joshmay
05-13-2008, 07:14 PM
for the first 194,000 years of humanity's 200,000 year history, humans viewed the world and its living creatures as sacred, as having souls or spirits. a person who caused permanent harm to that world was condemned as insane and banished from the tribe. the members of the tribe realized that he was destroying the world of his children's children, an unthinkable and aberrant act.
the ancient peoples understood: when you kick your mother (earth), she kicks back. she does not roll over and submit to her own death.
...
our dominator culture is, in many ways, a cult of death. our leaders and image-makers seem to love war. the sue the term to describe actions we consider good, such as the 'war on poverty' or the 'war on illiteracy' or the 'war on drugs'. ironically, our war on insects has brought us an actual increase in insect-caused crop losses over the past 40 years. our antibiotic war on germs has brought us new and incredibly virulent forms of easily transmitted, common, and now lethal bacteria. and, of course, human warfare has caused indescribable death and destruction to generations since he beginning of our warrior civilizations seven thousand years ago.
oscar wilde was absolutely correct, in my opinion: war is vulgar. the continual glorification of this killing through nationalism and media and dominant culture in general only guarantees more pain and human suffering in the future. the mythos of the warrior-hero is intrinsic to industrialized culture east and west. this mythos enabled hitler to gain the support of his people as he moved against neighboring states. this enabled tojo to do the same in his war against china. this cultural myth ensured that 'pioneers' who 'conquered the west' would be viewed romantically by americans (and other nationalities).
one cannot fight against war: one can only see it for the vulgarity it is and choose, as the shoshone people did for ten thousand years, to walk away from it.
somewhere along the line our culture came up with the idea that everything on the planet exists for us. no matter that a forest may be filled with other life-forms, from mammals to lizards to birds to insects: because the world was made for us we can wipe it out and convert the soil to the production of human food
this and the war mythos are inextricably intertwined.
if another non-human life form begins to compete with our younger culture for our food or the space to grow that food, we exterminate it.
on the other side of human culture are people who see other lifeforms as having the same right to the earth as do humans. these peoples' cultures are usually organized in the tribal/cooperative/community fashion, and just as they work to cooperate with other humans, they also cooperate with nature. while they may (and do) compete with other species for food, they do not destroy those competitors. as daniel quinn so elegantly points out in 'ishmael', the concept of 'you may compete but you may not destroy your competitors' is one of the basic laws of nature. with very few exceptions, animals and plants compete with each other for food and access to sunlight energy, but they do not set out to utterly destroy other species as part of that competition.
this concept of competition- as an alternative to genocidal warfare- is one that we desperately need to incorporate into the weave of our cultural fabric. doing so begins with a critical mass of individuals seeing and understanding its importance, and sharing that story with others. as we see and share and change, we begin the process of transforming humanity and the world.
in small ways we can begin this- organic gardening, for example, competing with the insects and weeds for our food but not exterminating them.
in larger ways, we can do this economically by doing commerce as much as possible with local vendors, building the local community. i was at a talk bill mckibben gave at milbrook college in vermont, and he told the new students how he lives a "one store" policy : if there is more than one of a store, he doesn't patronize it.
what an elegant statement of the renunciation of the type of economic "take no enemies" warfare that has laid waste to small, family-operated businesses and local economies across the world!
and in the largest ways, we can work to create cooperative businesses and communities which operate on this principle, to infiltrate the concept into government, to spread the idea through our writing and speaking.
this is just a small part of the bigger picture the book discusses.
thoughts? (on the ideas, not the work itself)
the ancient peoples understood: when you kick your mother (earth), she kicks back. she does not roll over and submit to her own death.
...
our dominator culture is, in many ways, a cult of death. our leaders and image-makers seem to love war. the sue the term to describe actions we consider good, such as the 'war on poverty' or the 'war on illiteracy' or the 'war on drugs'. ironically, our war on insects has brought us an actual increase in insect-caused crop losses over the past 40 years. our antibiotic war on germs has brought us new and incredibly virulent forms of easily transmitted, common, and now lethal bacteria. and, of course, human warfare has caused indescribable death and destruction to generations since he beginning of our warrior civilizations seven thousand years ago.
oscar wilde was absolutely correct, in my opinion: war is vulgar. the continual glorification of this killing through nationalism and media and dominant culture in general only guarantees more pain and human suffering in the future. the mythos of the warrior-hero is intrinsic to industrialized culture east and west. this mythos enabled hitler to gain the support of his people as he moved against neighboring states. this enabled tojo to do the same in his war against china. this cultural myth ensured that 'pioneers' who 'conquered the west' would be viewed romantically by americans (and other nationalities).
one cannot fight against war: one can only see it for the vulgarity it is and choose, as the shoshone people did for ten thousand years, to walk away from it.
somewhere along the line our culture came up with the idea that everything on the planet exists for us. no matter that a forest may be filled with other life-forms, from mammals to lizards to birds to insects: because the world was made for us we can wipe it out and convert the soil to the production of human food
this and the war mythos are inextricably intertwined.
if another non-human life form begins to compete with our younger culture for our food or the space to grow that food, we exterminate it.
on the other side of human culture are people who see other lifeforms as having the same right to the earth as do humans. these peoples' cultures are usually organized in the tribal/cooperative/community fashion, and just as they work to cooperate with other humans, they also cooperate with nature. while they may (and do) compete with other species for food, they do not destroy those competitors. as daniel quinn so elegantly points out in 'ishmael', the concept of 'you may compete but you may not destroy your competitors' is one of the basic laws of nature. with very few exceptions, animals and plants compete with each other for food and access to sunlight energy, but they do not set out to utterly destroy other species as part of that competition.
this concept of competition- as an alternative to genocidal warfare- is one that we desperately need to incorporate into the weave of our cultural fabric. doing so begins with a critical mass of individuals seeing and understanding its importance, and sharing that story with others. as we see and share and change, we begin the process of transforming humanity and the world.
in small ways we can begin this- organic gardening, for example, competing with the insects and weeds for our food but not exterminating them.
in larger ways, we can do this economically by doing commerce as much as possible with local vendors, building the local community. i was at a talk bill mckibben gave at milbrook college in vermont, and he told the new students how he lives a "one store" policy : if there is more than one of a store, he doesn't patronize it.
what an elegant statement of the renunciation of the type of economic "take no enemies" warfare that has laid waste to small, family-operated businesses and local economies across the world!
and in the largest ways, we can work to create cooperative businesses and communities which operate on this principle, to infiltrate the concept into government, to spread the idea through our writing and speaking.
this is just a small part of the bigger picture the book discusses.
thoughts? (on the ideas, not the work itself)