Note: I wrote this a while back. For a while, I was quite impressed with some of Jensen’s rhetoric — and in terms of education, I still apply some of his ideas, though in what I think is a more rigorous and sensible form. But on his endless vilification of “civilization” and “the culture,” I have lost my patience. To take the man seriously is to see the holes in his arguments. He’s no more a hypocrite than most of us — but he is more self-righteous in his hypocrisy.
My disenchantment with Derrick Jensen is now utterly complete. I googled his name and one of the first links was to a post where, back in 2004, Dirty Greek posted an interview Derrick Jensen from the Ecologist (March 2004). It was supposed to be a simply Q&A with five best book recommendations by Jensen, an author himself. The answers he gave are revealing.
Question one: Which book first made you realise that something was wrong (with the planet/political system/economic system, etc)?
My answer: It wasn’t a book. It was the destruction of place after place that I loved. And it was the complete insanity of a culture where so many people work at jobs they hate: What does it mean when the vast majority of people spend the vast majority of their waking hours doing things they’d rather not do? The culture itself convinced me something was wrong, by being so extraordinarily destructive, of human happiness, and far more importantly, the world itself.
That said, Neil Evernden’s The Natural Alien was the first book I read that let me know I was not insane: that the culture is insane. It was the first book I read that did not take the dominant culture’s utilitarian worldview as a given.
Uh huh. The culture is insane. Which culture, Derrick? Every culture has exploited the earth, at some point, and learned to live with the results. Yes, this is not cool. No, we are not the first and only.
Yes, I agree that it sucks that people have to do stuff they don’t like to do, or want to do, all day long. However, not all of us are bestselling authors who can charge $100/hour for webcam chats, or $60 a year for a subscription to our works in progress, or $18 for a t-shirt with a quote from our books. And no, I’m not saying he’s getting rich off his books and T-shirts and webcam-speaking gigs. I’m saying that most people don’t have many options. You want to wipe out evironmental trashing? Wipe out poverty first, and you’ll have masses both free and able to join the bigger fight.
Question two: Which one book would you give to every politician?
Answer: One that explodes.
Before you freak out, let’s change the question and see what you think: Which one book would you give to Hitler, Goering, Himmler, and Goebbels?
Let’s ask this another way: Would a book have changed Hitler? I don’t think so. Unless it exploded.
And before you freak out at the comparison of modern politicians to Hitler and his gang, try to look at it from the perspective of wild salmon, grizzly bears, bluefin tuna, or any of the (fiscally) poor or indigenous human beings. Those in power now are more destructive than anyone has ever been. And they are for the most part psychologically unreachable. And if someone does reach some politician, that politician will no longer be in power.
I recently shared a stage with Ward Chuchill. He said the primary difference between the U.S. and the Nazis is that the U.S. didn’t lose.
I responded with one word: “Yet.”
Because that’s the primary difference.
Except that this kind of talk is what drives the people in the middle over to the right. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Jensen’s passionate roleplaying as an extremist surely does sell books, but it does not help spread his message. The extremism rocks the converted, turns them into passionate consumers of his writing, but it does nothing to change the culture. That’s the secret paradox of the role Jensen plays — most people will never, ever trust him or someone like him.
But the converted, they’re going to be great consumers.
He’s right, most books won’t change the politicians — but not because they’re like Hitler. Most books — maybe no books — will change politicians because politicians are humans, and books will never change most human beings.
Jensen’s books don’t change people either, not beyond the small niche of people who are looking to be changed and seek out books like his. And his lack of faith, while it is surprisingly realistic, doesn’t line up with the little niche of book-publishing, public speaking, and so on that he’s created for himself.
Question three: What book would you give to every CEO?
Answer: See above.
Exploding books. So there’s a real consistency here. And a real, palpable hopelessness.
Question four: What book would you give to every child?
Answer: I wouldn’t give them a book.
Oh, wow! I expected another exploding book! Maybe Jensen doesn’t hate humanity… or, no, wait, a more sensible explanation is that advocating violent death for children will put his consumer base off, and he cannot afford to do so.
Of course, if he had his way, most of those children would die. After all, he’s the guy who advocates the termination of civilization. He seriously wants to get rid of it, or says he does. Only someone who lives in America — hell, in California — could miss the larger implications of such a desire.
If you do away with civilization, and thereby do away with all the technologies that facilitate modern agriculture and aquaculture and the infrastructure that moves things like food and clothing and fuel around, how will people eat? How will they stay warm in winter? It’s one thing for Derrick to do okay out, Thoreau-like, in the woods in a cabin for a while, as he describes in A Language Older Than Words. It’s quite another for everyone in the world to suddenly have to do so. The termination of civilization as we know it would result in a massive die-out of humanity, because of the simple fact that we’re dependent on our technologies to support the population we’re at right now.
All those dams Jensen hates so much — that he keeps advocating blowing up — are there to provide the electricity so you can read his webpage, and cook your food. They’re there to keep water in reserve so you have something to drink or wash your body and clothing in next week.
Are they perfect? Are they optimal? No, of course not. They can be massively improved. But should we just trash technology and civilization? Jensen that’s the message I take from Jensen’s writing: yes, we should. Perhaps he should get on a plane (or a boat, or a hot-air-balloon) and go visit someplace like Liberia, or Somalia. Places where the civilization he hates so much has already broken apart. Because what you get when you get rid of civilization is not some mythic, Rousseauian return to nature. What you get is roving bands of youths with guns, raping and killing and eating whatever they find, including some of those they rape and kill. What you get when civilization falls apart is chaos. Mass starvation. And an even more desperate, rapacious attitude toward nature.
Wouldn’t it be more merciful to give those kids exploding books than to advocate abandoning them to that hellscape?
Books are part of the problem: this strange belief that a tree has nothing to say until it is murdered, its flesh pulped, and then (human) people stain this flesh with words.
Says the bestselling author, I wish to note. I am glad I didn’t pay much for my used copies of those samples of his work that I own — with the exception of one book — because, hey, I was saving trees. Glad to have spared you the sin of making money off something you fundamentally oppose, Mr. Jensen.
I would take children outside, and put them face to face with chipmunks, dragonflies, tadpoles, hummingbirds, stones, rivers, trees, crawdads.
How very California. What about if you’re in the desert? Nature for Jensen is California forests, or maybe the West Coast. Someone like him would not last 3 days on the outback without a guide. Why? Oh, yes — ecocide. All those dangerous, poisonous critters — all the dangerous, stomping megafauna? The evil, terrible humans used their civilization — er, wait, they were peace-loving, egalitarian naturalist Indians, right? They can’t have had a civilization, since, in Jensenist thought, civilization is based on violence. So why is there evidence that they caused the biggest of megafauna to go extinct in the Americas, just like humans seem to have done everywhere they’ve gone? Hey, maybe they were tainted by civilization after all.
My goodness. Maybe ecocide is bigger than we thought, Derrick. Maybe we have to abolish not just civilization, but humanity in general!
The scary thing is that in his radical-chic mode, I am not sure he wouldn’t agree with the abolition of humanity. Hell, he may have written of it somewhere already!
That said, if you’re going to force me to give them a book, it would be The Wind in the Willows, which would I hope remind them to go outside.
Oh, wow, another surprise. I would have thought he’d have produced a series of children’s books by now. Well, he must not have, because if he had, rest assured, he’d be flogging it here.
Question five: It’s 2050. The ice caps are melting, sea levels are rising. You’re only allowed one book on the Ark. What is it?
Answer: I wouldn’t take a book, and I wouldn’t get on the ark. I would kill myself (and take a dam out with me).
Quick Question #1: Does it seem apparent that blowing up a dam would achieve a bloody thing when the world is being flooded by endless rains?
(Yeah, I didn’t think so. Oh, right, it’s a masturbatory fantasy. It also shows Jensen’s lack of imagination. That dams will be a major problem in 2050 assumes we won’t have made strides in any number of technologies. Jensen’s assumption is right out of Orwell: the current status quo will perpetuate itself exactly, forever — a boot stamping on a human face, yadda yadda yadda.)
Quick Question #2: Okay, then I’ll save your spot on the ark for my girlfriend, alright? Thanks Derrick.
I do not want to live without a living landbase. Without a living landbase I would already be dead.
Yet, paradoxically, you wouldn’t be, because dead men cannot kill themselves. So you’d miss the chance to tell your children how the world used to be. You’d miss the chance to seal up old issues of Nature in an airtight container for generations to come. (Which puts me in mind of Bruce Sterling’s short-short “Message Found in a Bottle” — in Visionary in Residence — a story that seemed bleak when I first read it. Wow, Derrick Jensen has succeeded in making it positively optimistic!) You’d miss out on seeing if maybe the waters subsided a decade later. You also missed how unscientific that question was: there would be a landbase, it’d just be smaller. There isn’t enough water on earth to submerge everything, after all.
No book would even remotely compensate. Not a million books. Not a million computers. Not a million people would compensate.
Not even six billion, or eight billion. Freedom, no matter what the cost. Gotcha, Derrick.
As for me, I’m on the side of life. I agree, we’re idiots when it comes to nature. We’re assholes.
But unlike Jensen, I haven’t given up on us. I have the guts to admit that while I love the natural world, we are part of that natural world, and, yes, humanity is the part I’m most concerned about keeping alive.
I also have the guts to trust in science and technology, and not just in the newagey ramblings and subjective impressions of a bestselling nature author, ramblings the logic behind which is so shaky that I only pray Jensen himself doesn’t take them anywhere near as seriously as he appears to do. But, of course he doesn’t. If he did, he’d be advocating we all trashed our computers, and he wouldnt’t have a web page, right? I mean, the amount of energy the Internet uses, alone, should be enough for him to be calling on idiots worldwide to crash the net.
Yes, I daresay he’s not quite as science-savvy as he makes himself out to be. In A Language Older Than Words, he explained that he’d trained as a scientist (a B.S. in Mineral Engineering Physics from the Colorado School of Mines, says Wikipedia) and left the field in disgust. Yeah, well, I don’t know whether a BA in something counts that much for cred anymore: I graduated with a BA in Music and English Lit and when I arrived at grad school to study lit more, I was completely out to sea. I pulled myself to the banks, surely, but it was not because I had a BA in anything. Jensen’s cred as a scientist, it means very little, I think, in the big picture.
Still, who can blame him? The evironmentalist-extremist author niche was wide open, and everyone’s gotta make a living. He’s probably having fun. He might even have convinced himself to believe some of the silliness he spouts, in which case, there’s the effervescent endorphin high of self-righteous rage. But as for me, I will trust to other, more measured, and perhaps more mature, and definitely more hopeful minds to keep our world going.
For even more proof of the intolerant cult of jensen I suggest you join his discussion group (if they “allow” you in that is)
Hi Wendy
Apocalyptic vision? Wendy, if you would look on YouTube (there are numerous other sources on the web) and you will many commentators sharing the same or similar scenario to Jensen’s which, âapocalypticâ is but just one scenario.
I have emailed Jensen several times and I have received replies (though not always); none of them hostile either. He is a busy man and no doubt getting busier as more and more become interested in his work? Jensen is up front in that there are plenty of places on the web where detractors can voice their anti-Jensenist voice and you are on Gordsellar doing exactly that, right? I havenât read the blog which you kindly have suggested, I intend to print it off and read it though. Thanks. As I have said previously in recent posts, I donât agree with everything Jensen states and much is down to how one interprets the word of another.
Evidence does matter, I agree. But what is evidence? Who can be trusted to independent anymore, if ever?
As for the environment movement, perhaps there is an argument that that many in the environmental movement are in it to feel good, have good employment, etc and the environment comes second or further down their list? I say this because, I take it we agree, that despite all the environmental movements over the years, the situation for the environment, as a whole, is not improving. Personally, I am not particularly concerned about environmental movements; I am concerned about the environment which is different.
Also, why are you and others getting so het up over Jensen? What is your real issue; is it with him? Do you write to everyone with whom you donât agree or question their premises? My interpretation regarding his basic âpremiseâ is that even with all the campaigning etc, the landbase etc is still being destroyed and that human existence is being reduced to obedience, economics and techno-bureaucrats with any semblance of democracy all but dead and that many people feel they have little control over their own lives etc and I am sure you would agree with all this as a âseriousâ environemtalist? What is a âseriousâ environmentalist anyway; is there a criteria: a person spec?
However, you seem to think that by carrying being a serious environentalist is sufficient to stop the destruction which, history is showing us (premise) that not to be the case, do you agree on this? And if you, what would suggest is the way to save what is left: carrying on campaigning?
I would imagine Jensen does not have the time to debate every issue, every disagreement etc and people get pissed off with him about that. Likewise, I doubt whether his spends his time replying to those who support his ideas as that too would be taking time out from he appears to be fully committed to: the landbase? As for the books and other material; should he drop down dead tomorrow; the ideas are still there. Nobody has to buy his books etc as there are libraries and other ways of sharing the cost.
