are no salmon in the river, and you allowed the salmon to be killed so rich people could have cheap electricity for aluminum smelters. God damn you. God damn you all.”
I know someone whose brother demolishes buildings. The trick, he says, is to position the charges precisely so the building collapses in place, and doesn’t take out the surroundings. It seems to me that this is what we must do: position the charges so that civilization collapses in on itself, and takes out as little life as possible on its way down.
Part of the task of the rest of this exploration is to discover what form those charges will take, and where to put them.
The past few weeks I’ve been in crisis. I’m scared. Scared of the implications of this work. Scared to articulate what I know in my heart is necessary, and even more scared to help bring it about. I mean, we’re talking about taking down civilization here.
Last night I was at my mom’s eating dinner and watching a little March Madness—the NCAA basketball tournament—and I kept thinking, as I watched UNC-Wilmington hold off USC in overtime after blowing a nineteen-point lead, a variant of the question my friend asked about what right I have to not let people live in cities. There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people having fun watching these games. They’re not trying to exploit anyone. They’re not trying to kill the planet. What right do I have to so alter their lives? I’m not saying there would never be games again, because the lives of traditional indigenous peoples the world over are far more full of leisure and play than ours. I’m just saying that bringing down civilization would cause substantive changes in the way these people spend their time. And they may not—evidently they do not—want to change.
The answer came to me today. It’s the same answer I gave my friend, which is that I think it’s the wrong question. The question is: what right do all of these people have to destroy the lives of others by their very lifestyle?
It’s hard. I would have no moral or existential problem destroying the lifestyles of those in power. The politicians, CEOs, generals, capitalist journalists. Those who, if faced with a Nuremberg-style tribunal, should and would find themselves at the end of a rope for their crimes against both the natural world and humanity. But what about Americans just trying to love their children and take them to the amusement park once a month, to buy them toys, to get them an education so they can get a job?