Discuss: Forget Shorter Showers

Jensen’s piece contains so much truth it is certain to be rejected or derided by most.  “Simple living” is fine, and may be somewhat beneficial, but, as Jensen says, it’s never going to be enough.  Real, dramatic, systemic change is necessary if we are to have any chance of preserving the planet in anything close to the condition in which it now exists (to say nothing of the condition in which it existed 200 years ago). 

The personal may indeed by political—but that is not to say that the political is exhausted by the personal.  There is a whole realm of political action of all kinds which is going to be necessary IN ADDITION TO whatever purely personal actions we can take.  Redirecting consumer dollars toward allegedly “green” industries is simply insufficient.  We’re going to have to do more—much more—than purchase a hybrid automobile and recycle some of our garbage.  Major political and economic change is not optional.

I agree completely with Derrick Jensen. As he must have expected, he has ruffled some feathers. Simplicity has been a way of life for me for many years, but I’ve never lost sight of the fact that our corporate/political (interchangeable words) system is the source of the problem. The scale of involvement necessary for real solutions is frightening to the timid.
Who to trust? Most media are just branches of the corporate world. And making sense of the multitude of ideas (most of them half-baked or worse) on the internet is a labyrinth that few have time or intelligence to sort out.
As for the comments about dreams, Mr. Jensen’s vision is stated clearly enough for me - the prize is the planet, and it can only be won by focusing clearly on what’s eating it. I thank him and the editors of Orion for sharing this dream.

Having recently finished reading one of Derrick’s books, I wondered how long I would have to read Forget Shorter Showers until we got to Hitler.  Wow ...didn’t have to wait long!

Well-written argument, but essentially a luddite one. Do people really think we’d be better off abandoning modern technology (“industrial society”)?

If you look at what goes on in non-industrialized nations, it’s pretty easy to see that environmental degradation is not a function of technology, but of fundamental human survival needs. If your cooking technology requires firewood, you’ll collect wood until there’s none left.

You don’t need a zinc mine to pollute a stream; untreated human waste will do just fine.

Sure, maybe it’d be better if we as a human race had stopped expanding our population when we reached about two billion, but the fact is that we have over six billion people now, and the only reason we can feed everyone (not that there’s no hunger, but we do have the capacity to produce enough food for everyone) is because of modern technology - the same tech that this article says is destroying the world. Maybe it is, but it’s keeping us alive, and we can’t just get rid of it.

Improving our technology and reducing our population are the only ways to achieve the goals this article is talking about; rejecting modern technology won’t do a thing except cause an immense amount of immediate and long-lasting human suffering.

Great piece. You are absolutely right about the double-bind we place ourselves in when we let the powers that be convince us to approach the environmental crisis solely as consumers and not as agents of social change. I had been thinking some of these very same thoughts lately but hadn’t been able to articulate nearly so well. Many thanks.

And to all those who read this and say “This guy’s a Luddite!”—do you actually think his main point is wrong? Putting aside all the fear that comes with lucid thinking on this crisis, can you really deny that industrial society is killing the earth, and that radically transforming society is the only hope for not killing the earth? This is a totally logical conclusion and the author only makes a few logical steps from there.

Not long ago I had never heard of Derrick Jensen, read any of his books, or attempted to understand those who call themselves “anti-civ”.

I have believed myself to be a practicing natural conservationist for decades.

Recently I have been stirred by what can only be described as warning voices by scientists telling us things have grown a whole lot worse a whole lot faster than anyone had believed. So I began to read the thinking of those who were ahead of me on that curve of devising solutions.

Derrick’s article here and many of the responses cause me to see not only the gulf that separates many “Earth-loving” people but also why we are so strongly divided.

I have discovered that humans have been causing significant depletion/destruction for a lot longer than I had imagined and that the effects of the presence of our culture are much more significant than I had dreamed. These changes of my thinking are not the result of a “radicalization” because I have been reading the “wrong” stuff. The evidence is clearly documented.

Those who are shocked and disturbed by what Derrick has written have not spent the time to consider all the facts, the options and the possible results of those options. Given the speed at which this destruction is happening (and I am not talking about merely a few degrees of temperature rise) and the certain consequences, people like Derrick are urging pragmatic, effective action.

When they speak of the cost to humans of such action they balance this against the cost of continuing on the current path.

Derrick Jensen’s critique of ‘personal change’ as a means to ecological transformation is provocative. And I like it. It reminds me of Satish Kumar’s criticism of today’s spiritualism: that instead of ‘my’ body, ‘my’ mind, and ‘my’ spirit, the focus should be on “soil, soul, and society” (from CBC’s ‘Tapestry’).

In the West, the interests of capital seduce individuals into believing that they are thinking for themselves and can ‘be the change they want to see in the world’.

Geektronica - the problem with the technological argument is that technology requires resources. Resources that are getting increasingly scarce. Industrial agriculture will be literally non existent by the end of this century due to oil becoming such a scarce resource. And their is no feasible alternative that can produce energy anything close to what we are consuming today.

You say that by looking at non-industrialised nations we can see that technology is not a function of environmental degradation. Is an axe not a form of technology? Is a saw not a form of technology? Clearly it is much easier to clear cut a forest with a chainsaw as opposed to bare hands. Technology is everything, it infinitely increases our capacity to consume the resources around us. In an energy scarce future technology won’t save us. Learning to live with the land rather than trying to manipulate it to our wants and needs will however.