If Jensen died tomorrow, I would assume his ideas/premises would carry on. For me, Jensen is irrelevant, it is the ideas that matter and I do not think the premises are wild and that of a mind which is detached from reality.
As an aside, certainly with peak oil, people will need to prepare for a very different future. I hope that no more oil is found. The irony is that maybe with oil being used up; this will force people into thinking differently and civilisation, as we have known it, will be based on different values etc?
The ideas resonate with a great many people from many parts of the world. If you think his premises are weak or whatever then make sure people get to hear and/or read your take on the premises. I would be interested to read what you have to say but imagine someone having do that with the amount of correspondence he must receive.
He doesnât claim to have all the evidence. I donât claim to have all the evidence and I am sure you donât either. Indeed, Jensen makes clear the role of propaganda on all sides but how many people believe that the landbase is good shape? Why donât start up a n anti-Jensen website and see what the response is; perhaps any debate to be had could be had on your site? How about an anti-premises site with a forum where your evidence can be debated and where you would have to find time to answer each and evryone of your critics?
If he didnât take questions and face his critics; would he go on television programmes such Democracy Now, agree to radio interviews and take questions etc?
Dave
I’m very amused by Dave Watts being all angry that someone would be put off by a statistic that is wrong, and then would go on to ask for evidence that Jensen’s crowd is cult-like. Presumably if Watts is so “into” Jensen, evidence must not matter so much to him.
And if all the testimony above about the cult-like nature of Jensen’s following isn’t evidence enough, I suggest you consider that it’s the only webforum I’ve ever seen where one has to actually avow subscription to the views of the owner in order to be allowed to participate.
If one’s ideas are sensible, then criticism will not be viewed as toxic. Rather, it is when one’s thinking is shot full of holes and illogic and ethical problems that one is likely to behave as Jensen does, ignoring criticisms as “distractions” and treating criticism itself, or even mere disagreement, as toxic.
When someone starts shutting down the discussion, it’s a good sign that their position is indefensible, and that deep down they realize this.
You ask, “How can anyone demand from anyone that one must agree?” Well, go check out Jensen’s forum if you want an example. If you disagree, openly, as Wendy as mentioned, you will get shut out, and silenced. Such dissent is not tolerated.
By the way, the money criticism: I agree, everyone has to make a living. Jensen’s approach to monetizing his work is one I’ll admit has been gaining popularity among self-respecting not-famous writers, sort of. (They tend not to show drafts of their work-in-progress to people for pay, the way Jensen does, but they are starting to webpublish for direct author-consumer renumeration, or as a form of fundraising.)
And as for charging $100/hour to talk on the phone or by videochat… uh, yeah, whatever.
And Dave, if you go see what Wendy linked, you will have to admit she’s a committed environmentalist, and made a real effort to dialog with Jensen… to no avail, because of the man himself. Personally, I think Jensen’s a nut and trying to engage with him critically is likely as much of a waste of time as engaging critically with the dude on the corner in Seattle who believes he rode to Earth on a ship piloted by Sun Ra… so, okay, you can accuse me of rejecting Jensen out of hand, though I’d have to say I’ve seriously read some of his work with an open mind — and found it wanting–which is more than you’re doing with the comments on this thread.
But Wendy gave it a college try, and got nowhere, and so have many other people in this comment thread. Read those comments. Think seriously about it. Surely not everyone who objects to Jensen’s ideas does so from a place of ignorance, or unwillingness to listen. And surely some of the criticisms of his work raised here–the factual inaccuracies in the man’s work, as well as Jensen’s studious disinterest in important implications of what he’s calling for, Jensen’s very apparent mental health issues, and Jensen’s wild assertions of many kinds–are indeed sensible criticisms. Surely there has to be a point at which one stops and says, “No, I can’t take your ideas seriously anymore.” That point must exist for you, as it does for everyone and for every leader of a movement.
I submit that by the character of your responses, the reason you’re not at that point of rejection of Jensen’s ideas, and many of us are, has nothing to do with the validity of his ideas; rather, I think that it is the emotional core of his message–that the human world is irreparably fucked up, and needs to be torn down–is what has most of his followers, including you, convinced he’s hit the nail on the head. The narrative is compelling, but the hypnosis it induces is itself symptomatic of a problem in Jensen’s movement.
Gordsellar
For some reason, your site turns changes my apostrphies and paragraphs? Any suggestions?
Dave
Hi Wendy
Apocalyptic vision? Has Jensen ever described his writing as being “apocalyptic” or is this how others describe his writings?
Wendy, if you would look on YouTube (there are numerous other sources on the web) and you will many commentators sharing the same or similar scenario to Jensen’s which, “apocalyptic” is but just one scenario.
I have emailed Jensen several times and I have received replies (though not always); none of them hostile either. He is a busy man and no doubt getting busier as more and more become interested in his work? Jensen is up front in that there are plenty of places on the web where detractors can voice their anti-Jensenist voice and you are on Gordsellar doing exactly that, right? I haven’t read the blog which you kindly have suggested, I intend to print it off and read it though. Thanks. As I have said previously in recent posts, I don’t agree with everything Jensen states and much is down to how one interprets the word of another.
Evidence does matter, I agree. But what is evidence? Who can be trusted to independent anymore, if ever?
As for the environment movement, perhaps there is an argument that that many in the environmental movement are in it to feel good, have good employment, etc and the environment comes second or further down their list? I say this because, I take it we agree, that despite all the environmental movements over the years, the situation for the environment, as a whole, is not improving. Personally, I am not particularly concerned about environmental movements; I am concerned about the environment which is different.
Also, why are you and others getting so het up over Jensen? What is your real issue; is it with him? Do you write to everyone with whom you don’t agree or question their premises? My interpretation regarding his basic “premise” is that even with all the campaigning etc, the landbase etc is still being destroyed and that human existence is being reduced to obedience, economics and techno-bureaucrats with any semblance of democracy all but dead and that many people feel they have little control over their own lives etc and I am sure you would agree with all this as a âseriousâ environemtalist? What is a “serious” environmentalist anyway; is there a criteria: a person spec?
However, you seem to think that by carrying being a serious environentalist is sufficient to stop the destruction which, history is showing us (premise) that not to be the case, do you agree on this? And if you, what would suggest is the way to save what is left: carrying on campaigning?
I would imagine Jensen does not have the time to debate every issue, every disagreement etc and people get pissed off with him about that. Likewise, I doubt whether his spends his time replying to those who support his ideas as that too would be taking time out from he appears to be fully committed to: the landbase? As for the books and other material; should he drop down dead tomorrow; the ideas are still there. Nobody has to buy his books etc as there are libraries and other ways of sharing the cost.
If Jensen died tomorrow, I would assume his ideas/premises would carry on. For me, Jensen is irrelevant, it is the ideas that matter and I do not think the premises are wild and that of a mind which is detached from reality.
As an aside, certainly with peak oil, people will need to prepare for a very different future. I hope that no more oil is found. The irony is that maybe with oil being used up; this will force people into thinking differently and civilisation, as we have known it, will be based on different values etc?
The ideas resonate with a great many people from many parts of the world. If you think his premises are weak or whatever then make sure people get to hear and/or read your take on the premises. I would be interested to read what you have to say but imagine someone having do that with the amount of correspondence he must receive.
He doesn’t claim to have all the evidence. I don’t claim to have all the evidence and I am sure you don’t either. Indeed, Jensen makes clear the role of propaganda on all sides but how many people believe that the landbase is good shape? Why don’t start up a anti-Jensen website and see what the response is; perhaps any debate to be had could be had on your site? How about an anti-premises site with a forum where your evidence can be debated and where you would have to find time to answer each and evryone of your critics?
If he didn’t take questions and face his critics; would he go on television programmes such Democracy Now, agree to radio interviews and take questions etc?
Dave
Dave,
Are you writing your comments in a word processor with curly quotes? That would explain the gacked formatting. Please use the normal un-curly quotes and apostrophes and you shouldn’t have a problem.
I’m very amused by your being all excited (in a bad way) that someone would be put off by a statistic that is wrong, and then would go on to ask for evidence that Jensen’s crowd is cult-like. Either evidence matters, or it doesn’t. Make up your mind.
And if all the testimony above about the cult-like nature of Jensen’s following isn’t evidence enough, I suggest you consider that it’s the only webforum I’ve ever seen where one has to actually avow subscription to the views of the owner in order to be allowed to participate.
If one’s ideas are sensible, then criticism will not be viewed as toxic. While I can appreciate that Jensen is busy, I think the comments here suggest many people have experienced him not being too busy for praise, but definitely demonstrating a desire to shut down discussions that don’t take for granted his premises.
If you had actually followed that link of Wendy’s, you’d see she has gone through all of Jensen’s premises, one by one, exhaustively. The “anti-premises” site you suggest? That’s what she linked, pal. Try to keep up.
You ask, “How can anyone demand from anyone that one must agree?” Well, go check out Jensen’s forum if you want an example. If you disagree, openly, as Wendy as mentioned, you will get shut out, and silenced. Such dissent is not tolerated.
By the way, the money criticism: I agree, everyone has to make a living. Jensen’s approach to monetizing his work is one I’ll admit has been gaining popularity among self-respecting not-famous writers, sort of. (They tend not to show drafts of their work-in-progress to people for pay, the way Jensen does, but they are starting to webpublish for direct author-consumer renumeration, or as a form of fundraising.) Still, showing someone your drafts for money, and soliciting praise (but no criticism) is, well… look, it’s not what serious writers do, because serious writers put pride in their work.
As for charging $100/hour to talk on the phone or by videochat… uh, I’ll just say that SF writers are among the worst paid writers, yet I haven’t seen one offer to chat on the phone for $100 an hour… I kind of wonder what would happen if Wendy hired Jensen for a two hour phone call, and then discussed her criticisms of his work. Now that would be something to record and put online.
Personally, I think Jensen’s a nut and trying to engage with him critically is likely as much of a waste of time as engaging critically with the dude on the corner in Seattle who believes he rode to Earth on a ship piloted by Sun Ra… so, okay, you can accuse me of rejecting Jensen out of hand, though I’d have to say I’ve seriously read some of his work with an open mind — and found it wanting–which is more than you’re doing with the comments and links on this thread.
But Wendy gave it a college try, and got nowhere, and so have many other people in this comment thread. Read those comments. Think seriously about it. Surely not everyone who objects to Jensen’s ideas does so from a place of ignorance, or unwillingness to listen. And surely some of the criticisms of his work raised here–the factual inaccuracies in the man’s work, as well as Jensen’s studious disinterest in important implications of what he’s calling for, Jensen’s very apparent mental health issues, and Jensen’s wild assertions of many kinds–are indeed sensible criticisms.
Surely there has to be a point at which one stops and says, “No, I can’t take your ideas seriously anymore.” That point must exist for you, as it does for everyone and for every leader of a movement.
I submit that by the character of your responses, the reason you’re not at that point of rejection of Jensen’s ideas, and many of us are, has nothing to do with the validity of his ideas; rather, I think that it is the emotional core of his message–that the human world is irreparably fucked up, and needs to be torn down–is what has most of his followers, including you, convinced he’s hit the nail on the head. The narrative is compelling, but the hypnosis it induces is itself symptomatic of a problem in Jensen’s movement.
As for the stunning self-contradictions in the rest of your most recent comment, I don’t have time at the moment to do more than guffaw in amusement. Perhaps I will get to them later, if I have absolutely nothing to do.
Ooops, except one thing:
An author doesn’t have to describe his or her work a certain way for that characterization to be valid. Whether a Harlequin novel author sees her work as melodramatic, it can easily be described as such. When Isaac Asimov realized it, a lot of his early work is sexist in its treatment of women, and racist to boot. (And idealist, and many other things.)
Likewise, whether Jensen himself sees his work as “apocalyptic,” it clearly contains (and is motivated by the fear of) an apocalyptic vision of the earth’s future, one Jensen claims to be all about averting. Whether he will call it that is irrelevant: authors don’t get to define the understanding of their work beyond the basic job of writing it. After it goes out into the world, people can talk about it as they like. This is basic to writing, a very fundamental part of the work of a writer being doing the thing such that it’s clear what you mean and don’t mean.
That, at least, needed saying.
I don’t think Jensen is about averting the apocalyptic vision. He believes that the earth really cannot support human life as-we-know-it for the long term, and the sooner the crash happens, the better. He also advocates direct, violent action to hurry the process along.
I suspect he is correct about the sustainability of modern industrial civilization, I do not expect any combination of techno-fixes to do more than fiddle with the timelines, and I don’t see the cultural changes that might make for a less painful transition happening. BUT–I don’t think that any small group of self-appointed humans who think, like the fundamentalist Christians “We’ve got the answer” should be attempting to push us over the edge. That is a level of hubris that I cannot support, and I find it a bit scary.
