The Myth of Human Supremacy by Derrick Jensen

Author:Derrick Jensen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: environment, activism, conservation, global warming, pollution, nature, ecology, radical environmentalism, climate change
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Published: 2016-08-03T14:36:53+00:00

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100 And don’t give me any shit about how you could use your credit card to buy ladybugs, which will be delivered to your door and then dumped on your head; this means you have to rely on money, which means it’s only available to the financial elite. This is typical of many of the “miracles” of modern society: they increase our dependence on the economic and political system, as opposed to the real world.

101 Dawkins, The Selfish Gene.

Chapter Ten

Authoritarian Technics

We become what we behold. We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.

MARSHALL MCLUHAN

There’s another point I want to make here, one that was made best by Lewis Mumford. This is that technologies—and by extension, I would say many other forms of “solutions” to other forms of “problems”—do not exist in a vacuum. Technologies emerge from and then give rise to certain social forms. Mumford called the technologies and their associated social forms “technics.” Technics, he said, can be democratic or they can be authoritarian. Democratic technics are those that emerge from and reinforce democratic or egalitarian social structures, whereas authoritarian technics are those that emerge from and reinforce authoritarian social structures. The distinction he made is both brilliant and simple: does the technology require a large-scale hierarchical structure? Does it reinforce this structure? Does it lend itself to the monopolization of the technology, and therefore to control of those who fabricate the technology over those who use it?

To put it in its simplest terms, is this technology something that anyone can make? Or is it a technology that requires massive hierarchical (and distant) organizations?

We can ask all of these same questions not just about technologies, but about all “problems” and “solutions.” Authoritarian and egalitarian societies may look at the same situation and perceive entirely different “problems,” to which they will perceive entirely different “solutions.” These “solutions” will then lead to the societies becoming more or less authoritarian or egalitarian. We can also say that unsustainable and sustainable societies may look at the same situation and see entirely different “problems” to which they will find entirely different “solutions.” And human supremacist cultures and non human-supremacist cultures may also perceive different “problems” to which they will find different “solutions.”

An authoritarian, unsustainable, human supremacist culture may look at a river and see both problem and solution. The problem: How do we power our factories? Solution: Dam the river for hydropower. An egalitarian, sustainable, non human supremacist culture may look at the same river and see a different problem and solution. Problem: how do we live in place for the next twelve thousand years (the Tolowa Indians have lived where I live now for at least 12,500 years)? Solution: fold yourself into long-term interspecific communities such that these communities are healthier on their own terms because of your presence. Which means to respect and revere the nonhuman communities who share and are a part of your home, as you are a part of theirs.

Same river. Same original species composition.

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