Derrick Jensen

Derrick Jensen
Born December 19, 1960
Occupation Environment activist and writer
Genres Global warming, ecology, social justice
www.derrickjensen.org

Derrick Jensen (born December 19, 1960) is an American author and environmental activist living in Crescent City, California.[1] Jensen has published several books questioning and critiquing modern civilization and its values, including A Language Older Than Words, The Culture of Make Believe, and Endgame. He holds a B.S. in Mineral Engineering Physics from the Colorado School of Mines and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Eastern Washington University.[2] He has also taught creative writing at Pelican Bay State Prison and Eastern Washington University.[3]

Contents

Themes in Jensen's work

Jensen's work is sometimes characterized as anarcho-primitivist,[4][5] although he has categorically rejected that label, describing primitivist as a "racist way to describe indigenous peoples". He prefers to be called "indigenist" or an "ally to the indigenous," because "indigenous peoples have had the only sustainable human social organizations, and... we need to recognize that we [colonizers] are all living on stolen land."[6]

Jensen sees civilization[7] to be inherently unsustainable and based on violence. He argues that the modern industrial economy is fundamentally at odds with healthy relationships, the natural environment, and indigenous peoples. He concludes that the very pervasiveness of these behaviors indicates that they are diagnostic symptoms of the greater problem of civilization itself. Accordingly, he exhorts readers and audiences to help bring an end to industrial 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".[8]

Jensen proposes that a different, harmonious way of life is possible, and that it can be seen in many 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 progressive 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 in contrast to the Western belief that the world consists of objects or resources to be exploited or used.

Writings

A Language Older Than Words uses the lens of domestic violence to look at the larger violence of 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?").[9] Welcome to the Machine is about surveillance, and more broadly about science and what he perceives to be a Western obsession with control.

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."[10]

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. Jensen often uses quotations as reference points for ideas explored in a chapter. (For example, he introduces the first chapter of Walking on Water with a quote from Jules Henry's book Culture Against Man.)[11]

Jensen wrote and Stephanie McMillan illustrated the graphic novels As the World Burns (2007) and Mischief in the Forest (2010).

Resistance Against Empire consists of interviews with J. W. Smith (on poverty), Kevin Bales (on slavery), Anuradha Mittal (on hunger), Juliet Schor ('globalization' and environmental degradation), Ramsey Clark (on US 'defense'), Stephen Schwartz (editor of The Nonproliferation Review, on nukes), Alfred McCoy (politics and heroin), Christian Parenti (the US prison system), Katherine Albrecht (on RFID), and Robert McChesney (on (freedom of) the media) conducted between 1999 and 2004.

Dreams draws on the mythologies of ancient cultures and the wisdom of contemporary thinkers like Jack Forbes, Waziyatawin (Dakota activist), Paul Stamets, and Stanley Aronowitz and is Jensen's challenge to the view that there is no knowledge ouside that gained by science.

Documentaries

Jensen was featured in the documentaries What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire (2007), Blind Spot (2008),[12] First Earth: Uncompromising Ecological Architecture (2009), Call of Life (2010) and END:CIV (2011).[13]

Awards and acclaim

Published works

Books

Spoken word on CD

See also

References

  1. ^ Endgame, Volume 1: The Problem of Civilization, Seven Stories Press (ISBN 1-58322-730-X), p. 17.
  2. ^ a b Derrick Jensen.
  3. ^ Jensen D., 2003, Walking on Water: Reading, Writing, and Revolution, Context Books (ISBN 1-893956-37-7).
  4. ^ Sean Esbjörn-Hargens; Michael E. Zimmerman (2009). Integral ecology: uniting multiple perspectives on the natural world. p. 492. 
  5. ^ Bob Torres (2007). Making a killing: the political economy of animal rights. p. 68. 
  6. ^ Blunt, Zoe (2011). "Uncivilized". Canadian Dimension. http://zoeblunt.wordpress.com/2011/03/20/uncivilized/. Retrieved 24 May 2011. 
  7. ^ He defines a civilization as "a culture — that is, a complex of stories, institutions, and artifacts — that both leads to and emerges from the growth of cities (civilization, see civil: from civis, meaning citizen, from Latin civitatis, meaning state or city), with cities being defined — so as to distinguish them from camps, villages, and so on — as people living more or less permanently in one place in densities high enough to require the routine importation of food and other necessities of life." Jensen D., 2006, Endgame, Volume 1: The Problem of Civilization, Seven Stories Press (ISBN 1-58322-730-X), p. 17.
  8. ^ Actions Speak Louder Than Words.
  9. ^ Walking on Water, p. 1.
  10. ^ Endgame V.1, p. 1.
  11. ^ Jensen D., 2004, Walking on Water: Reading, Writing, and Revolution, Chelsea Green (ISBN 1-931498-48-2), p. 1.
  12. ^ Blind Spot @IMDb
  13. ^ END:CIV @IMDb
  14. ^ Visionaries Who Are Changing the World
  15. ^ "HOFFERAWARD.COM". www.hofferaward.com. http://www.hofferaward.com/. Retrieved 2008-04-27. 
  16. ^ Press Action ::: Press Action Awards 2006
  17. ^ Derrick Jensen

External links