I am admittedly of a slightly more mystical turn than many of Jensen’s critics, and I believe whether it is simple self-regulation of natural systems, or some actual earth consciousness, truly unsustainable processes will come to an end (by definition, yes?). It may very well be after the last salmon is dead, and I grieve that and other loses to the natural world. BUT–sloppy research combined with irresponsible incitements to violence are enough reason to ignore the man–even as I feel, intuitively, that he is correct in many respects.
And of course, you are absolutely correct about the author not having the right to control how people judge or use his/her work once it is released. The fact that Jensen (or at least his supporters) seem not to get this is another indication that they are a bunch of control maniacs.
D. Berry,
I think the fact that Jensen believes that a crash is both inevitable and needs to happen is–though he shies away from it in everything I’ve read by him–apocalyptic, though the apocalyptic stuff is all implicit: what would happen if “the crash” (as it is romanticized) occurred would be nothing less than a mass die-off of human beings.
But when I call his vision apocalyptic, I mean that he envisions the impact of “civilization” (poorly defined as it is) on nature. He likes to talk about the death of the last salmon, and one of his books is titled “As the World Burns, 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial …”. Thinking of the world as it burning is, to me, an apocalyptic reference. Which is to say, Jensen seems to envision the future as a fork: two crashes–that of “civilization” and that of “nature”–are the only possibilities he dares envision. That is, ultimately, apocalyptic thought.
Which is not to say that the other die-offs are wonderful or tolerant. I agree with you that unsustainable is bad, and that lots of people/companies really don’t see the big picture and why sustainability matters.
But I also dare to imagine that maybe we can achieve a sustainable form of “civilization” without having to go back to the pre-industrial way of living, the way Jensen seems to think we must and will. In those conditions, the sort of burn I accidentally suffered on my leg a few days ago would probably amount to a death sentence.
Thanks for keeping this discussion going, it’s fascinating.
I think the big problem with people like Derrick Jensen is that just because you are able to see problems and talk eloquently about them, doesn’t necessarily mean you have any insights on how to fix them. It’s like the classic religion hook – Are you sad? Do you feel empty? Alone? Well of course lots of people feel that way. But it doesn’t mean that religion holds the answers, it’s just a classic mental trick. Get the person agreeing with you with some no-brainers, then it’s easy to lead them on to your more wacky stuff. Once you start nodding, it’s kinda hard for some people to stop.
I feel very foolish for having been pulled into Jensen’s mind games at all. I’ve never been one to fall for such tripe, and I should have seen through it much sooner than I did. But the fact that the world is in fact in big trouble doesn’t mean Jensen has the answers, not by a long stretch.
Incidentally, Gord, in your original reply to me you seemed on the verge of criticising my “psychoanalysis” of Jensen. I think some have felt that I somehow haven’t the right to bring up stuff like his childhood abuse when trying to determine what makes the man tick. I disagree – in my view, when an author like Jensen openly advocates the violent end of civilization, then I think we have a right to discuss everything he has written about in his book. When he put it in a published work that people could buy, then that really means that people are entitled to comment on what they read. And that includes his very obvious mental issues with abuse and victimhood. I’m sorry, but I just don’t think you can really talk about the man in a realistic fashion while ignoring that elephant in the room. Just my opinion, of course.
Thanks again,
Neil
I agree Neil–because he has quite publicly used his abuse experiences in his analysis, we have every right to include it in the discussion. The fact that he doesn’t have a solution that makes sense doesn’t mean he is wrong, or that his views are not useful. After all, Marx defined “the problem” with industrial capitalism brilliantly,prophetically and usefully. His solution, however, proved to be fantastical crap (dictatorship of the proletariat, etc.) I can imagine a future that includes some advanced technological elements, while being sustainable–Ursula LeGuin’s novel “Always coming home” get’s it about right, and Marge Peircy’s “Woman on the edge of time” is an interesting fantasy. I believe both are post-apocalyptic societies. I just don’t see anyway to get there from here with out a large reduction in population, possibly rather sudden and painful. But I could be wrong. Jensen’s love of extremes, his desire to shock, and his apparent inability or unwillingness to stop and think “I could be wrong” limit his usefulness.
Response to Dave Watts:
1. It is irrelevant whether Jensen describes his work as “apocalyptic.” It clearly is so in its implications and in what he and his followers might be willing to do (or pretend to be willing to do) to advance their eco-primitivist agenda. I’d be very interested to know what folks here thought of my analysis of Jensen posted on my blog. I know it’s REALLY long, and I don’t intend the slightest bit of arrogance in my solicitation of commentary–indeed, I am happy to respond to criticism here or there. My aim is to be very thorough and clear–hence long.
2. I have seen a number of the Youtube videos–I have really read this guy–and while there are number of possibilities, it is equally clear that Jensen is intent on that one that ends “civilization,” though–as I argue at length on my blog post–he consistenly identifies “civilization” with global capitalism–certainly a part and an enormous one–but NOT civilization.
3. You’re making excuses for a writer that will not brook criticism. There’s not much more to say here. I don’t care that he’s a busy man. I’m a busy women–every bit as much as he is or you are, and I take it to be central to my personal and professional integrity as a writer, a philosopher, and a person to directly and honestly deal with criticism–as I am right now.
4. I agree that we should be wary and critical of evidence. Having said that, however, we cannot afford to jettison the possibility that there are real facts, that they can be investigated, that we can know about the world. Science may be imperfect, to be sure, but it is not mythology. And skepticism does NOT afford the excuse to make shit up. Jensen makes shit up.
5. Of course, you’re right. There’s a difference between the environment and the environmental movements. But we must pay attention to what’s going on in the movements because what happens there has enormous potential to affect the environment. Moreover, we do not have much power as single individuals; we have power as a collective force.
6. With respect to:
“Also, why are you and others getting so het up over Jensen? What is your real issue; is it with him? Do you write to everyone with whom you donât agree or question their premises? My interpretation regarding his basic âpremiseâ is that even with all the campaigning etc, the landbase etc is still being destroyed and that human existence is being reduced to obedience, economics and techno-bureaucrats with any semblance of democracy all but dead and that many people feel they have little control over their own lives etc and I am sure you would agree with all this as a âÂÂseriousâ environemtalist? What is a âseriousâ environmentalist anyway; is there a criteria: a person spec?
However, you seem to think that by carrying being a serious environentalist is sufficient to stop the destruction which, history is showing us (premise) that not to be the case, do you agree on this? And if you, what would suggest is the way to save what is left: carrying on campaigning?”
Your claim about whether I have “some other issue” commits straw fallacy; you’re trying to distort and oversimplify my arguments in the interest of dismissing them (and the arguer): I do not have some other issue Dave. And I have made my issue with Jensen very clear: (1) Philosophically, Jensen offers a number of very bad arguments–poorly evidenced and poorly reasoned–to ends he has already determined–the end of “civilization.” (2) Morally, the implications of these arguments are potentially horrific, and they put the lie to any claim Jensen makes about his commitment to human welfare, (3) Politically, if you are correct–and Jensen is gaining power–his view needs to be countered by saner, cooler arguments backed by more reliable evidence and sounder reasoning. My Issue is that I care profoundly about the environment–AND I care profoundly about what a Jensen apocalypse would mean for those least able to withstand it–human and nonhuman.
7. When you say that you hope that no more oil is found, you condemn millions of innocent human beings to starvation. Are you really OK with that?
8. I get it that Jensen has to make money–but the way he does it, as “gordseller” points out, is self-aggrandizing. When I write, my work has to undergo review by a publisher–it can be rejected, and if it is accepted, it may have to undergo revisions and alterations. NONE of this is true for Jensen. And because he is entirely unwilling–by fiat–to brook any criticism of his work on his website reading group, he is effectively soliciting money for the privilege of agreeing with him and praising him. I can’t believe you or anyone are OK with this. It is mercenary, cheap, and deeply narcissistic. Jensen’s “desire to shock,” I think, is the real story with him. He may have very meaningful environmental commitments–but Jensen’s first interest, methinks, is “Jensen.” I also think Jensen’s open game with respect to his account of his own obviously horrific past. I am happy to grant that is WAS awful. I also don’t give a damn in the following sense: Whatever his past, it has no relevance to what counts as a good environmental position or argument. It justifies absolutely NOTHING.
Wendy
Thank you, Wendy. Very clear. I would take issue with you only on point #7. If “no more oil is found” the result would not automatically be the starvation of millions–the availability of oil, and oil based agricultural production would taper off. I don’t know, and I’m not sure anyone knows, how quickly, or what other technologies (more or less damaging than oil production) would arise to replace it.
I can sympathize with Dave’s feeling about this–I often think that there will be no significant shift to more sustainable energy consumption until oil gets a lot more expensive than it is now, and an absolute (not manipulated or regulated) shortage would certainly do the trick. This is the “it’s gotta get worse before it gets better” position, and that may be the reality. Necessity being the mother of invention, etc. I’m just not willing to advocate pushing us over the edge by violent, vanguardist means.
Neil:
Well put. As for psychoanalyzing Jensen, it’s long enough ago I don’t remember whether I knew he’d mentioned that stuff in his books (and I’m too busy at the moment to reread this enormous thread). I vaguely recall wanting to “play fair” and, well, to be fair, we all have our issues — nobody who found Jensen of interest, even momentarily, could argue to be issues-free (and really, nobody in the world who is even moderately self-aware and honest could claim to have o issues at all).
But I guess I’ve come around to agreeing with you: if the man made it part of his critique, then it’s fair game for the critique of his critique too. And yeah, when someone “openly advocates the violent end of civilization” I think it’s pretty obviously an indicator of something gone wrong.
One thing I’ve been realizing over and over is just how unrecognized low-level mental disturbances are. I suspect that “the madness of crowds” makes this manifest primarily because humans as individuals have far less capacity for harm; big groups can screw up things more noticeably, and do so with disturbing regularity.
D. Berry’s point about the lack of “but I could be wrong” both as common-sense degree of self-doubt in Jensen, and as a problem in terms of what he advocates, being the kicker. I get the feeling he struggled a lot with self-esteem issues; people who overcome self-doubt sometimes find themselves less able than they should be to summon it up. Convictions take the place of a health degree of “I might be wrong, of course.”
For Wendy’s comment: you hit a bunch of nails on the head. In fact, it was when I realized point #7 (not so much in terms of peak oil, but in terms of the kind of catastrophic civilizational die-off that seems to be Jensen’s biggest hope for the future) would mean inherently a catastrophic die-off of billions of people too, I realized this guy was not just out of his head, but also calling for what amounts to genocide, if not something approaching speciescide.
It’s also rather dunderheaded because, if civilization did collapse, think about what people would do to survive. Our pressure on ecosystems would become more, not less, dire, and balance would be the farthest thing from our minds. Civilization is the reason we have the comfort to realize things like having a sustainable relationship with our environment might be a good idea. (And for all the romanticization of native peoples one wishes to fling out, go and visit Wanuskewin Heritage Park in my hometown. One thing you can see is the cliff that Cree hunters ran the bison off, facilitating large kills. And once they got horses, man, it got out of control. It wasn’t just the white man who drove the bison to near extinction… it was, indeed, a cooperative project between native Canadians and Western settlers. This is not to disrespect the 18th and 19th century Cree and other first nations, from whom people who settled in Western Canada got a lot of help at points, and learned a lot. It’s to say they were not the romanticist proto-environmentalists that some people like to pretend they were.)
And as to your last comment, D. Berry, I understand your reading of Dave Watts’ point, but it seems unclear to me that you’re painting an accurate picture of how it would play out. A slow taper might be believable if there was some kind of distributive justice in the world. But what you would see is oil-based agriculture surviving longer in places where there was more money, and crashing in places where that fuel is now dominant but where it would suddenly be out of economic reach. Not in the space of a year, but ten years is fast for the collapse of an agricultural system, because ten years isn’t really enough time to get a whole new infrastructure in place. So I do think it’d be catastrophic and starvation would claim millions or maybe billions of people. They would likely look like people who were most recently subject to starvation conditions first, and only slowly spread to, well, to the areas where participants on this discussion live.
Also, the alternative technologies, unless distributed purposefully without a profit motive, would not spread enough among the poorer areas until long after they’d saturated the richer areas.
In other words, it’s free market economics that will most likely screw up the hope of alternative systems, energy, and so on… unless of course you get aggressive development of alternative science and technology in enclaves in the developing world. Which could be possible, but… it would take a lot of people sacrificing a lot to make that possible. It’s hard to run a proper biotech lab in a region where militias might march in at any time, or where you can’t be assured of a steady water supply, or proper shipping services…
But yeah, I suspect unless there are people willing to be missionaries of science, they way so many did for religion, then it’s not going to happen.
