Endgame Volume I_ The Problem of Civilization - Derrick Jensen [71]
“But you’ve also gained wisdom and insight you might not otherwise have gained.”
“Yes. I’ve gained it. And this is true for anyone who survives abuse. The perpetrator isn’t responsible if the survivor is able to metabolize the horrors into gifts for the community. The survivor, and the humans and nonhumans who’ve supported the survivor, are responsible. I’ve not accomplished anything because I was raped. I’ve accomplished it through and despite the rapes. The rapes did not help me develop. They were not and could never be good. My response can be and has been good. But the rapes? No.”
“Does all of this mean predation is bad?” she asked.
“How so?”
“If a heron eats a tadpole, we can say for certain the tadpole will never develop into an emotionally healthy frog. It will never develop into a frog at all.”
“I don’t think we have any concept of what it means to participate in a larger-than-human community. A while ago I did a radio interview in Spokane. The interviewer said pre-conquest Indians exploited salmon as surely as do the civilized. I had two responses. The first: if that were the case, why were there so many salmon before, and so few now? Something clearly has changed. The second: Indians ate salmon, not exploited them. He asked what’s the difference. I said Indians entered into a relationship with the salmon whereby they gave respect to the salmon in exchange for the flesh.”
“I’ve read about that.”
“I wasn’t happy with that answer. It was true so far as it went, but also left out so much as to be effectively false.150 There was another necessary condition to the agreement between predator and prey, but I didn’t know what it was. Then that afternoon I took a walk to the coyote tree.”
The coyote tree was a pine under which I’d fed coyotes when I lived in Spokane. I loved the tree, and part of the reason I moved from Spokane was that the forest of which the tree was a part was being destroyed to put in a subdivision. Each day I’d heard the clank and roar of heavy machinery, and I’d had no idea what I could do to stop the destruction. So, and I’m not proud of this, rather than watch the destruction of this place I loved, I fled, moved far away. But I was back in town, and I went to sit by the tree.
“I kept asking the questions: what are the bonds between predator and prey? What are the conditions on which their relationships are based? How is respect for the spirit of the eaten manifested by the one who eats?”
“And?”
“The coyote tree told me the answer.” My friend knew me well enough to not be surprised, and to know I wasn’t speaking metaphorically. “When you take the life of someone to eat or otherwise use so you can survive, you become responsible for the survival—and dignity—of that other’s community. If I eat a salmon—or rather, when I eat a salmon—I pledge myself to ensuring that this particular run of salmon continues, and that this particular river of which the salmon are a part thrives. If I cut a tree, I make the same pledge to the larger community of which it’s a part. When I eat beef—or for that matter carrots—I pledge to eradicate factory farming.”
“Did Indians have this deal?”
“On one level I have no idea. I can’t speak for them.151 But on the other, it’s clear to me that everyone makes this deal. It’s the only way to survive.”
“In the case of nonhumans, do you think the exchange is conscious?”
“Once again, I have no idea. But I can’t see any reason why not.” I paused, then said, “And I have to say that none of this is woo-woo or particularly cosmic. It’s very physical.”
“How so?”
“Not only is this crucial on moral and relational levels, but if I eat salmon without devoting myself to their continued survival, I’ll soon find myself hungry. The same is true for bears or anyone else eating them, or, to take your example, herons eating tadpoles.”
We sat a long time without speaking before