Derrick Jensen
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Derrick Jensen is an American author and environmental activist who lives in Northern California. He has published several books questioning contemporary society and its values, including A Language Older Than Words and The Culture of Make Believe. He has also taught creative writing at Pelican Bay State Prison and Eastern Washington University.
Like Ward Churchill, Chellis Glendinning, Inga Muscio, Terry Tempest Williams, and John Zerzan, Jensen argues that industrial culture is hopelessly destructive. He regularly calls upon his audiences on college campuses to help bring an end to industrial civilization and what he sees as the unsustainable promotion of economic growth at the expense of the natural environment and indigenous peoples. He is often labeled an anarcho-primitivist, by which is meant he believes that civilization is inherently unsustainable and based on violence.
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[edit] Writings
A Language Older Than Words uses the lens of domestic violence to look at the larger violence of the culture Jensen grew up in, namely western culture. The Culture of Make Believe begins by exploring racism and misogyny and moves to examine how this culture’s economic system leads inevitably to hatred and atrocity. Strangely Like War is about deforestation. Walking on Water is about education (It begins: "As is true for most people I know, I’ve always loved learning. As is also true for most people I know, I always hated school. Why is that?").[1]Welcome to the Machine is about surveillance, and more broadly about science and this culture’s obsession with control.
Jensen's latest work, Endgame, is about what he describes as the inherent unsustainability of civilization. In this book he asks: "Do you believe that this culture will undergo a voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living?" Nearly everyone he talks to says no. His next question is: "How would this understanding—that this culture will not voluntarily stop destroying the natural world, eliminating indigenous cultures, exploiting the poor, and killing those who resist—shift our strategy and tactics? The answer? Nobody knows, because we never talk about it: we’re too busy pretending the culture will undergo a magical transformation." Endgame, he says, is "about that shift in strategy, and in tactics."[2]
Jensen's writing uses the first-person and interweaves personal experiences with cited facts to construct arguments. His books are written like narratives, lacking a linear, hierarchical structure. They are not divided into distinct sections devoted to an individual argument. Instead, his writing is conversational, leaving one line of thought incomplete to move on to another, returning to the first again at some later point. Jensen uses this creative non-fiction style to combine his artistic voice with logical argument.
[edit] Themes in Jensen's work
Jensen's work catalogues what he perceives as the pervasiveness of abuse, hatred, rape, environmental destruction and other social problems, and the role of dishonesty in maintaining systematic oppression. He concludes that the very pervasiveness of these behaviours indicates that they are diagnostic symptoms of the greater problem of civilization itself. Accordingly, he argues that there is an urgent need to bring down civilization.
In A Language Older Than Words and also in an article entitled Actions Speak Louder Than Words, Jensen states "Every morning when I awake I ask myself whether I should write or blow up a dam. I tell myself I should keep writing, though I'm not sure that's right".[3]
Jensen proposes that a different, harmonious way of life is possible, and that it can be seen in many past societies including many Native American or other indigenous cultures. He claims that many indigenous peoples perceive a primary difference between Western and indigenous perspectives: even the most open-minded Westerners generally view listening to the natural world as a metaphor, as opposed to the way the world works. Furthermore, these indigenous peoples understand the world as consisting of other beings with whom we can enter into relationship; this stands opposed to the more Western belief that the world consists of objects or resources to be exploited or used.
[edit] References
- ^ Jensen D., 2003, Walking on Water: Reading, Writing, and Revolution, Context Books ISBN 1893956377
- ^ Jensen D., 2006, Endgame, Volume 1: The Problem of Civilization, Seven Stories Press ISBN 158322730X
- ^ Actions Speak Louder Than Words
[edit] Published works
[edit] Spoken word on CD
- Derrick Jensen Standup Tragedy (live CD)
- ---- The Other Side of Darkness (live CD), 2004
[edit] Books
- Derrick Jensen, 1995, Listening to the Land: Conversations about Nature, Culture, and Eros, Sierra Club Books ISBN 0871564173
- ----, George Draffan and John Osborn, 1995, Railroads and Clearcuts: Legacy of Congress's 1864 Northern Pacific Railroad Land Grant, Keokee Company Publishing ISBN 1879628082
- ---- 2000, A Language Older Than Words, Context Books ISBN 1893956032
- ---- The Culture of Make Believe, New York: Context Books, 2002, ISBN 1-893956-28-8
- ---- and George Draffan, Strangely Like War: The Global Assault on Forests, 2003
- ---- 2003, Walking on Water: Reading, Writing, and Revolution, Context Books ISBN 1893956377
- ---- and George Draffan, 2004, Welcome to the Machine: Science, Surveillance, and the Culture of Control, Chelsea Green Publishing Company ISBN 1931498520
- ---- 2006, Endgame, Volume 1: The Problem of Civilization, Seven Stories Press ISBN 158322730X
- ---- 2006, Endgame, Volume 2: Resistance, Seven Stories Press ISBN 1583227245
[edit] Further reading
Related authors include Jack Forbes (Columbus and Other Cannibals), Dave Edwards, Daniel Quinn (Ishmael, The Man Who Grew Young), John Zerzan (Against Civilization: A Reader and Elements of Refusal), Neil Evernden (The Natural Alien), Stanley Diamond (In Search of the Primitive: A Critique of Civilization) and Lewis Mumford (Technics and Human Development and The Pentagon of Power).
[edit] External links
- Official personal website
- The website for Jensen's latest book Endgame, which includes numerous online excerpts
- A Talk given by Derrick Jensen at The Santa Cruz Vets Hall on 03-29-06
- An interview with Derrick Jensen in NoCompromise.org
- Radio interview with Derrick Jensen on Bringing Down Civilization
- An interview with Derrick Jensen
- Contribution to HopeDance Magazine