Response to D, Berry:
Your point about #7 is certainly well taken. But I’m not sure that the Jensenites care. I don’t have any idea what technologies would replace petroleum–or if any could (I doubt that this is possible at anything like present levels of consumption), but what I am pretty clear about is that Jensen (and George Draffen–Welcome to the Machine) oppose any “technological” solution, and I know that “tapered” will mean something far more to wealthy nations who can afford it than it will to poor ones already struggling for fuel to meet even the most basic of human needs..
Indeed, part of what I think deserves a VERY much more sophisticated analysis is what these guys mean by “technology.” It’s not uncommon to find this kind of anti-technological thematic among some feminists and eco-feminists–but it often confuses tech with HIGH-tech, and paints with a very broad brush over all technologies as a sort of evil. Yet surely none of these folks really believe that, for example, the technologies responsible for the delivery of the polio vaccine is evil, or that ultrasound, PET scan, MRI scans–and an enormous array of other medical technologies are evil. No doubt tech is a highly mixed bag–but however much the clarion call of the ecoprimitivist to “go back to nature” and to reject tech seems to have moral girth, I detect both considerable hypocrisy (Jensen has a website), and a hefty dose of willful ignorance on this topic.
I too sympathize greatly with the spirit of Jensen’s environmentalism–otherwise I would not have tried so hard to engage him, his cohort (Lierre Keith), and his publisher (PM Press). Jensen is exciting to read–at first. The problem is that I began to really THINK about the implications of his cliams–and I began to realize that he doesn’t really offer arguments–but rather just repetition dressed up as “argument,” and he doesn’t really offer evidence, but rather pseudo-evidence, repetition, hack “schmevidence.” That he should be lauded as the “poet of the environmental movement” is not merely absurd, but just plain bad for any really serious environmentalism. After all, if the planet recovers–but there’s no hope of it recovering with human life still a part of it, how can we expect to motivate anyone to care? Jensen may really not care whether human life has a future or not–but I do. And I can’t imagine any environmentalism standing the least chance of being successful were it not the case that we could promise something of a meaningful survival to our children.
Briefly, with respect to Jensen’s capacity to “see problems”: I’m not really even sure this is true. To the extent that Jensen identifies everything that has been destructive of the environment as “civilization,” I’d argue that he has effectively circumvented trying to see problems. I don’t think he’s really interested in seeing them at all–at least not in any way that might jeopardize his view. He offers this blanket term “civilization” as if it did the work of careful analyses of specific environmental issues. But it doesn’t. Moreover, Jensen assumes a very contentious distinction between what counts as the environment and what counts as culture/civilization without offering a justification for the way he draws the distinction. It’s as if “anything human beings do” counts as civilization and “everything else” counts as nature/environment. The first is evil, the latter good–but this is precisely one avenue to genocide.
Wendy,
More really good points. As for technologies that could help us deal with the loss of petroleum-as-we-know-it, well, this one scares me, but could do the job (if they can engineer enough safeguards into it that it seemed unlikely to escape into the wild). I agree with whoever is quoted in that article, that we need a bunch of solutions, not one or two.
All this is frightening, but anyone who calls us to go back to nature doesn’t remember how nasty nature has been to humanity and could again be. Polio vaccines are, after all, weapons against a part of nature. And sadly, some people do revile them: there are anti-vax people in the US, at least.
For your last point, Wendy, that seems true as well. Jensen doesn’t see what the problems are because he wants to see Problems that fit his proposed Solutions. I often point out to people that “anything human beings do” is natural, as humans are, like everything else, a part of nature. Which is to say arguing about what is “natural” is a lazy shortcut to justifying whatever you like. (Saying that all we do is natural isn’t, likewise, a justification for all we do. It may be that being stupid and shortsighted is natural, but that’s no excuse for persisting in it. Human extinction would also be natural at some point, but I’m not all for that.)
To Gordselar
You wrote: I often point out to people that “anything human beings do” is natural, as humans are, like everything else, a part of nature. Which is to say arguing about what is “natural” is a lazy shortcut to justifying whatever you like. (Saying that all we do is natural isn’t, likewise, a justification for all we do. It may be that being stupid and shortsighted is natural, but that’s no excuse for persisting in it.
Then you totally contradict your own statement by saying “that’s no excuse…”
It seems you can make nature fit any requirement you wish to substantiate your arguments? On the one hand nature is total but “that’s no excuse” aka nature can be overuled!!
Cheers Gordsellar for that!
You’re a star!
Dave
Dave,
No, what I am saying is that “nature” is a value-neutral set or category. Everything we do is natural because we are part of nature. Like nature, we are not inherently nice or good all the time.
Nature cannot be overruled. Genocide is natural (and observed in all kinds of species, not just ours), as is altruism (also seen in other species). To call something natural isn’t to argue for or against it. To call something natural isn’t a sensible policy statement in any way.
To Gordsellar
Thanks for clarifying.
Is nature the same as natural selection? Do you believe in natural selection?
As nature (according to your view) is total and cannot be overuled, would you say that nature is fatalistic: what will be will be?
Everything is nature and by default, there is nothing and never has been anything and there will never be anything which is not nature, have I got that right?
Dave
Another, way of using the word is “natural” vs. “man-made”–a very common usage. I personally see both categories (if one choses to make the distinction) as value-neutral, in the sense that there are “natural” things and processes (like natural childbirth) that are often wonderful and benign. On the other hand, when a Caesarian section is necessary, it is wonderful to have high-tech medicine at our service. At this time and place, to continue with that example, there appear to be many medically unnecessary c-sections, so favoring “natural” childbirth might be seen as a policy statement (or something of the kind). In other times and places, one might reach a different conclusion. (And of course, there are degrees of intervention in births–and traditional midwives have an extensive set of technologies–just not high-tech, that they use all the time).
The nature vs. manmade way of using the word seems to draw a useful distinction. The “value neutral” definition gordsellar uses seems to render it completely meaningless.
On “Nature”: The only definition of nature and the natural that makes sense is this: Anything that is possible is natural. Period. If it can be done–if it does not violate the laws of nature–it is natural. And since it is impossible to violate the laws of nature (suspended is NOT violated), whatever can occur is natural. This is not to say that what can occur will or should occur–but what can occur is, by definition, natural because it is possible.
Tp conflate the natural with the moral–which is what we’re getting close to here–is a common strategy of the zealot–but it has NO relevance to any description of the world.
On Genocide: I would beg–most politely–to differ with Gordseller on this point. “Genocide” is no more a sensible notion to apply to nonhuman animal action than is “homosexuality.” Both apply a VERY high level of cognition, rationality, and the capacity to plan unavailable to nonhuman animals. Nonhuman animals engage in a wide variety of reproductive behaviors (note those Bonobos!), and they kill–but to describe either of these as homosexuality and genocide respectively seriously misunderstands the very real differences in intellectual capacity that distinguishes us from them. Note carefully: This is NOT any judgment of value, and it has no bearing on the capacity to suffer. It IS a claim about what we do know about nonhuman animals brains and what they can and cannot support.
To Dave:
No–nature is not identical with natural selection (nor is Gordseller suggesting it is). Nature includes both living and nonliving things in complex ecological systems. Natural Selection describes the ways in which environment and environmental change, the mechanics of reproduction, random mutation, and time “conspire” to produce subspecies better equipped to pass down their genes to future generations of a species.
The claim that Gordseller’s understanding of “nature” is fatalistic is ridiculous–sorry for the strong language, but seriously Dude–Gordseller does not assume that Nature is a conscious entity–and nature is NOT a conscious entity. But “fatalistic” implies precisely that. No, nature is not an entity at all; nature is simply that term we rather loosely apply to those ecological systems taken as a whole upon which we and all other species of living things are dependent.
Do you NOT believe in natural selection? Seriously?
There are no moral prescriptions that follow from “nature.” We do not owe nature a damn thing. If we owe, it is to futures of human beings, and to whatever else WE decide. Why must this be true? because, at least on this planet. we human beings collectively and individually, are the only creatures capable of conceiving and carrying out sophisticated notions like “Oweing.” This is not to say that other species have no moral sensibilities at all–Chimps, for example. But it is to say that only we have the cognitive hardware to conceive of the planet as “nature.”
Wendy
Dave,
Unfortunately, you seem not to be understanding the big picture.
Everything in nature is natural. Humans are in nature. Humans (and their behaviors) are therefore natural.
One thing humans do is make choices. Thus making choices is natural. (For conscious beings.) Therefore, no, nature is not (necessarily) fatalistic… at least not in the sense you mean.
(It is in the grander sense that our universe (and life in it) looks like it will, in the extremely long run, terminate in a Heat Death.)
You are right in saying that:
Yes, but I imagine you have some place you want to go with that, so allow me to reiterate, it doesn’t justify anything. I’m merely pointing out that the argument based on something being “natural” or “unnatural” is flawed by the fact that by definition, we cannot produce evidence of anything un-natural.
I see now that others commented since I opened the window. I’ll just add a couple of points:
D. Berry:
I am not rendering the word useless. The common usage of “natural” vs. “man-made” may be useful in a social sense, but the human propensity for construction is (like the beaver’s propensity for construction, or the nest-building birds’) a very natural phenomenon.
What I am saying is that the manmade vs. natural distinction is useful in social contexts: it is not useful in most big-picture contexts.
Wendy:
While I agree with a lot of what you say, I think I should clarify what I mean about genocide and homosexuality.
Of course, homosexuality is a social construct (the modern, constructed, pseudo-exclusive gender preference seen among a minority in most “modern” societies), but we see homosexual acts throughout nature. Homosexual acts therefore are quite literally “natural,” and the behavior among humans is as well. However, anyone that has looked at history, at other cultures, and so on will know that homosexual acts are contextualized differently in different cultures, not always in the way modern Western people tend to do.
As for genocide, I’m afraid I suspect you’re drawing a similarly problematic hard line between human intelligence and animal consciousness. Primatology has a lot to say about the occurrence of murderous rampages on the parts of chimpanzee bands against competitors, and that is hardly surprising: from what I’ve read here and there, it’s pretty likely humans were pretty violently eliminating rival bands of their own kind, and of other hominids when they encountered them, in much the same way.
What I am saying is that the instinctual basis for what manifests as genocide (or homosexuality, or altruism, or making shiny pretty things, or what have you) in various human cultures exists in other species too; it may not manifest in the same way across species lines, but then, it doesn’t manifest the same way across cultural lines either.
So I’m not exactly underestimating differences in intellectual capacity, I’m saying they don’t make much difference in relation to primal instincts that drive us.
But, as I noted earlier, we do have a choice. We are not slaves to our instincts. And that, too, is natural, and ought not to be used to “denaturalize” or “preternaturalize” human beings.
Gordsellar: I would respond that “social context” is big-picture. Especially now, when the social and cultural choices we make may determine how livable the ecosystem is for human beings. It would go a long way toward solving our the problem of feeding the worlds people if every ounce of organic human waste were composted and used to enhance soil fertility. There is NO technical or health-related reason not to do this. It is simply a cultural (social) bias against the process–currently re-enforced by the legal system. Let us just say that I, personally, do not find your definition of natural useful–but I very much appreciate that you have clarified what you mean by the word.
Wendy: to say, flatly “the earth is not conscious [or perhaps you said ‘sentient’]” is a religious position, like saying “There is no God.” I for one, am agnostic on both questions.
As long as we are talking definitions: Wendy said: “Indeed, part of what I think deserves a VERY much more sophisticated analysis is what these guys mean by “technology.” It’s not uncommon to find this kind of anti-technological thematic among some feminists and eco-feminists–but it often confuses tech with HIGH-tech, and paints with a very broad brush over all technologies as a sort of evil.” Would it be useful to come up with a definition of what is “tech” and what is “hi-tech?” Are these, in a historical sense, moving targets pure and simple–forged hand tools being high-tech at one point, not so much 100 years later? How do we, as a culture decided what technologies are “good” and what “bad?”
An Amish friend told me that his community (there is a lot of variation amongst communities on these questions) looks at whether a technology makes them, as individuals, more or less dependent on each other, and if the answer is “less” then they will likely not adopt it. I found this interesting, because I think that we ask the same question, but make a very different decision, and are most likely to adopt technologies which reduce the individuals dependence on others.
Social context cannot, by definition, be “big picture” because, frankly, society (and culture, albeit slightly more slowly) shifts and changes like foam on water. Our decisions matter, but what decisions we make (and can make) are constrained by our nature. We will not, for example, abandon modernity or high technology willingly.
Organic human waste: there are health reasons not to do so, from what I read, since exposing human beings to large amounts of human waste will essentially reenact the past, in that we will also be exposed to all the pathogens floating around people’s digestive systems. I’ve read that this is a common practice in parts of China, and that there are serious worries about antibiotic-resistant pandemics emerging from such practices.
