Against the Pollution of the I by Jacques Lusseyran

Author:Jacques Lusseyran
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New World Library

— René Descartes,

Letter to Princess Elisabeth

CHAPTER 4

AGAINST THE POLLUTION OF THE I

EACH MORNING AND EACH EVENING I LISTEN, as I must, to news of the war. I must, because I do not have the right to live removed from the realities of my time. And since at present my home is in America, the news that comes over my radio deals with that unnecessary war, that lost war that is being waged with stubborn insistence in Vietnam. But even more often, with ever-increasing frequency, I hear news of a different war: I hear news about pollution. In that war the enemy is not at the other end of the world; he is no stranger, his history is no different from mine, nor is his creed. That enemy is I myself: he is all of us. Pollution is a civil war. The enemy is none other than the product of our own intellect, the ever-growing number of discoveries made by our practical intelligence. He is our own inventive dreams, the ever new combinations that we assemble out of the sum total of technical possibilities, and whose fallout hews gaping wounds that penetrate deep into our daily lives and affect us even in our most intimate personal concerns. Each day I hear our latest defeats reported.

Where once — why do I say once? it was only yesterday — the Navahos had their peaceful tribal reservation, the Colorado plateau is now poisoned for almost a hundred miles in all directions by fumes from a huge power plant that devours coal torn from the earth all around. Somewhat farther away, the vast virgin forests that cover southeastern Alaska are beginning to be exploited: according to reports they are to be systematically cut for lumber. Soon this lung that gave breath to the entire northwestern continent will no longer be able to serve its function. Those were the two latest items from the front in yesterday’s news.

Certainly it is good that such news is reported. Barely four years ago it was only a few daring souls, a few pioneers, who ventured to do so. Now this information (I wish I could say, this voice of conscience) has become public property. Perhaps now people will put an end to their madness. Perhaps they will finally sign a “Holy Alliance to Save the Earth.” But alas, this civil war is not restricted to the earth, to the air, to the water. It rages in ourselves. And about those battles I hear not a word. I for my part wish to break this silence. It has already lasted far too long.

Or to put it differently: I come today to share my concern with you, my very deepest concern. But rest easy; I am not one of those who enjoy being concerned. I am not one of those who take pleasure in their own misery, even in their own fright. Together with you I will be concerned only in the hope that jointly we may uncover the truths and find the means that will permit us not always to have to be concerned about the future.

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