The absolute cynicism towards the political system irritated me a little bit, but the following passage is what really lost me:

Isn't this an excerpt from a book?

No matter how hard I try, I just can't agree with this guy. This passage is from "Civilization"
 

Isn't this all written? Furthermore, oratory has a certain ability to be able to subvert logic with flashiness and make specious arguments sound right. With writing, one can easily go back and check what they just read. Is he really saying that writing down history is worse than some sort of oral-tradition/telephone-game version of history? Why is he writing a fucking book? Why isn't he doing a book on tape or strictly doing speeches?

In the same excerpt, he goes on and on about how communication between "civilizations" (which he poorly redefines, the non-anthropologist non-historian that he is) is terrible and leads to things like slavery and colonization. He says this while quoting philosophers from all different cultures, while pushing his German-imported nihilism. He seems to forget that the whole of modern human progress is based on the exchange of ideas and technology. I almost get the feeling that he's a neo-luddite from some of his sentiments.

Here's another quote I disagree strongly with, this time from "Catastrophe Pt 1:"

He seems to be taking his idea that "civilization" isn't at all sustainable, though since man has first become civilized, it has never gone back to a non-civilized state. We are only getting smarter and better at what we doing and how we are living. He acts as though we haven't learned anything from the last 25,000 years.

Edit: I went to the neo-luddite page on wikipedia shortly after writing this and was surprised to see Derrick Jensen's name among the list of "notable neo-luddites."

 I realize that there this discussion trail may have gone cold--but Derrick Jensen's advocacy of what we might call a kind of romantic environmental fascism has certainly not. More disturbing is that he flatly refuses to engage ANY criticism. I registered on the Derrick Jensen Forum (forum.derrickjensen.org/index.php), and I posted the following--it IS critical--but it is not threatening, mean-spirited, rude, crass, or in any way violent. I was banned in fewer than 45 minutes. What I am wondering is whether others have had this experience trying to engage Mr. Jensen. He explicitly posts on his website that he will not engage criticism of any kind--but he specifically solicits praise. Does it matter what--how good, creative, rational--his ideas are when he will not deal with criticism? What do folks think here?

Here's what I posted:

Dear Derrick Jensen Forum participants,

My name is Wendy Lynne Lee, and having read a fair lot of Jensen's work--most importantly both volumes of Endgame, as well as Jensen's premises posted here. I am a committed environmentalist, feminist activist, animal welfare activist, and social/economic justice advocate. My question has to do with the notion of a "toxic mimic." Jensen claims that "Rape is a toxic mimic of sex. War is a toxic mimic of play. The bond between slave owner and slave is a toxic mimic of marriage." I gather what he means by this is that a toxic mimic is an oppressive and likely violent substitution for a relationship that does not have these features. But if my understanding is correct, then this forum--given its premises and conditions of participation--is itself an example (and a deeply troubling one) of a toxic mimic.

Here's why:

1. The requirement that--as a condition of participation--I must accept any of the 20 premises, and that such participation counts as a community is a toxic mimic of a real community. A real community embraces the examination--even debate--of its premises. Unless we are prepared to jettison the idea that this particular community moves forward via democratic interaction, it cannot constitute a community at all. In the scientific community, for example, what actually bonds participants to one another is not prescribed agreement, but honest interaction--agreement or disagreement--and even on fundamental principles. Indeed, as the philosopher Thomas Kuhn argued in 1963's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, there is no genuine progress in coming to understand the natural world without the refinement of ideas that can come only through interaction that risks disagreement. Debate, moreover, is neither inherently nor violent. In fact, what makes this pretense to community truly toxic is that it excludes the possibility of debate at the outset. THIS, I'd argue is truly oppressive--and because it seeks to censor and cauterize alternative, competing, dissenting points of view--it is also inherently violent--despite the disclaimer to the contrary. Perhaps I will be automatically banned for daring to air such a view here (though this is precisely where it needs to be aired)--but if I am, it will prove my claim beyond doubt. So, my question: How can a forum ostensively devoted to meaningful discourse about how to address our current environmental catastrophe possibly move toward accomplishing this goal while simultaneously excluding those voices with which it disagrees? How can such a forum promote itself as liberating--all the while restricting what can be expressed within its borders?

2. There is another--perhaps even more disturbing--sense in which the premises of this forum constitute a toxic mimic, namely, that in delimiting discourse to that which adheres the the 20 premises, it in fact mimics some of the most oppressive and egregious abuses of the authoritarian far right. Advocates for the Tea Party, for example, actively seek to limit free speech rights--and I'll bet most here find this appalling, and rightly so. But what differentiates this forum from the exclusionary practices of the Tea Party. The practice of exclusion is not consistent with ANY movement's struggle for justice. The feminist movement lost considerable credibility for a time when it endeavored to exclude lesbians from its activist ranks. The environmental movement faces a similar danger right here. In excluding voices that do not adhere to the 20 premises, you act in a fashion that can only be described as oppressive in the same way that the feminist movement behaved oppressively when it sought (and failed) to exclude lesbians. So why would you set up the conditions in this fashion?