You are free to hang onto your problematic dichotomy of manmade vs. natural: just be aware that it is, bigger-picture-than-society, a false dichotomy.
As for Wendy’s “religious position” I’m afraid your agnosticism isn’t really inspiring me. We are agnostic about so many unproven claims, in principle. But till we see an iota of evidence, the functional difference between agnosticism and atheism is, well, pretty much nil.
She’s also right about the luddism of certain feminists, eco-feminists, ecological activists, and other groups. Technology spans everything from flint knapping to the internet, and technologies have made our lives both better and worse all the way along. Being anti-high tech but not tech tends to be more than anything a sign that one is simply biased against new tech — for that is all “high tech” really means.
As for the Amish, their determination to exclude all technologies that reduce dependency on one another could be seen in a positive light… but there is no reason to necessarily think it ought to be. Religions we think of as “cults” also tend to encourage relationships in which individuals are dependent on others… it’s a way of bolstering dependency on the religion (as religious identity is crucial to the group) and also fostering a deep-seated inability to individualistically question, dispute, and break away. You may have a rosy vision of how societies in which people are “dependent” on one another work, but I’ll tell you what: where I am now living, Korea, is like this is a big way, and it’s not helping them be more environmentalist, more humane, or more sensible about the dire issues facing their society. Individualism has a great many benefits, whatever its costs.
And of course, there have been times when Amish people were the biggest subscription base for cell phones in a particular area. There was an article in Wired ages ago about that.
HI Gordseller:
With respect to “homosexual” and “genocidal”: No–“homosexuality” is indeed a human-made construct that has no meaningful application to nonhuman animals. And, no, I am not drawing any hard line between human consciousness and nonhuman animal consciousness. But you conflate consciousness with intellectual capacity. These are very different things. That Chimps go on “murderous rampages” may be a useful anthropomorphizing way to describe what they’re doing, but however intelligent Chimps are (and they are, AND they are conscious), “murderous rampage” presupposes a raft-load of concepts we have NO reason to believe these intelligent primates have. Think about this: What moral framework is required to be able to use and understand a concept like “murderous”? It is, in fact enormous, and presupposes a raft-load of other concepts to support it. I needn’t deny that Chimps are either conscious or intelligent to make out the case–as the considerable ethological and primatological literature supports–that “murderous” is very likely well beyond Chimp cognitive wherewithal. They are not articulating plans of attack; they re not thinking through consequences. This is not murder. It IS killing; it is highly insttructive about our own behavior. But I do not need them to be so much like human beings in order to afford them moral consideration; indeed, I think this is one of our problems–not one of our solutions to animal welfare.
I would argue that cognitive wherewithal makes no difference whatever with respect to what we may determine that we owe to Chimp welfare and moral consideration. The same reasoning applies to homosexuality. Bonobos are quite the frisky bunch–but to have a concept like “homosexuality” requires s raft-load of supporting concepts that they are deeply unlikely to have (and–in both cases–do not need). We can call such behaviors “homosexual” (or “genocidal”), but we have to acknowledge that we are speaking anthropomorphically–useful for us–but irrelevant to them. And none of this requires any hard and fast division between “us” and “them.” Instinct does not and cannot manifest itself as “genocide.” It can and does manifest itself as killing. Ditto for homosexuality.
There is a newly emergent literature on altruism–but what we need is to distinguish between behaviors and intentions–a behavior can certainly appear altruistic without any underlying intention. And just as attributing a genocidal intention to a Chimp is deeply problematic, so too is altruism. I think the bigger questions–and the morally important one is “Why do we need nonhuman animals to be like us in order to rate as morally considerable? Isn’t this just more human chauvinism?
To D. Berry: To say “flatly” that the earth is not conscious is in no way a “religious” position, but, and with due respect, a factual one. What would it even mean to say that the earth–as a whole–as a planet–was itself conscious? It is a planet–do you think Mars or Jupiter to be conscious? The Earth is, of course, home to countless conscious entities (and many MANY more unconscious ones–including living things), but this is not to say that the Earth itself is a conscious entity. The latter commits fallacy of composition–just because the members of a thing have a certain quality does not imply that the thing itself has that quality. But let me turn it around: What is the EVIDENCE that the Earth is conscious? This isn’t about religion–it’s about what can offer evidence.
On atheism: No one says (with any sense) that “there is no god,” but this isn’t because there is a god–it’s beause the burden of proof is on the believer. I am an atheist–and what this means is that the burden is on the believer to show me that such an entity exists. I needn’t say a thing.
On tech VS. High-tech–certainly such distinctions are very useful–but I think we have to keep in mind that they’re also relative…what is one generations high-tech is another’s not-so-much. Moreover, I don’t think that really any technologies are “gfood” or “bad” in and of themselves–this is about what we do with them. For example, it would be my druthers 100 time over that what we decide to do with nuclear power is abandon it. But this isn’t because nuclear power is in itself an evil (I don’t buy into ANY notion of either intrinsic worth/value OR disvalue), but because our track record with respect to what we do with it is so checkered (at least), and because it IS dangerous (dangerous is not bad–some things that are dangerous are manifestly good).
The point you make about Amish communities is a very interesting one–an interesting criteria–especially for a community (at least here in PA) that is responsible for some of the worst nonhuman animal suffering I have ever seen….
To Gordsellar, Wendy, D. Berry and anyone following the thread.
First of all, I am reminded by the contributions(just of late) of the Monty Python âArgumentâ sketch: is this the right thread for an argument?
I deliberately put my contributions regarding ânatureâ to see who would bite and you did…pure nature!
An irony of this thread is that while weâre all debating the toss of this and that; the destruction of the landbase continues… so much for serious environmentalism? Perhaps, Wendy, you prefer debating more than direct action…just a thought. Who would wanna be out there in the cold anyway?
Is not debate fast becoming a luxury we can ill afford?
To Wendy
âAnything that is possible is natural. Period.â and âTp conflate the natural with the moral…â Reminder for Wendy: there is only natural (whatever that is as there is clearly more than one as this thread is informs me?), unless moral is an ingredient of natural? I wonder what else could be contained in nature/natural? Anything I like, it would seem!
Also: â…intellectual capacity that distinguishes us from themâ Humans are more intelligent than bonobos? Really? It is interesting that Wendy (who just happens to be human I presume) would say that wouldnât she? If humans were to think that we are not the most intelligent, then we would be suffering from low self esteem, ask any psychologist. That same psychologist would then try to âmanipulateâ you into thinking differently or else… to room 101 with you!!!!! I went to see a bonobo psychologist only to discover, to my knowledge, that bonobos donât need psychologists: only fucked progressive humans (with a huge need of entitlement) need to have psychologists it would seem!
And: âNo, nature is not an entity at all; nature is simply that term…â I have to ask what an entity is?
How do I recognise an entity? Criteria for an enity anyone…entries on a postcard!
Wendy continues with âDo you NOT believe in natural selection? Seriously?â I have not mentioned anything about me and what I may believe or not with regards to natural selection. On natural selction, I would ask, is it natural selection, for example, for a species to spend so many resources on keeping alive someone who has advanced dementia? Wouldnât natural selection say, âYouâre timeâs up!â
What is natural selection? I would contend that it can be anything that suits oneâs purpose. George W Bush became the President through natural selection???? Clearly, he possessed all the qualities of natural selection?????
âWe do not owe nature a damn thing.â If nature only exists as a term (whatever that means) surely it would not be possible to owe a âtermâ and by wendy writing âWe do not owe nature a damn thing.â Are you not stating a contradiction?
To Gordsellar
I can always rely on Gordsellar to put me on the ârightâ path which so happens to be his path too!
Gordsellar writes: âTherefore, no, nature is not (necessarily) fatalistic⦠at least not in the sense you mean.â If nature is total, then ALL that is, has been and ever will be is natural and therefore fatalistic? Surely, nature (being the meta-narrative) encompasses all? As you write: ââunnaturalâ is flawed by the fact that by definition, we cannot produce evidence of anything un-natural.â This also implies that we can only produce something which is natural? So, is synthetic not really synthetic but natural: it is naturally synthetic, is that it?
Lastly, Gordsellar writes âBut, as I noted earlier, we do have a choice. We are not slaves to our instincts.â How do you know this? Are instincts are natural and that is is nature and so our choice is natureâs choice as all is nature.
I have had many conversations late into the night debating the toss of such matters with each believing they are right. But where does it get us? Wendy, it would appear, believes in progress? Progress is her God/Godess?
Has anyone read the Bill Joy article (Wired 2000): âWhy the future doesnât need us.â This is progress? Where humans may become slaves to machines (natural machines of course as there is no such thing as artificial intelligence as this would be un-natural?). This is science. This is progress. All this is such a short space of time too… When I think of those primitives and their low tech life in the mud and cold…fuck that!
Hopefully, Gordsellar and Wendy will put me ârightâ on what I have written. They do this because they care about me: they want to put me on the right path.
âJensen is great. Jensen is cool. We love Jensen rah rah rah!â (Iâm shaking ma pompoms..yeeehaaa!!!!).
Dave
All,
This week is when final exams for my students start (it’s the end of the second semester of the year here in Korea) and I have some other things I will be doing, so replying here is going to be slow. I will reply to the comments directed at me, but it’s going to take a few days.
But in the meantime, Dave Watts: as I believe I pointed out a while ago, it’s because you’re commenting by typing the comment in another program, then copying it into the comment window, that the apostrophes and quotation marks are not registering well. If you want to do that, you will have to turn off “smart quotes” or choose a word processor that doesn’t style your quotes. (MS Word, and other advanced word processors, “style” quotes by turning them to curly quotes instead of the straight quotes that you’re actually typing into the program. This function is on by default. You can search online or in your word processor’s help files for more on how to turn off “smart quotes” or “curly quotes.”)
If you type your comments in Notepad (assuming your a Windows user) or some other simple word processor without a smart quotes function, then this problem will disappear.
To Gordsellar
I am copyin my thread content from Word into you Comment Box but as you can see from my previous thread, speech marks and apostrophies become corrupted into a with a roof on top. I am sorry as this is annoying to the reader. should I just compose any contribution in the Comment Box. I am just concerned that I may be timed out and my comment lost or something.
Dave
To Dave:
It is a piece of monumental arrogance to suggest
(a) That because I (or anyone) take the time to debate these vital issues that this means that I am not out there working as an activist. You are simply wrong about this. In fact–embarrassingly wrong. I suggest you Google me. This–again–is straw argument: the aim is to undermine the arguer in order to dismiss the arguments. Sorry, Dude–that doesn’t fly with any audience worth addressing.
(b) The day we stop debating about these–or a cornucopia of other–issues is the day we are DOOMED. I agree that we don’t want to let debate take the place of activism–but debate IS a central part of that activism–and without it we are vulnerable to either becoming dictators–like Jensen seems to wish for himself–or followers. You are treading very close to the rhetoric of the far right that I’ll bet you disdain. These are the words of, say a Glenn Beck–not a seriously committed THINKER activist.
Your remarks on “natural” are–well, I don’t see what you’re saying. Perhaps the grammar? Whatever is possible IS natural, Dave. Were it not possible, it could not occur at all. If it can occur, it IS natural: possible in this physical universe. The natural has no moral content–other that what We human beings give it. If you have a good argument defending intrinsic value, I’d be delighted to hear it.
Your remarks about intelligence are just silly, Dave. You seem to think I am “dissing” Bonobos. Far from it. Reread my post. I get it that you’re not much interested in science–but that is your loss. Bonobos and human beings share a great deal with respect to our evolutionary histories. But we do not share the same cognitive capacities. This is NOT a judgment of value; it is simply a fact. The claim that we would say this only because we are human beings begs the question: Show me the Bonobos that are engaged in neurophysiological investigation. Show me the Chimps that are constructing the next Mars probe. I don’t NEED nonhuman animals to have human intellects to value them. Apparently, you do. That many nonhuman animals are vastly better than we human beings are at a host of things is certainly true. My parrots are squawking at me right now–far louder than I can at them. Well and good. This is not a remark about intellect. I AM smarter than my parrots–it’s not that their brains are merely different. Their brains cannot support the smarts that mine can. That’s fact–not mere belief.
An entity is anything that takes up space and time. The earth is an entity–just not a conscious one. Why the sarcasm, Dave? Why the shrillness? What about this threatens you?
Honestly, I just don’t even know where to start here on natural selection–since you wholly confuse it with things it is manifestly not. I can say this: Until you have read the relevant literature here–at least a shred of it–you really have no say on natural selection’s veracity at all. It IS the foundational theory of the life sciences. Your remarks are rather like the kid who says he/she doesn’t like vegetables, so they must not be good for you. This, in philosophy is called the “It’s yucky, so it’s false” response.
