Read Online Endgame Vol.1 by Derrick Jensen - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Derrick Jensen
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listen to these scientists?”
“It depends on how much denial they’re in. But the bottom line is that what they’re describing is no big surprise. It’s what happens when a person is under stress: she can only take so much before she falls apart. This is what happens in relationships. It happens in families. It happens in communities. Naturally it will be true on this larger scale, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“We work as hard as we can, even overextend ourselves, to maintain our stability, and when the pressure gets too much, something’s got to give. We collapse. Sometimes that’s bad, sometimes it’s good.”
There was silence while I thought about the fact that some collapses are unnecessary—the breaking down of prisoners under torture, the systematic dismantling of self-esteem under the grinding regime of an abusive parent or partner, ongoing ecological apocalypse—while others can be healing.
She continued, “It’s obvious why people try to maintain healthy structures that make them happy. It’s not always quite so obvious why we, and I include myself, seem to work just as hard to maintain structures and systems that make them miserable. We’re all familiar with the notion that many addicts have to hit rock bottom before they change, even when their addiction is killing them.”
I asked, “When do you think the culture will change?”
“This culture is clearly addicted to civilization,” she said. “So I think the answer to that question is another one: how far down does it have to go before it hits bottom?”
I talked to another friend about all of this. It was late at night. The wind blew outside. The computer was off. We heard the wind. This friend, an excellent
thinker and writer, used to live in New York City, and carries with her a certain loyalty not only to that great city, but to cities in general. She was simultaneously sympathetic to and exasperated by me and what I said. After we’d been talking for hours, she asked, reasonably enough, “What right do you have to tell people they can’t live in cities?”
“None at all. I couldn’t care less where people live. But people who live in cities have no right to demand—much less steal—resources from everybody else.”
“Do you have a problem if people in cities just buy them?
“Buy resources, or people?” I was thinking of a line by Henry Adams: “We have a single system,” he wrote, and in “that system the only question is the price at which the proletariat is to be bought and sold, the bread and circuses.” 41
She didn’t laugh at my joke. She didn’t think it was funny. Neither did I, but probably for a different reason.
I asked, “Buy them with what?”
“They give us food, we give them culture. Isn’t that the way it works?”
Ah, I thought, she’s following the Mumford line of thought. I asked, “What if the people in the country don’t like opera, or Oprah, for that matter?”
“It’s not just opera. Good food, books, ideas, the whole cultural ferment.”
“And if people in the country like their own food, their own ideas, their own culture?”
“They’re going to need protection.”
“From whom?”
“Roving bands of marauders. Bandits who will steal their food.”
“What if the only marauders are the people from the city?”
She hesitated before saying, “Manufactured goods, then. Because of economies of scale, people in the city can import raw materials from the countryside, work them into things people can use, and sell them back.” Her first degree was in economics.
“What if people in the countryside also don’t want manufactured goods?”
“Modern medicine then.”
“And if they don’t want that? I know plenty of Indians who to this day refuse all Western medicine.”
She laughed and said, “So we go the opposite direction. Everybody wants Big Macs.”
I shook my head, and more or less ignored her joke, as she’d ignored mine, for maybe the same reason.
“It depends on how much denial they’re in. But the bottom line is that what they’re describing is no big surprise. It’s what happens when a person is under stress: she can only take so much before she falls apart. This is what happens in relationships. It happens in families. It happens in communities. Naturally it will be true on this larger scale, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“We work as hard as we can, even overextend ourselves, to maintain our stability, and when the pressure gets too much, something’s got to give. We collapse. Sometimes that’s bad, sometimes it’s good.”
There was silence while I thought about the fact that some collapses are unnecessary—the breaking down of prisoners under torture, the systematic dismantling of self-esteem under the grinding regime of an abusive parent or partner, ongoing ecological apocalypse—while others can be healing.
She continued, “It’s obvious why people try to maintain healthy structures that make them happy. It’s not always quite so obvious why we, and I include myself, seem to work just as hard to maintain structures and systems that make them miserable. We’re all familiar with the notion that many addicts have to hit rock bottom before they change, even when their addiction is killing them.”
I asked, “When do you think the culture will change?”
“This culture is clearly addicted to civilization,” she said. “So I think the answer to that question is another one: how far down does it have to go before it hits bottom?”
I talked to another friend about all of this. It was late at night. The wind blew outside. The computer was off. We heard the wind. This friend, an excellent
thinker and writer, used to live in New York City, and carries with her a certain loyalty not only to that great city, but to cities in general. She was simultaneously sympathetic to and exasperated by me and what I said. After we’d been talking for hours, she asked, reasonably enough, “What right do you have to tell people they can’t live in cities?”
“None at all. I couldn’t care less where people live. But people who live in cities have no right to demand—much less steal—resources from everybody else.”
“Do you have a problem if people in cities just buy them?
“Buy resources, or people?” I was thinking of a line by Henry Adams: “We have a single system,” he wrote, and in “that system the only question is the price at which the proletariat is to be bought and sold, the bread and circuses.” 41
She didn’t laugh at my joke. She didn’t think it was funny. Neither did I, but probably for a different reason.
I asked, “Buy them with what?”
“They give us food, we give them culture. Isn’t that the way it works?”
Ah, I thought, she’s following the Mumford line of thought. I asked, “What if the people in the country don’t like opera, or Oprah, for that matter?”
“It’s not just opera. Good food, books, ideas, the whole cultural ferment.”
“And if people in the country like their own food, their own ideas, their own culture?”
“They’re going to need protection.”
“From whom?”
“Roving bands of marauders. Bandits who will steal their food.”
“What if the only marauders are the people from the city?”
She hesitated before saying, “Manufactured goods, then. Because of economies of scale, people in the city can import raw materials from the countryside, work them into things people can use, and sell them back.” Her first degree was in economics.
“What if people in the countryside also don’t want manufactured goods?”
“Modern medicine then.”
“And if they don’t want that? I know plenty of Indians who to this day refuse all Western medicine.”
She laughed and said, “So we go the opposite direction. Everybody wants Big Macs.”
I shook my head, and more or less ignored her joke, as she’d ignored mine, for maybe the same reason.
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