Discuss: Side with the Living

One of the great values I consistently find in Jensen’s writing is his relentless uncovering: the exposure and examination of all the layers of unexamined assumptions. We would all do well to improve our senses of perception by working at the same. So much of “common knowledge” is simply cliche and assumption, based on lazy thinking. Uncover! Examine! Question!

Derrick provides a strong voice of reason and like many great thinkers before him, identifies the importance of our perceptions and beliefs in how we behave toward the natural world. In reading this work and assimilating it into our daily lives we are growing and shedding our old skin. Cultural norms and beliefs do change and we all have an important play in the current evolution.

It is commonplace for all of us to fail to examine our preconceptions and presuppositions about things.  We are raised, enculturated and educated in a specific ‘curriculum’... let us call it “the curriculum of the West”.  This education is fraught with unstated presuppositions and predispositions about life, and all of the categories we so unthinkingly attribute to it.  Derrick does us all a great favor in helping to disclose many of those prejudices articulately,  painstakingly and painfully at times.

I almost mistook Derrick for writing something anti-civilization; almost. The point? Jensen can’t write anything anti-civ because he’s afraid it’ll interfere with making money off of book sells.

HardyHarHar…actually the more anti-civ he articulates his case… the more money he makes… har har har!!

I like this article’s simplicity. We need to examine our underlying paradigms in order to realign ourselves with nature. Just as the religious cast human qualities on God, Derrick points out how we assign human traits and values to nature.
I look to the natural world for models of sustainability. For example, there is no waste in nature (water, nitrogen, carbon cyles, etc). Derrick’s reordering of perceptions can not only change our relationship to the natural world, but to our cultural world as well.

Good one.

@HardyHarHar,

Clearly you’ve never had a book published or you would know how ridiculous it is to believe that (except for a few bestsellers issued by huge publishers) it makes a writer rich or even an adequate living.