Nature is a term that describes a vast collection of ecosystems–but there is no thing itself called Nature. Nature is not itself alive. Nature is not itself conscious. Nature is not a being. Therefore we cannot owe it. No contradiction, Dave–just misunderstanding on your part.
Truly, your missive this round is so incoherent, it makes me wonder if you wait to respond when you’re stoned or drinking or just blinded by ideological commitment. Your correspondents deserve better.
With respect to your response to Gordseller: There ARE some very interesting and difficult questions with respect to whether human beings can be said to have choices–in an otherwise causally deterministic universe. But whatever the end of that important and thorny debate, Gordseller is right on–we must assume we do have choices; otherwise we cannot take our responsibilities seriously.
Brief note on Synthetic: “Synthetic” does not mean not natural; it means “not occurring as a feature of a non-manipulated ecosystem.” AKA: artifactual. But artifacts–human-made or manipulated things are not NOT natural–they are simply altered, manipulated, interrupted, etc. natural things. We use this language–usefully–to distinguish what we discover from what we make–but it does not mean unnatural. AND the discover/make distinction is increasingly the subject of heated debate. Such is the very stuff of, say, postmodern critiques of culture.
Qua progress: Dave, please define. And please do so without the loaded bullshit. I have NO gods or goddesses. And I don’t get it at all why you think a person needs to have such things.
And of course the future doesn’t NEED us. The future is also not an entity. It is not conscious. It has no needs. Assuming you’re speaking metaphorically–also true. The future doesn’t need us. SO?
I am beginning to see why you’re a Jensen-true believer. “Ra Ra” and all. He allows you to jettison the responsibility to think in return for a place at his table. So a question: What, Dave, do you propose a committed environmentalist ought to be preparing right now to do? Are you willing to risk your life for your principles? Have you? Show me the money Dave.
Bill Joy’s article (the title is a figure of speech) was published in 2000. ” Our most powerful 21st-century technologies – robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech – are threatening to make humans an endangered species.” He believes, as I recall (it has been awhile since I read it), that some technologies are simply too dangerous to be pursued.Which brings me back to the question of “good” vs. “bad” technologies, and how we decide if a technology is useful or destructive. I am a bit cranky that, because I mentioned the Amish, Wendy and Dave responded with comments implying that I romanticized that subculture (NOT!) or that I was unaware that some Amish communities, or some Amish individuals, have behaved cruelly or immorally. I mentioned the Amish because they, and other “plain people” are one of the few groups who have taken a deliberate approach to the adoption of new technologies–in apparent contrast to the dominant culture. And I persist in thinking that a huge barrier to our finding a more sustainable way of life that we are unwilling to use all of the technologies we have available right now, because we have strong personal or cultural biases against them. Which brings us back to the technologies of human waste disposal & maintaining agricultural fertility. Gordsellar just hasn’t done the reading. His position could be called the “It’s yucky, so it must be dangerous” If human waste is not treated properly, it is dangerous. Canned foods are dangerous too, if you do it wrong–so we are careful to do it right. Properly composted human waste does not contain pathogens because it gets hot enough to kill them (no external heat source required) with the possible exception of Prions (mad cow disease and related stuff)–which almost nothing kills. If we were worried about Prions in fertilizer, we would forbid the use of cow manure as fertilizer, and right now they are selling bags composted cow manure at the local garden center.
The problem with composted sewage being used as fertilizer is not the human pathogens, but the fact that industrial waste also goes into the sewers and so the compost contains relatively high levels of heavy metals and other stuff (I have not read the analysis) which some people think is a serious problem. Thousands of people all over the country have composting toilets and outhouses and use the finished product as fertilizer without any ill effects. I know at least 30 of them personally (no, none of them are Amish). I am aware that it is a big step from a few thousand (largely rural) users of composting toilets using their OWN composted waste, to composting the huge volume of waste generated by even a small city. But still, the composting process is well understood, and it seems like such an obvious, though partial, solution that –well it is one of those pieces of irrationality that I just don’t get.
Which is more than anyone on this forum wants to know about poop, I am sure.
Response to Gordseller: I hear you, man. next week in exam week for me–though I have to say, this conversation is an ongoing more-than-wecome-distraction–and I don’t mean that in any trivializing sense. having just caught a student plagiarizing his EXTRA CREDIT (!), I’d much rather be here.
Response to Berry: I have not read this book–so I a merely responding to your description of it. BUt if I understand correctly, Joy appears to be drawing a distinction that’s at least suspect if not simply specious between the “natural” and the artifactual. The notion that there was at some point a “natural” human being as opposed to one that was not a tool-user–a technology-maker defies what we have generally meant by “human being.” It’s perfectly reasonable to query whether there are technologies we ought not pursue, but the notion that they’re likely to replace us strikes me as kind of question-begging. In one sense, they already have–and long long ago. But in another, the “post-human” seems to me to have a very human face with respect to its chauvinism and arrogance. We may well destroy ourselves via our technologies-become-weapons, but this would likely transpire long before replacement And we can at least ask this: So what? What if we did eventually replace ourselves with androids far better equipped to survive the future of earth? I’d think folks like Dave would be pretty OK with this since such androids might indeed (being smarter) come to a more ecocentric outlook that we have been able to muster.
I also don’t mean at all to romanticize your view of the Amish–my apologies if it seems that way. No, I just find it supremely ironic that a people with a pretense to a simpler way of life find themselves whole-hog (as it were) into capitalism via an industry I regard as abjectly cruel. The thing is, if they’d utilize some technologies–heat, for example, their animals might suffer a teeny bit less. This then gets to the “good” or “bad” question. Are there, do you think, technologies that are just bad? AKA: Bad on their face? bad from conception?
And I agree with you, I think our bias against technology stems perhaps from two things: (1) a deeply faulty nature/artifact split; (2) our failure to distinguish a technology from its use.
@Dave Watts
I suspect it’s primarily because you perceive us as being contrarians for having the temerity to disagree with you (or, worse, the temerity to disagree with Jensen).
Besides Wendy’s rejoinder, I’d like to see your credentials as an activist. What have you do for Mother Earth lately?
But more importantly, do you think we ought NOT to be talking and debating about this?
That’s a personal attack, and a douchebag move. Consider this your first warning. There is no second warning: after the first, I disemvowel your further comments following the next douchebag move. So watch your step.
No, because if we do away with debate and discussion, we do away with the possibility of a diverse, multifaceted approach to solving this problem. If people who are anti-tech hold sway, how would we like it when we discover actually we could have fixed our problems, but they’d shut down the discussions necessary to lead to technological components of the solution? There’s more than one way to skin a global-scale emergency, and the death of billions may be quite avoidable, despite Jensen’s fantasies to the contrary.
I suggest perhaps you need to go and get acquainted with some basic philosophy, or even just informal logic. Wendy is right that anything possible is natural, because the only antynom of natural is supernatural, and that does not exist, or, if it did, would not be relevant to this discussion. (Maybe there are ghosts or telepaths in the universe somewhere — not that I believe it, but maybe there are — but they aren’t doing anything about global warming.) Thus, everything in the phenomenal world, including the human propensity to make and use tools, including tools that could spell humanity’s doom — is natural. So, however, is our contrary capacity for reason, intellect, for recognizing we are shooting ourselves in the foot. Both of those are utterly natural.
And yes, human capacity for considering ethics is natural too. It is likely an evolved characteristic that comes as part of being a sentient, gregarious species. Humans are pack animals, so we need to have some sense of others’ experience and emotions and motivations. That awareness translates to a capacity for many of our better and worse traits — envy, jealousy, love, generosity, and so on all come out of that evolutionary wellspring.
Wendy is not lumping whatever she likes into nature. She is simply adhering to a naturalistic worldview. I don’t see how this could be interpreted as some kind of hypocritical move, though you seem to want to twist it into that.
Good grief, now you’re just arguing for the sake of arguing. This is tiresome. While I would agree that humans and chimps share a great deal of evolutionary heritage, humans cogitate about things differently than bonobos, a fact that is obvious from the observation of both species. Language is a powerful tool for cogitation, and most bonobos have a limited ability to grasp it. They’re not highly abstract thinkers like we are because we humans hacked our own brains through the development of language. It’s simple and straightforward, and accepted by primatologists everywhere. (Which doesn’t mean that chimps should have fewer rights or be treated badly or any of the things you might think I mean. It means humans are more capable of abstract thinking, of planning, of carrying out major projects. History bears this out…
I think perhaps you might want to see your bonobo psychologist for help with that one. While you’re at it, Pascal Boyer has done work on how humans cognitively perceive “agency” in other people and animals (and, mistakenly, in things or
invisibleimaginary beings). What I think Wendy means is that nature is not a coherent, discrete agent: it is a domain, and all things in the known (and unknown) universe fall into that domain. To personify nature is cheap, lazy, and Bronze Age, and while you’re free to do it, don’t expect us to coddle you in that habit of mind.Natural selection doesn’t say anything, especially not on the timescale you’re talking about. As far as natural selection is concerned, once your offspring are relatively independent, the rest of your life (including its span) is of minimal importance. If people budded their offspring from their dead bodies, and more viable offspring budded from young corpses than from old ones, natural selection would have acted on our lifespans. It hasn’t because how old grandma lives has nothing to do with the viability of the offspring grandma had fifty or sixty years previous.
Meanwhile, your own claim about natural selection stands to justify euthanizing people in wheelchairs or autistic people, since as far as you seem to see, it’s all about resources. My own horror at your (arrogant) suggestion stems from those inborn, evolutionarily developed capacities for ethics that I mentioned earlier, by the way.
What is natural selection? I would contend that it can be anything that suits one’s purpose. George W Bush became the President through natural selection???? Clearly, he possessed all the qualities of natural selection?????
Don’t be dense on purpose. We’re talking about evolution by natural selection. Go read this book, it’s free (or some non-free modern explanation of the subject): you clearly have no bloody clue about the subject, but we’re not here to teach you 19th-century science.
And by writing “we don’t owe nature a damned thing” Wendy is repudiating your own implicit (and ridiculously laughable) claim that nature is some kind of a conscious entity.
The manufacture of synthetic materials is simply the manufacture of materials possible within the natural universe, but which do not occur without human involvement. Humans are natural, their toolmaking is natural, the synthetic fibers they manufacture are natural. Everything in the universe is natural.
I know you’re trying to argue that some things are “artificial” but that’s just semantics: artificial fabrics are also natural. An example is quantum dots. They do not (as far as we have seen) occur naturally, but they can be manufactured and when they are, the follow the laws of nature. They are natural objects. They just happen to be human-made.
One way to illustrate the problem with your conception is to consider honey. Bees go about collecting nectar and pollen from flowers. They convert it to honey. Humans take honey and clarify it (much as bees take nectar and process it) and, for example like I did last night, humans can add yeast (a naturally occurring microbe, though bred selectively for certain characteristics) and fruit to make mead. At what point does the stuff (nectar, honey, mead) stop being natural and become artificial? I suspect you cannot draw a line anywhere in the process and argue it coherently. (And mind, mead is likely one of the first fermented drinks humans ever made… indeed, we may have discovered alcohol fermentation from a case of spontaneously fermented honey that was exposed to water.) Yet mead (as we know it today) does not occur in nature without human intervention. Yet it can be organic, all-natural, and is very low-tech.
Likewise, the dividing line between low-tech and high-tech is essentially a product of the accidents of history. Many technologies we consider low-tech now would have been high-tech or unimaginable a century ago.
I have a made a prolonged study of human nature, and of cognitive science, and this is pretty much the best insight the human sciences have on offer at present. And you? Where do your “brilliant” questions come from?
I’m afraid you have lapsed into complete incoherence, but I will call bullshit on the end. Nature doesn’t make choices because nature is not (and does not exhibit) a sentient, conscious personality. Lovelock’s pretty much ridiculed hypothesis to the contrary.
See my warning above.
As for progress: yes, I believe in progress, Bill Joy’s horrors and all. Bill Joy is right that we are getting into the dangerous bottleneck where a species can flub, screw up, and extinct itself. But we are also living in the best moment in history for humans to live in. You may disagree, you may get all high and mighty and quote his fears about grey goo, but never before have people survived so many previously undefeatable illnesses. Never before have so many women escaped the clutches of death in childbirth. Never have we known so much about the universe, what little it is nonetheless. Never have we been able to communicate as quickly, to help one another as easily, to afford the luxury to think and talk and notice that, hey, we’re having an impact on our own environment. Diseases that ravaged whole continents have fallen before modern medicine as flimsily as a cardboard figurine. We in the developed world live awash in food, in things to make us laugh and smile, in riches.