3. There is a third way in which the premises and conditions of this forum are a toxic mimic: The forum--perhaps unwittingly--mimics Jensen's website book group in that he expressly excludes all criticism--though he solicits praise. This strikes me as profoundly toxic (as well as narcissistic) in that if it's true that good ideas and arguments grow from being examined and challenged, then--entertaining no criticism--how can Jensen possibly know which of his ideas are good? How in this forum can we come to be able to distinguish good ideas from bad, rational from irrational without the possibility of critique, debate. Why doesn't it count as monumentally oppressive that these quarters offer no way to distinguish good from bad claims? Are we to simply concede that ANY claim that coheres with Jensen's 20 premises is good? Why? Why shouldn't I simply call that fascism?

4. With respect to the premises:

Premise one: What does Jensen mean exactly by "civilization"? Does this include art? Music? Architecture? All science? How about medicine? Does the end of civilization include the end of medicine? Are adherents to the premise that civilization must end prepared to commit themselves to foregoing chemotherapy in case of cancer? Antibiotics in case of serious staff infection? Insulin in case of Type 1 diabetes? How about surgery for a ruptured spleen? It strikes me as easy to say we want to see the end on civilization, but a far harder thing to contemplate its implications. If what Jensen is advocating really is a return to anarcho-primitivism, are we prepared to witness the deaths of the millions of human and nonhuman animals that this return would absolutely require? Are we prepared to participate in this genocide? I recognize that the response is that we are already participating in a kind of genocide--indeed. But the notion that there are NO alternative to either genocide via corporate capitalism or via radical environmental revolution has to be shown on argument and evidence--the possibility of which is excluded here.

Premise two: This claim is factually false. Ancient human cultures contributed significantly to their own demise or necessity to migrate by destroying their land bases. This is not speculation; this is well-established fact. To romanticize native cultures as if they were not environmentally destructive will not help us formulate a genuinely effective environmental strategy./

Premise three: Yes--this certainly contains a great deal of truth--but industrial civilization does not encompass ALL civilization even if industrialization consists as an element in every enterprise. To throw out civilization per se is throwing out the baby with the bathwater--or if it's not, it's a claim that needs an argument not provided in Endgame--and it cannot be provided here without violating the conditions of posting.

Premise four: This is also largely true--but the implication that such oppressive hierarchies exist deliberately--as if by design or conspiracy--so grossly oversimplifies the diversity of culture, tradition, and local practice that to accept it is to accept the oppressive premise that no practices/traditions are able to be salvaged--even those that, say, an indigenous people might want to maintain. What confers on Jensen--or any of us--the authority to claim that all hierarchies involve oppression and fetishizing? Jensen, indeed, does not say "all." BUt he offers us no way to distinguish between "good" and "bad" hierarchies--hence we are left--given the context--to conclude that all are bad.

Premise five: Jensen mistakes capitalist production for all production. The criticism of capitalist production is also well-established by others whom he does not adequately credit--Marx, for example, or Bakunin, among others. This, moreover, is a gross oversimplification of the notion justice--even in our current incarnation of "civilization." I understand that Jensen's claim is there there is a system which is broken, and a system that therefore must be overthrown. Fine. But this system is not identical with "civilization," and if it is, again, destroying it will require the commission of immense violence--including homicide.

Premise six: What does Jensen mean by a sane and sustainable way of living? It cannot be a return to our paleolithic past. Or if it is, what will compel us--other than the threat of violence--to stay there? What WILL we do with inventors? What WILL we do with discoverers? Execute them? Why shouldn't I read these premises as a manifesto for a kind of new age Inquisition of all those deemed guilty of environmental wrong-doing?

Premise seven: If we can no longer wait for civilization to crash, what is Jensen actually advocating we do? Blow up dams? OK--why isn't Jensen himself leading this specific action?

Premise eight: Why exactly are the needs of the natural world greater than the needs of the economic system? I am the first one to agree that global capitalism is massively destructive of both human and nonhuman life and welfare, but what do we say to the poor whose dependence on the economic system--however vile it is--is their only guarantee against death--today? The poor would be the very first to die in the environmental revolution Jensen seems to promote. Why should they--especially as so many are women, children, and indigenous peoples--regard this as liberating? As good? Why shouldn't I regard this claim as sexist and racist?

Premise nine: Why would a poor woman accept a "softer" version of population reduction when her old-age depends on the compassion of her children? Gas chambers are painless. But none of us regards this as a remotely acceptable form of population reduction? How does premise nine rule out gas chambers?

Premise ten: What authorizes anyone to make this claim? What authorizes Jensen? That Jensen refuses to brook criticism does NOT solidify his authority, and a quasi-Freudian interpretation of "insane" and the Death Drive" need to be shown. Jensen does draw such comparisons over and over in his writing--but repetition is not an argument. Moreover, if the culture is driven by a death urge--if WE are by NATURE so driven, then there simply is no saving us. We will repeat the "sin" of civilization over and over--a more apt comparison in this dismal case may be Nietzsche's eternal return.

OK--this seems adequate for now. I'll sincerely look forward to other forum members observations and questions. I, for one, am happy to brook criticism and dissent. THAT is how a movement moves forward.