Endgame Vol.1 (35 page)

Just as those who wish to dominate and exploit will use any excuse to maintain and expand their control, those who see themselves as victims will find any excuse to maintain their belief they could not survive without their exploiters. I’ve known many women who stay with men who beat them and their children because they do not know how they would otherwise pay the rent. This logic is insane: it is also all-too-common. I’ve known many people who sell their hours to jobs they hate for the same reason. This logic is just as insane, and, if anything, is even more common. I remained in those abusive relationships I mentioned earlier in part because I thought I could do no better. At the time it seemed to make sense: from the outside I now perceive my own insanity.

All of these are stupid reasons to stay in intolerable situations, and in all of the cases I know personally—the abused women, people who hate their jobs, my own ill-chosen relationships—the fears went entirely unrealized when the people had the courage to finally make a move.

How many of us recognize the atrocious nature of civilization, yet hang on because we fear we would not—could not—survive without it?

Recently a few members of the Derrick Jensen discussion group faced this subject head on. One wrote, “Although I may detest what civilization is doing, I am literally filled with it. I don’t hunt, gather, or grow my own food, but buy it at diners and grocery stores. I clearly see how being civilized is like being in an abusive relationship, but I rely on this relationship for my food. And because civilization has taken over so much of the land and people, trying to live outside of it can be very hard and lonely.”

Someone responded, “At one point, the civilized would, and often did, run away from civilization to join the indigenous, to become Pequots, or Lakota, or Goths, or Celts. Unfortunately, by now there is nowhere you can run to get away
from civilization. When escape is not an option, what can you do if you’re in an abusive relationship?
The Burning Bed
[a film about a woman who kills her abusive husband by burning him in his sleep] comes to mind.”

Another person: “Those who think they can live outside of civilization are gravely mistaken. The only reason some who think they’re living outside civ are left alone is they pose no real threat to the system and can easily be ‘dealt with’ if they do. They’re ‘allowed’ to live their ‘alternative’ lifestyles. As Ted Kaczynski stated some time ago, ‘You can have all the freedom you want as long as the authorities consider it unimportant.’ In order for anyone to really have the chance to truly live ‘outside’ civilization anymore, civilization has to go.”

This is all very true, and just another way of talking about civilization’s monopolization of perception (and the world). But what will happen if we follow the example of
The Burning Bed
?

In answer, one person expressed the concern that “we’ve been caged in civilization so long our natural instincts and awareness have been dulled to the point we no longer trust we have the ability—or even the ability to learn how—to survive in a noncivilized environment.”

Someone disagreed: “Perhaps I’m not seeing this clearly. I grew up in the country, and by the age of eight knew how to feed and shelter myself. If I could do it at eight, with no one teaching me, how much better could we all learn if we were being taught?”

The previous person responded: “I didn’t mean to imply we’ve individually lost the ability to learn the skills needed to survive outside civilization. I should have emphasized our lack of deep-seated faith in our abilities, based on a lack of intimacy with the places we live (and, I would add, six thousand years of propaganda telling us nature is dangerous and civilization benign). For example, I’ve chosen to devote my energies primarily to learning, practicing, and perpetuating primitive survival and hunting skills, with the hope that when civilization collapses, such valuable knowledge will make it through to those trying to re-form more humane cultures. But here’s my caveat: at one time I thought I’d become a competent survivalist. Then I had the opportunity to hunt with a half-Cherokee half-hillbilly who’d grown up in the backwoods of Appalachia, a man who could move with speed and stealth through thick underbrush, who could see and hear things in the forest I could not, who had a seemingly instinctual ability to know where to find animals based on the weather, season, time of day, and so on. This was a man possessing a deep-seated faith in his ability to survive in the wild. So while I think I have better survival skills and potential than most people, I have to admit I just don’t have the deep-seated faith
that can only come through spending the vast majority of your time in direct contact with the natural world, as my friend did in his youth.

“There’s a broader problem, though, beyond individual survival, which is that of whole communities being able to learn to exist without the infrastructure of civilization. Again, I don’t mean to imply we can’t learn the needed skills. I just don’t think in the near future we’ll be able to master these skills with the grace evident in indigenous communities.”

Someone else put in what became the final words: “I agree, but think that grace will come if (and when) we stick with it long enough. And I need to add something for people to think about as civilization comes down: don’t leave out insects. They’re abundant, self-cleaning (not much disease), tasty, and contain lots of protein and good fats. Bon Appetit!”

After occupying Afghanistan, the United States invaded yet another country, Iraq.

The first night of the invasion I stood in the checkout line at Safeway, taking in the cover of a magazine—a picture of a fish with a human face—and pondering a question asked on another—whether after all this time Demi Moore will reconcile with Bruce Willis—when a man in his early twenties turned to me and said, deadpan, “So, we’re at war.”

I tried unsuccessfully to read his unshaven face beneath his baseball cap. I wanted to say, “
We’re
not at war.
I’m
not at war. It’s not my government. They’re not my troops.” But that would have required too much explanation. So I said, “Yes, the U.S. government is yet again bombing the shit out of poor brown people.”

He nodded, and said, “Yes, it is. It certainly is.” He turned away, and so did I.

As civilization falls, we all—rich and poor alike—have far more to fear than starvation, even more than the dioxin that permeates our bodies. Those in power time and again show no hesitation at killing to gain and maintain access to resources or to otherwise increase their power. Indeed, as is being shown right now in Iraq, and has been shown repeatedly the world over, they show an absolute eagerness to do so (I was going to suggest those who think the U.S. invasion has nothing to do with oil should put the book down, but realized they’ve probably already tired of the big words).

But their eagerness to use violence to gain power is nothing compared to what awaits anyone within range when their power is threatened. Anybody who has ever been in a violent relationship knows that to leave is extremely dangerous, as abusers often kill their victims rather than let them escape (showing they’d rather kill than give up their control, and, as my mom said, give up their identities). They sometimes kill themselves as well, showing they’d rather die, too, than give up their control and identity.

This happens not only on a personal level. When Hitler finally realized his war was lost, he tried to take down all of Germany with him. Disobedience on the part of his lieutenants prevented Hitler from succeeding. Had the Nazis possessed a nuclear arsenal comparable to what is now wielded by the United States, Hitler would certainly have attempted to use it to destroy the world. If an abuser cannot control a thing, it shall not be allowed to exist. This is the quintessence of abuse.

Lately at talks I’ve begun commenting that if those who run the U.S. government were to find their power seriously threatened, whether through internal rebellion or ecological collapse, there’s a good chance they wouldn’t scruple at nuking L.A. or any other seat of resistance. Heck, they’ve nuked Nevada for decades without any threat to their power at all.

People nod when I say this. There are no gasps of shock or disbelief. People easily accept the very real possibility of “their” leaders using nuclear weapons on the people and landbase they purport to serve. People are often far ahead of me in their analysis and understanding that those in power will do anything to maintain that power, and will destroy everything under their control before they see it let free.

Starvation, frightening as it is, may not be our greatest fear.

Given the radical obtuseness into which most of us—myself definitely included—are trained from infancy, I need to not be abstract but to be absolutely explicit. The United States government is a government of occupation. Capitalism is an economics of occupation. If a foreign power (or space aliens) were to do to us and our landbases what the dominant culture does—do their damnedest to turn the planet into a lifeless pile of carcinogenic wastes, and kill, incarcerate, or immiserate those who do not collaborate—we would each and every one of us—at least those of us with the slightest courage, dignity, or sense of self-preservation—fight them to the death, ours or far preferably theirs.

But we don’t fight. For the most part we don’t even resist.

How’s it feel to be civilized? How’s it feel to be a slave?