Those riches are, no doubt, unequitably distributed, in the developing world and in the developed world. The foods are often unhealthy ones, and when we do communicate with lightning speed, much of what we communicate is stupid. Corporations school us and dominate our world, and corporations have the ethical sense of sharks and dinosaurs. There are all kinds of monstrous problems that beleaguer our world. But there is a richness that cannot be ignored, a beauty and a wonder to the golden age in which we live… and which will become a silver and then a bronze age as things get even better and better.
Yes, I believe in progress, and so do you. Millions live every year because of soap and running water, and people like you and me have the freedom to argue about this. Bill Joy’s little panic in Wired magazine was pretty much a rehash of ideas others have had before, especially Vernor Vinge in the 1990s and earlier. Which is to say, Joy’s scenarios are very unlikely to be the ones to do us in… it’s the eventualities unimagined that worry me. So, slavery to AIs? Ha… that’s luddite nonsense. There’s no reason why AIs would even have the concept of slavery and, remember, we’re building them. (And can design them without an impulse/ability to self-replicate.)
I am debating ideas, I don’t care about you one whit — I am already of the impression that you are what you reveal in the next bit of text I quote from you… so if you feel imposed upon, then just go away and you won’t have to be disagreed with.
Well, you’ve clearly shut off your mind. Let’s hope you shut off your computer along with it.
@Wendy:
Exactly.
Ditto that.
Yes, again, right on the nose.
To be fair, Bill Joy’s point about the future not needing us is more about how precarious life is for humanity as we deal with more and more complex and difficult-to-control technologies. However, a better primer for this is Vernor Vinge’s much earlier (1993) essay from Whole Earth Magazine, titled “The Coming Technological Singularity.” Vinge’s an SF author, but he takes the idea very seriously in real life — so does NASA, the essay was originally a conference talk at one of their symposia around the time. I have my doubts, but they’re not straightforward ones.
This is how it works with all True Believers, isn’t it?
@D. Berry:
Which begs the question of how one decides this? As I recall, there are ingredients in sunscreens that are profoundly damaging to the coral reefs. It’s not always the technologies you fear that kill you, a fact that problematizes your sense of the “good” vs. “bad” technologies.
I have in the past argued that the Amish have a point with their very conscious, deliberate selection and exclusion of technologies, but I think in the wash I have doubts there too: the world is too complex and technological development is too unpredictable for us to really pick and choose in a way that will wisely serve us. Sure, it’s obvious nuclear waste is an immense, enormous pain in the ass to deal with.
Right now. But reprocessing methods could be developed. Or they might not be. In the meantime, is nuclear waste a better or worse technology in its prevention of other fuels being used? While I’m sure most of us have views on that subject, the problem is our views cannot incorporate the future itself: we cannot really weight the risks of not just the technology and its byproducts, but also the future iterations of that technology, implications of its existence, and so on. The future is too difficult to map out. (Trust me, I’m an SF author and even WE are very circumspect about “prediction” and predictability.)
Well, stop being cranky! It was reasonable, if slightly uncharitable, interpretation of your words. (If you want to control how you’re being interpreted, write better: use caveats and disclaim probable interpretations that you think people may develop. This is stuff I teach my undergrads in writing classes, and they do it in their second (or third) languages, despite the fact that in their first language, Korean, the style of writing puts them impetus on the reader, not the writer. That said, in English the impetus is on the writer, so… help us not to misinterpret you!)
Excuse me? Look at your last line. Now consider how often companies or organizations working on a large scale have failed to do things properly because it was more profitable to do them improperly. By the way, the text that alerted me to this is Clive Ponting’s A Green History of the Earth, I believe. Or maybe it was The Coming Plague by, was it Garrett? Someone brought up the extensive use of human sewage in agriculture in parts of China, and how it was not being properly treated and thus was very dangerous and was suspected of having been the starting point for such-and-such outbreak in such-and-such year. It’s a while since I’ve read either book, and maybe they’re dated. Maybe I’m not up to date, and obviously you know more about the subject than I do, but I am not just pulling this human sewage stuff out of my ass, if you’ll pardon the intentional, irresistible pun. And I must assure you I’m not being irrational–it’s the disease issue that I am concerned with. If, as you say, that’s not a realistic issue, then I too think composting human waste is an excellent idea.
(After all, a lot of the nutriments in there just passed through us and didn’t get absorbed. It’s like how, when I make beer, the grains still have some sugar on them when I am done with them… which makes them rot nice and fast, which, when they’re dried out, makes those grains excellent bedding for my buddy’s wormery.
True, but the illnesses that result from canned foods tend not to pose massive public health issues. They don’t turn into plagues. Canning and nuclear power are both dangerous, if you do them wrong. But the stakes are much higher for one of them. We have an excellent infrastructure in place for canning foods, and folk-knowledge about dented cans, and all that. For human sewage, we have very little.
@Wendy again:
Ha! Some people’s adult children, huh? I haven’t had a case of plagiarism since last spring, and that’s saying something when you consider that plagiarism only really became generally recognized as a problematic issue in Korean academia a few years ago. (And even there it’s mostly professors plagiarizing that’s seen as an issue; student plagiarism is viewed mostly with indulgence.)
From what I remember, Joy’s not talking so much about natural versus artificial in his article (which is available online for free, here), as he is about high-risk technologies and the question of when the stakes go so high that the technology simply should not be pursued. And it’s a question worth asking–for example, it’s imaginable a series of accidents could lead to a mindless nanotech swarm that gobbles up the earth, or the whole solar system. It’s possible that AIs created for automated economic systems could redefine economics to data cycles, and decide to reformulate the solar system into computronium so as to maximize “resources.” These are the basic concepts of several famous and interesting novels, the latter being best played-out in the award-winning novel by Charlie Stross titled Accelerando (the link leads to the page where the author has made it freely available online).
I just think Joy’s version of asking that question isn’t the best, most interesting, or even the most frightening rehearsal of possible disaster scenarios… he’s far too unimaginative.
Well, there is also just the commonly cultivated human fear of anything new, and a long tradition of antitechnological romanticism that runs through the history of Western civilization.
@Gordseller,
This post is faboo. I am buried in grading, but will get to some of your excellent observations ASAP.
Thanks for so thoughtful, just delightful, a missive.
w
Wendy,
Thanks. I look forward to your next installment.
I am also about to be buried in grading… well, I have been, but as I write this the last student is finishing up her final exam, and I will have to go forth and ghrade ’em. The uni only gives us 2 weeks to get the grades in, from the beginning of Exam Week. And it’s only one week long, too.
(Luckily for me, my classes tend to be smaller… I really feel for those unusual profs with big classes who nonetheless try to use some form of evaluation other than multiple guess exams.)
I think it is good to question Derrick Jensen’s work, validity, and intent. While some of what he says is solid, so much of what he says and how he acts does not seem right. I enjoy “experts” that live their experience. He seems to live his abuse and his discontent as fantasies. I doubt his real problems and discontent have anything to do with environmental or cultural problems. Other than he has to convince people so they buy his books. I think his issues are specific to him and he needs professional help, a lot of it. Something just doesn’t sit right with me. Some people on here make him sound prolific and powerful. I’m glad to see others look more closely at what does not make sense overall with his so called premises. Unless you live in fantasy mode and are not an activist then go ahead and believe people really live like him. Oh, people have thought processes like him, we all do, but the end results of our thought processes do not result in nothing. He is an armchair activist which I find boring and why others would rally around an armchair activist is beyond me but part of that fantasy world of bitchy people. He advocates so much he advocates nothing and what he promotes results in nothing. I’m sure of it. I see documentaries and read stories of true activists making a difference on the ground. Why use Jensen for a defeatest head job. It’s called mental fucking and shows that he has far too much time on his hands. And how horrible for the girl who says he was violent in his behavior toward her on his blog. Trust me, I know more people who do NOT know him, than people who know of him. But if he did that to her unexpectedly I would bank on this not being an isolated incidence. His blog or club or whatever it is that he charges for sounds like a torture chamber. Manson’s cult from the 60’s is more like it. He sucked them in with sex and it seems that Derrick Jensen mental fucks his readers into submission. Not sure he will end up in prison though. But I also know that while he is not breaking the law he is also not doing anything but selling books. Boring. Do NOT criticize civilization or cultures if the only experience you have is in California. That is probably part of his delusion.
WOWZA,
You remind me of a very interesting thought I had, which is: I wonder what psychological profiling would reveal, if anything, in terms of commonalities among Jensen’s followers. I wonder, also, how things would look if we left this thread for ten years, and then went back to see what the commenters who are supporting him have to say then?
Gord,
Leave it up, ten years is not long, leave it up! You started this blog in 2007, so why is it so hard to find? I stumbled upon it by happenstance!
Derrick Jensen has the Jesus-syndrome wanting to save the world. Especially since he believes it will magically happen if you buy and read all his books. But watch the second half of this video by scrolling down and see his abuse and the control freak spew out of him:
http://essentialdissent.blogspot.com/search/label/Derrick%20Jensen
Derrick Jensen thinks it’s okay to dismiss and abuse the very people who pay to see him speak or buy his books to further their thinking. I’ve pasted the following quote from anarchistnews.org:
“Kind of like Jensen talking shit about anarchists before all of this went down because he couldn’t take the fact that someone didn’t like his zoo book and found flaw in it, and actually pointed it out (why would someone insult the messiah himself?!?!). Or the time when he said that most anarchists are probably just druggies anyways. Fuck jensen and his searching for celebrity status. We’re better off without his writings.”
We are better off. It beats being controlled or being mind fucked. Or worse, being abused by him! No excuses man, abuse is abuse.
WOWZA,
I imagine this post is so difficult to find because, as far as I know, despite it having accumulated almost 100 comments — the most of any post on my blog — nobody (or nearly nobody) who has commented here has linked it. The few pages that have linked the post have disappeared.
If you think the post and comments should be more widely read, WOWZA — and everyone else here — then the best way is to link it. Jensen has a ton of people linking his garbage, which is why reams of positive material are available at all of the first few pages of hits when you search his name on Google.
As for his abusiveness, I think nobody here is surprised. I don’t know much about his views on the anarchist movement–I’m certainly not an anarchist myself–but anyone who is up for debunking Jensen is someone I’m willing to talk with.
By the way, I don’t fear being controlled or “mind-fucked” by Jensen. I just think he’s spreading really unhealthy and dangerous ideas, and ought to be questioned publicly… and discredited when he cannot answer reasonably.
I’ve commented here before, but it seems like a man to man conversation has been dominating the back and forth. I can’t find my comments. I was involved with the DJ message forum for some time, always getting kicked off for “attacking” Derrick when I would get frustrated that no one would try to understand what I was saying and even make fun of me if I said something showing my age. I was 22 or 23 at the time. They talk about living the way preindustrial cultures do. Well I have lived in Thailand several times. I consider that culture closer to what they idolize and they, at least in their mannerisms and etiquette on the web forum is so very American. In Thailand arguments are frowned upon. Talking and giving people room to be ignorant, and their age as long as they are there trying, they have respect
I am very tired but want to try to tell you somethings and hopefully you will understand.
With all this anti-civilization talk, even going back to pre-civ and anti agriculture revolution talk, I have 2 things to say,
1. Derrick always talks about the insanity of the culture and I sometimes wonder why he even writes books, He is assuming that there are going to be people sane enough to understand his ideas, he is trying to reach somebody, or what is the sense in writing such “dangerous” ideas about property damage unless he is a FED and that would explain how his first book full of hope and spirit, that changed lives in front of my eyes became a subculture of fundamentalism and hopelessness.
2. The anti-civ, anti agriculture stuff is tiresome and only a part of the truth. Kind of like the men stuck in Plato’s cave blaming the cave and the rope and never moving from that vendetta. But someone put them there. When they talk as though destroying this manifestation of civilization as the cure-all, i alway wonder why no one ever reminds him that the agricultural revolution which lead ultimately to civilization sprang forth from the hunter gatherer cultures. To me, stopping at civilization this, civilization that, it seems like he’s talked himself into a corner. You can’t say the man is wrong, but something just isn’t right. Do you understand? And can someone perhaps put it better? That would help me. I have been frustrated with the DJ subculture for so long because his first book, as I’ve said before changed my life, brought me out on a limb and then left me out there alone when he began to change.
I know he was abused terribly as a child, and I have experience with that and sometimes I get the impression that he just doesn’t know or consider the good in the world as cliche as it sounds. He has had much more exposure to the bad.
The bible says to everything there is a season. This is deeper than it seems. It seems he never takes a break from the “fighting” and deconstruction to embrace a season of rest and testing the ideas of his challengers, at least put the guns down for a few minutes. he is not God Civilization will crash as he says and he is not the only one on board that boat. he can let loose for a while.
