(no subject)

[lahermite]

had to find this for a reply i posted, so i'm going to post it here, in the quote of the day train, but this one can go down as QUOTE OF THE MILLENIA:

"...the primary measure by which we will be judged by those who come after will be the health of the landbase. Everything else builds from there. The people who come after aren’t going to give a shit as to whether we voted Democrat, Republican, Green, anarchist, or none of the above. They’re not going to give a shit about whether we were pacifists or not pacifists. They’re not going to give a shit about whether we signed or didn’t sign online petitions. They’re not going to give a shit about how hard we tried. It’s no good to live in a groovy eco-socialist utopia with free love if the planet is toxified. Those who come after are going to care about whether they can breathe the air, whether they can drink the water, whether the land can support them. Everything else comes from that."

~derrick jensen~

(emphasis mine)

Comments

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

I had this conversation with my other brother David a while ago. And he laughed and said 'Fuck the children, I want my Jaguar!'

Which he said in good humour. But still. Perfectly illustrated the nature of the problem.

[lahermite.livejournal.com]

yes. perfectly.

[lahermite.livejournal.com]

jensen isn't a primitivist. he's more an agitator! he doesn't really care how humans arrange their lives, as long as the natural world is primary and isn't being destroyed. that's why he tends to attack the peace&love crowd because he views eco-villages as awesome, but not really solving the problem. he wants us to stop industrial civilization so that the planet can breathe, then figure out a way to live without destroying it all again. this kinda sums up what he means; the lost star wars script:
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2006/11/349316.shtml

primitivism is an ideal. and, like most ideals, is not actually physically workable right now. there's simply too many people. most primitivists realise the simple truth; that anything much beyond the stoneage is simply not sustainable, and that any way of human life much beyond the stoneage is simply delaying the inevitable collapse of human populations. that's not where jensen's focus is, though. his focus is in getting people to realise that humans will not voluntarily give up this way of life, that this way of life is destroying life as we know it on the planet, and that it has to stop (realising, of course, that i'm not in anyway a spokesperson for jensen!) the more people that dedicate their lives to stopping the destruction, the better. right now there are so few people dedicated to stopping it, that they're effectively useless. most primitivists try to live out their ideals to the best of their ability, so that they're not causing more destruction. hence the call for rewilding; it's a natural, reciprocal way of living. jensen, however, wants people to rise up and actively stop the destruction, rather than just not adding to it. hence me calling him an agitator rather than a primitivist.

[lahermite.livejournal.com]

that's why it's an ideal for some people. we can debate all we want what actually *is* sustainable, but all the arguing in the world doesn't stop the destruction happening. and that's why jensen's approach, it seems, is to simply get the machine stopped. he's speaking for the earth-as-primary, everyone else is speaking for humanity as primary. therein lies the difference. if you think we can exist with anything much beyond the stoneage, you're thinking in terms of human-primary, because, really, anything much beyond the stoneage is *not* sustainable. it all requires domination over the earth, it all requires humans as The Dominant Species, it all requires slavery of land and "lesser" beings. but that grey area of what is sustainable and what's not is really minor. it becomes argument and not action. jensen calls for action. we're a looooooooong way from being back at the stoneage. there's a whole lot of infrastructure that is undeniably destructive, that getting rid of won't return us to the stoneage but will, maybe, say, save the polar bears. instead of debating exactly what *is* sustainable, let's get rid of the bits we can agree aren't. otherwise we're just twiddling our thumbs making ourselves look good while the empire is destroying our planet.

(we can, of course, debate *why* anything much beyond the stoneage isn't sustainable. i just wanted to try to highlight jensen's (possible) point, as that seemed to be what you were talking about.)

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

I put this to him that he was illustrating the problem exactly, and he laughed some more and reached for the cream.