Discuss: Resistance Resisters

Mssr. Oxtrot, if you think that I’m advocating any viewpoint for anyone aside from myself, I apologize. (That is exactly the issue I take with Mr. Jensen.) We are all free to make our choices.  What I AM saying is that I consider his position and his hucksterism distasteful. He might be a really nice guy to get to know on other terms maybe.

Facts? Hmmm. Well, let’s just say that both sides in this discussion are light on those. Fear? Gave that up at 40…entirely too debilitating, and doubled down on that when I had my first child at 45.  You’ll find that the two are mutually exclusive, if you haven’t already.
I do have to point out though that Derrick started this discussion on a confrontational note. (See: Title) As such, I’m sure he needs nobody to defend him, as I don’t either. (Thanks for your civil interjection though Scott.)

Wild Rose, Thanks for that. Back at you.

I see no civility from Plowboy.  Only more ad hominem.  Welcome to Grist, the pseudo-enviro journal of Superficial Acts of Conscience-Salving!  Please check your values at the door!  Please leave all factual information in the bucket outside next to Plowboy’s plow!

I am all for Scott’s call for civility and spirited debate.  But the situation is rapidly deteriorating.  The level of discourse here is rapidly approaching the level of Newsvine (on MSNBC)—you’re starting to sound like a bunch of Tea Partiers, who stoop to name-calling and vitriole to make their point (whatever that is).  I think we can do better than that.  I am all for emotion but not for poisoning the well.

I appreciate Jensen’s passion (and it’s good to read the thoughts of everyone on this thread) but I simply cannot buy into the idea that living differently is not helpful. The logical flipside of that idea, then, is that living a mainstream, consumer-focused lifestyle is not harmful.

No, I’m not courageous enough to break a bunch of laws (we’re currently building a small house with no permit, which is scary enough for me) but I do believe in the power of example. And I have hope for the tipping point - that place where enough people, acting individually but in concert, create a critical mass that tips society in a new direction.

Composting, growing food, driving less, downsizing and buying less, working less because we have fewer bills and need (a lot) less money to get by, having less stress and fewer responsibilities ... these are all meaningful things that - if done cheerfully and openly - are conspicuous to our neighbors. And as we do these things, the material aspects of life naturally fade into the background, and perhaps that new consciousness that you’ve been discussing naturally has more room to emerge.

As fewer people are fighting for their “fair share”, their “piece of the pie”, there will be less fighting, I think. And in its place there will be more cooperation. And cooperation goes hand in hand with understanding that we are all connected, that our fates are all intertwined and that the greatest joys in life come from experiencing this - not from a red sports car.

It might be slow going, each person changing their lives one life at a time, but I believe momentum will build around us and will propel our energy into the mainstream. Each of us should do what we feel moved to do, including those who are courageous enough to do what they see as “more”. Whatever you choose, please hold your heads high and be available to tell others about your lifestyle, and why you’ve chosen it. I want to be a proud little virus that shows others something different is possible (and fun!).

By the way, Alpha Griz, where do you live in Montana? My partner and I grew up in Thompson Falls.

Holly and Lorna,

Anger can certainly serve as the spark that leads to the fire of action. I sense you both know this and have experienced it first-hand. But we have to respect the fire itself. Anger cannot do the work of directing the fire. There has to be some plan, some course along which the fire travels, some entity for whom (on whom?) it’s generating heat. Anger undirected leads to paralysis.

In our culture, especially for women, anger is viewed as a nonviable emotion. This is wrong, of course, because anger represents a razor-sharp passion that something is off-kilter, wrong, unjust and needs to be changed.

I don’t really have to look to Jensen to get fired up. I see stuff around me every day that angers me. But I have not yet mastered what to do with it. Some of this is just bred in me; my father is the same, and I’ve long served as a witness to his outbursts and seen how people tune him out. Only recently have I begun to take a different tack with him and that is to ask, How does this serve you? How does it serve us? In this way, at least, we can have some discussion.

So my question: What do you do with the anger you feel?

Me, I write…members of Congress, state lawmakers, etc. I can’t say that it helps, but I hope it lets them know that there are other points of view they need to consider.

Plowboy’s illustration was brilliant, and highlights the dead end that Jensen has become.
In a carceral state, to use terms like “fight” and “destroy” are invitations to galvanizing martyrs to long jail terms, like the poor folk who are serving long, long terms in the current “Green Scare.”
  If an action is not working, it should not be conducted, no matter how righteous it makes the optimistic types feel.
Write no more congressmen. Giving up little connections to the corporate extraction machine does nothing about the greater machinations of the corporate extraction machine - yet these truths about our collective predicament get attacked by the putative “reformers.”
The environmental movement has succeeded in developing the greenwashing movement, while, as Mr. Jenses correctly states, the ecology gets further and further devastated. So who is fighting what?

Leigh,you’re reading carefully - how lovely!

What to do with the anger? Very good question. Generically, anger can help me to identify sources of destruction in the name of capitalist profit. Without anger, I might otherwise internalize that destruction because 1) I sometimes drive, or 2) I use paper, or 3) I participate in activities linked to really destructive corporate practices, or 4) I have a loved one in my family that is part of a really destructive corporation and I still love him.

We are all reluctant hypocrites. But with anger, as opposed to feeling happy all the time, I can direct that energy into a few realms: 1) lifestyle changes so that I am less and less a hypocrite, 2) into political action which, of course, takes all forms – perhaps the reason Jensen doesn’t outline a formulaic, step-by-step plan for dismantling power.

Maybe it’s a letter writing campaign. Maybe it’s showing civil support at court hearings for Earth Firsters who have been marginalized by the media. Maybe it’s humanizing those same people – or, say, eco-terrorists, or, perhaps Jensen - to folks of the opposite ilk. Maybe it’s poster art. Maybe it’s influencing high school students through teaching or mentoring. Maybe it’s creating a forum for the political Left and Right to attempt to find workable, common ground. Maybe it’s organized boycotts.

Maybe, just maybe, lifestyle changes ARE political changes if we communicate them somehow beyond the insularity of our own lives, if we communicate well enough and with enough humility to create communities that can balance destructive power and its loads and loads of cash with life-affirming power, community-centered power, tribe power.

Hmmm….

Maybe I don’t really know either…

Over and out - thanks for the intense dialogue…

It’s good to see a few readers finally waking up to Jensen’s counter-productive, misguided, and ultimately impotent rage.

Anger directed outward is projection of one’s unacknowledged inner demons and it serves nothing but its own desire to burn.

Funny that Jensen chose to deride compost piles, since that is exactly what we most need: to take our own (his own) crap and turn it into food, nurturance, sustenance through the alchemy of trans-substantiation. That’s the kind of slow burn that the world needs.

Resistance, he says, starts by believing in it. But resistance to what? First you have to believe in an enemy in order to tear it apart. Believing in a thing is precisely what makes it real. Fighting anything only gives it power.

By believing that the only “effective” way to live is to confront the “real physical world” is to perpetuate the Newtonian mechanistic illusion of reality which got us to this place. What keeps us victimized is our continued belief in the Matrix, which is nothing more than the manifestation of our collective belief. It is the ultimate self-referential fantasy.

That “higher consciousness” that some here spoke of is merely the stepping beyond that self-created Matrix we call culture - or the “story”. It is real only as long as we pretend that it is.

Jensen’s unfocused anger (and the evident apoplectic rage of his acolytes) is what feeds the beast. Which wolf will win the fight, said the Native elder, is the one we feed.