Justin you said he doesn’t care if he moves people to the right as long as his end is reached, well what can you to that but who the fuck do you think you area? He is not God. He lacks humility so very much it is frightening. It is so obvious to me, the ways in which he is misguided, but I can only feel it. Which is fine when you talk to someone as smart as he is who trusts you have something to say and have a sharing conversation but he is not interested.
Anyway, I am so very tired now. Please respond to my thoughts.
Have you ever thought they haven’t really screwed with Derrick because they want him to set some people off so they can institute even more anti-constitutional laws? I don’t know what kind of la-la land he is in, but he is there somewhere in someway I am having a hard time figuring out.
Nina,
I’m sorry to hear that your comment was lost. I didn’t see anything in the spam filter when I checked, so I guess it’s gone into the ether.
Your (negative) experience on the Derrick Jensen boards seems familiar from others’ comments above. I’m not sure I’d call Thai culture any more “preagricultural” or whatever than American, but it certainly, having modernized more recently, might have elements of traditional agricultural cultures, and maybe a few more traces of older cultural traditions, that have been flung spaceward by the long modernization and postmodernization of America.
(Living as I do in Korea, I think a number of the things that bother or disturb me most in Korean society are very much cultural traits stemming from village life and agricultural living. Certainly some of those behaviours, which Americans and Canadians sometimes find repellent, would be “useful” in a low-tech society in terms of village stability and so on. (Not that I like to admit it, but I suspect it’s true to some degree.)
I think you’re right that in all of Jensen’s discussion of “the insanity of the culture,” one is left a little baffling by the insanity of what his message ends up being. I don’t know what FED means, by the way… unless you mean working for the federal government?
And as for 2, yes, I think you’re onto an interesting point: Jensen certainly does ignore the fact that the hunter-gatherer societies that lie at the beginnings of agriculture and “civilization” indeed were the source of “civilization.” In fact, I’d go so far as to say that everything Jensen reviles in “civilization” and “the culture” are just specific manifestations of human nature in the particular human society in which he lives. (And that comparable horrors and monstrosities were as prevalent, or possibly more so, in the pre-civilization societies he would prefer us to emulate. The Plato’s Cave analogy is a good one. Even moreso because Jensen’s the guy who got out of the cave, looked around but didn’t give his eyes time to adjust, ran back into the cave and started shouting, and what do you know, his eyes still haven’t adjusted.
Well, I can say the man is wrong about a good number of things, while I agree that there are things about which modern, post-industrial societies are plain batty. I’m in Korea, right next to a country that is facing the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl (and it might yet turn out to be worse than Chernobyl, by the end of it), and the way economics and politics are shaping the basic decisions about relocation, evacuation, information provided by the media, decisions regarding public safety, announcements, and so on are all quite alarming.
I can understand someone saying that the choice to become a nuclear-powered society is insane, even. (I’m not convinced it’s true, mind; I do think the choice to become a nuclear society and then not properly maintain, outfit, and secure one’s nuclear plants is insane, though in this case greed, shortsightedness, and plain mediocrity deserve a good helping of the blame too.)
As for Jensen’s history of abuse, frankly, he lives in a society where counseling and therapy are available and socially not discouraged, and he can afford it now. (It’s not as if he’s in a place where this kind of help is stigmatized like it is where I live, for example!) Were he to eventually work through his crap and reassess his stance after, I might be able to respect him. This would be, I imagine, the result of a kind of “sabbatical” period of the kind you suggest he needs, and frankly, I think you’re right. (There’s a reason university lecturers are give sabbaticals, actually, and it lines up very well with this: spend too long doing one thing in the same place and without a refreshing change of scenery, renewed freedom to rethink and study and so on, and you end up kind of caught up in it and lose tough with the rest of reality.)
But as it is, while his horrible experiences make me feel sympathy for him, it doesn’t excuse his more ridiculous and downright horrific suggestions.
As for megalomania, sadly it’s a pretty normal trait for people with a case history like his; pretty run-of-the-mill and common as far as delusions go.
Funnily enough, I think Jensen and his extremist fans just isn’t significant enough for the American government to take seriously enough to do something about. As far as I see it, he’s a shining example of the mediocrity of a torrent of angry rhetoric paired with zero actual action. His readers value him for his rage the same way many North Americans “got something out of” ads requesting donations for famine relief when I was a kid: you get to feel some strong emotion (sorrow for Ethiopians, rage at “the culture”) without actually having to do anything about it, not even earn that rage through experience.
It’s cheap catharsis, and it’s always sold like hotcakes.
To even further prove what is being concluded at this site. Someone is spying on this forum and sent my 2 cents to Derrick Jensen himself since I used to be on the forum, and talked to him a few times personally. Well, he told me I had acted “unforgivably.” and “NEVER EVER” to write him again. I wish people would have the balls to admit that they are spying on you and are going to forward something you said somewhere else to someone. I personally would never do that, I would tell the person. Just goes to show what apostles he has.
Gord,
I lived in Thailand 10 years ago. I was an exchange student coming from a very rural and poor place. I got to know the people and the country very intimately. I don’t think you can say how “modern” they are just by what they have. I knew villagers and such. I didn’t mean to say that they acted agriculturally, I meant that I felt I was in a more “Utopian” place just in terms of how most of the people treated each other and me compared to what I had come from. They used to say, back then, Thailand was how America was 50 years ago. Well, I do believe Industrialization was a mistake in that it was driven by capitalism. There is a great book about this called “America by design.” Not that science is bad, or technology, but because scientists needed funding to put some of their theories to test, people who were not scientist and couldn’t appreciate its power at all began running the show. So some place that is 50 years ago, would naturally not have internalized the attitudes and philosophies so much as we have to in North America.
Why I brought them up was because at every Derrick Jensen event I was at, and on the forum it felt as WHITE and MIDDLE CLASS as anywhere.
I do agree with a lot of what Derrick Jensen says, but since I know a lot more about science and their own distress with the “system.” I know it is more complicated out there, and I know that what he gives for an answer leaves out so very much. It is such a monolithic project, though they would argue against that.
I know for a fact preaching hopelessness is useless. I saw a show once about abolitionists in England and they talked a great deal about how preaching hopelessness even if it seems logical, will just kill people’s spirits.
He writes and tells me I have acted unforgivably. I know unforgivable, and me coming here to vent and to let go of some of my hopelessness is not unforgivable. I mean who says that? I found letters from my boyfriend to another girl saying disrespectful things, and because I knew that we had gone thought a very stressful period, I knew he was just being imperfect and letting off steam. I gave him hell, but I never thought what he did was unforgivable. I guess I have insulted his honor? I hope I don’t get murdered now for insulting a man’s honor. Give me a break.
He used to speak with this guy named Kevin, I forget his last name. This guys idea of direct action was to take a swiss army knife and stab a huge blow up slide at a fair with animals he was protesting, which could have killed the children on it, if it would have worked. But Derrick speaks with this person. I guess that is not unforgivable.
I hope the world just forgets about these people who think they have a monopoly on compassion and being good people. It really turns people off and makes people feel like they are on someone else’s turf. Anyway, I am glad for the room I was given here to talk, and the others here who were made to feel like shit in some way by an interchange with Jensen, forget about him. God’s the genius and if you don’t believe in him/her, well there are plenty of people out there who are brilliant, caring and patient with others imperfections. Thank God no One person will ever have the answer.
Nina,
Actually it was totally by accident I found this site two nights ago and started reading.
I don’t know you, you left before I joined the forum.
DJ forum member.
Nina,
Just for your information: it was likely the fact you snitchjacketted him that caused Derrick to respond as he did.
Snitchjacketted people are killed, their families are killed. This wasn’t a matter of ‘honour’ or whatever messed up BS you want to paint this as. This is a serious accusation – you forget he used to work at Pelican Bay prison, he was working with people who would think nothing of killing someone they believed to be a snitch.
a DJ forum member.
Oh Fuck off, I didn’t snitch jacket anyone. I wasn’t the first person to make the fleeting suggestion on this page. He doesn’t work at the prison anymore. You’re full of shit. That is not why you sent him my post. MY post. And that is not why he flipped out. He flipped out because he is the only abused person in this world and everyone is after him. Give me one damn example of anyone you know of who was killed or even seriously threatened over a question on a web forum?
You can’t give me anyone.
This is another thing that people on his forum do, they blow something out of proportion to justify their backward behavior. You sent him my note to have some connection to him, to butt kiss your way into good standing. You’re a nosy fool. Don’t you have the world to save?
Nina,
I’m sorry to hear that you’re dealing with the ravings of a cult leader wronged… because if what you did is an unforgivable betrayal, then that’s exactly what the man is behaving like: a cult leader.
It’s always the dysfunctional families that insist nobody ever talk about their problems with anyone on the outside. But heaven forbid someone suggest to Jensen that maybe he hasn’t managed to slough off all of the bad behavioral patterns he acquired in his supposedly (according to him, I will take his word for it) abusive family.
DJ forum member:
I’m sorry but you will have to explain what you mean by “snitchjacketing.” Are you saying that Nina was involved in a court case in which she informed against Jensen, or is this some histrionic dramatization of a username change, either on his forum or this site?
Frankly, I don’t appreciate you making references to people being killed, even in a metaphorical sense, for the same “offense” that Nina has, in your mind, committed.
Given the dangerous implications of your comment–that people who do X are killed, along with their families, and that “Nina” has somehow “done X”–I feel that without an immediate explanation of your intent, or better yet, an amendation to the comment that renders it less, well, evocative of a summons to kill someone, I will be forced to delete the comment.
Indeed, if you persist in this sort of commenting, I will be forced to issue a warning, disemvowel your writing, and ban your IP or IP range.
I am not doing those things now, but I am alarmed by your comment and expect a clear explanation and/or redaction from you in the next 24 hours.
While I am not operating this site as Jensen operates his–I do not demand doctrinal adherence, and am happy to engage in debate with those who disagree with me, as the thread above demonstrates–threats of even the most vague nature are not acceptable.
An apology to Nina for writing poorly or unclearly, and choosing a poor explanation of your metaphor, wouldn’t be out of order, as well, if a veiled threat was not your intention. (And I can see how it might be a case of this, but want to hear it from you.)
In any case, I do not intend to allow you (or Nina) to railroad this discussion into a slapfight over some perceived slight of Nina’s on another website. If you have something to say about the criticisms of Jensen’s ideas and writing, or our responses to either, you are welcome to discuss them here.
But surely you can see how your last comment can be interpreted in a number of ways, some of them downright unacceptable or even criminal? (As far as I know, a death threat is an actionable offense in the UK, where you live. It is certainly enough to get you banned from this site.)
Thank you very much Gord. You have made me feel a lot better. And I agree with everything you say. You are very smart. It is true, he/she is being very hypocritical and I would appreciate that apology or further explanation also.
Actually now I am scared. Do I have to worry about some Derrick Jensen fanatic finding and hurting me now? I am sure it’s been posted on his board by now if I know anything about him and it. Did he forget he has a super loyal following of members he knows nothing about and by making this more than it was, I am the one who is probably in more danger.
Snitch jacketting definition: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Snitch%20jacket&defid=4272004
I was saying that Nina’s actions could result in Derrick and his family being killed. Given that you do not like murder to be promoted on your site, I suggest you remove Nina’s post and all others where this is mentioned. Unless you are saying you want Derrick and his family to be murdered?
a DJ forum member.
Gord, I hope you don’t mind me jumping in here, but I’ve been following this discussion with interest. First of all, I had the same reaction as you regarding the comment by “DJ Forum Member” about people being killed – at first, I thought they were referring to Nina possibly being killed in as a result of “snitching” on Derrick Jenson by labeling him as a possible “FED” (I presume this means federal agent).
But actually I now think they were actually saying that by labeling Jenson as a Fed, this was also nailing him as a snitch, thus “putting a snitch jacket on him”, and people who are found to be snitches are often killed in prison populations. Then with the reference to Jensen having worked in a prison previously, this all falls into place – the implication is that by simply calling him a Fed on an internet forum, this can somehow result in someone putting out a hit on Jensen to have him killed.
I wouldn’t delete the comments if I were you, I think rather than threatening Nina they are trying to be passive aggressive in the most extreme way – by implying that Nina’s comment could somehow get Jensen killed. Take a moment to think about that one. Are these people for real? Rather than threatening, the comment just seems rather pathetic now, doesn’t it?
They clearly want to try to get you to remove Nina’s comments by pretending that they somehow place Jensen’s life in danger.
I think Nina’s “Fuck off” response to “DJ Forum member” was about as appropriate as it gets. I was going to reply myself, but she defended herself just fine and pretty much took the words out of my mouth (and said it better than I ever could have).
I feel dirty ever having become associated with Jensen and his followers. But on the other hand, it’s been an education – very useful to get a glimpse into their sick, dysfunctional little world.
Thanks for continuing to host this discussion, I hope you let these posts stand.
Neil Gunton