Derrick Jensen Interview Part 1 - Deep Green Resistance

[doctor0ne]

I think he'd get more mileage out of his ideas if he were open to constructive criticism. I like his ideas, but when I see no avenue open for challenging his ideas openly, I see someone that is just selling books.

[z05t9o]

So how do we keep the organization of violence from adopting the best model available ( the U.S military) and thus becoming extremely successful at accomplishing DGR goals? Isn't or human inclination towards power problematic for dismantling systems of power?

[linghun]

And please do not idealize hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Dont forget it was the hgs who overhunted neolithic megafauna way before agriculture was adopted. Actually agriculture may have been adopted because hunter-gatherers tended to overshoot their hunting resources all the time. Eventually any serious DGR member will have to come to grips that humanity is inherently a killing machine and only our full extinction would usher in the sustainable paradise they seek.

[ChallengeCivBlog]

@linghun It's a shame the order of these comments is so messed up. Youtube's not the place to hold this debate, if you'd like to e-mail via the blog then feel free.

In no way am I idealising hunter-gatherers. And "only our full extinction would usher in the sustainable paradise they seek." There's a thought process that leads away from constructive solutions, and straight to pol pot-style ones. Ending this conversation here but certainly e-mail! Would love to carry this on in a better place

[TehAlexJonesChannel]

@ChallengeCivBlog A BETTER PLACE WOULD BE HUMAN EXTINCTION.

[rswcove]

@linghun The inherent problem with this idea is that is assumes that people are fundamentally special. Big cats also caused several extinctions. So did aerobic bacteria. Life kills to live. Living things adapt and either succeed or fail, the result is natural selection. The difference is that 'civilized' human beings are systematically at war with life, whereas other humans were merely very successful survivors. The ecosystem can deal with the latter, not the former.

[linghun]

@rswcove Its the famous sliding scale. Hunter-gatherers were not as "sustainable" as primitivists imagine, they too seem at some point to have overshot their "landbase" way before civilization. Where exactly does "killing to live" and "successful survivors" become "being at war with life"? The mere fact we are intelligent will always make use supreme hunters, always "at war with life"... the logical conclusion of the Primitivist Critique is that only full human extinction would suffice.

[gortijx]

@linghun

Actually, that's not true. While it's true that some early hgs overhunted their areas, it's pretty far-fetched to generalize and say that every tribe did, when that's far from true. The Aboroignines of Australia, the Hadza of Tanzania, and the !Kung had tools and social systems that allowed them to live for tens of thousands of years with their environments, without destroying the nature that they used and needed to sustain their lifestyles.

[TehAlexJonesChannel]

@linghun You destroyed the arguments of these day-dreamers, thinking of a lazy, hunter-gatherer society.....they don't know that hunter gather societies were WAY more FUCKING BRUTAL,SADISTIC,MURDEROUS,PSYC­HOTIC and IGNORANT than humans alive today in modern civilization, since natural selection weeded out most of the sadistic murderous serial killers from modern genetics, through the course of epigenetics, and genes, i.e nature and nurture improving this shit. Human extinction is good.

[TehAlexJonesChannel]

@linghun YOU ARE LOGICAL, brilliant, arguing with these masochistic, Tribalism ideologues, is useless because they FAIL to understand basic Anthropology. Have a good 2012 bro.

[linghun]

the next Pol Pot!

[ChallengeCivBlog]

@linghun Hi there, thanks for your comment. You may need to clarify somewhat, though. Jensen et al. aren't trying to implement some countrywide bucolic utopia, they're trying to stop industrial civilization's inexorable 10,000 year path of destruction. Are you saying that the destruction isn't real, and that there isn't already a (non-white human) genocide ongoing?

[linghun]

@ChallengeCivBlog Im just saying that many people have tried to create a society without corporations, capitalism, cities, long-distance food, high energy consumption, market forces, private enterprise, hightech etc. Good intentions are not enough. Derrik Jensen's movement will most likely just get idealistic youngsters killed in silly bombings and arson etc. like ELF, and industrialism will go on and on even if it has to take over the whole fucking solar system.

[ChallengeCivBlog]

@linghun Hi there. Just for clarity, Jensen and Lierre Keith have both criticised the ELF on numerous occasion, for their rather symbolic (read, pointless) and ill-thought out actions. "industrialism will go on and on even if it has to take over the whole fucking solar system." The writers of DGR would disagree & say that, like many civilisations before it, our global industrial one is bound to collapse sooner rather than later. Without some sort of resistance, there may be nothing left by then

[linghun]

@ChallengeCivBlog Be careful with the resistance you choose. In the event of collapse, the "local fooders" and permaculturists will be the first shot down like dogs for their food in the remote rural areas they think are safe. Please clarify to me 2 points abou the proposals of DGR: 1 - how does one take down industrial civilization? 2 - what kind of resistance can there be?

[ChallengeCivBlog]

@linghun Perhaps you can read the book and answer those questions for yourself. Also the DGR movement website has a lot of info resources.

"Be careful with the resistance you choose." Correct. I'm in the middle of reading DGR and, as yet, withhold my judgement. However, in "being careful", don't forget how pathological our culture is, and how perhaps (just perhaps) drastic measures may be needed to curb its inherent destructiveness

[linghun]

And of course destruction is real, it doesn't matter. Industrial hightech civilization is what keeps 7 bil alive today, take that out and we'd have to burn the worlds rainforests in a month just to cook our food, unless geniuses like Derrick are thinking of letting some 6 bil die. Civilization is a fried egg, you cant unfry it, Im sorry to burst people's bubble. So if you think it will "inexorably collapse", just let it. Bombing dams and banks will get nothing accomplished.

[ChallengeCivBlog]

@linghun " Industrial hightech civilization is what keeps 7 bil alive today" 7 billion humans (well, minus the billion or so starving), of course. As I implied in my first response, you're being anthropocentric.

Also, you're assuming that civilization hasn't led to uncountable deaths and trauma since its inception. Maybe look at our post The Cost of Now to start moving away from that enculturation.

[linghun]

@ChallengeCivBlog Assume less. Im not anthropocentric, Im just stating taaking down industrial civ will entail the death of billions of people. Im not saying billions of other life forms are not being killed because of the 7 bilion of us. And of course civilization caused unimaginable damage to humans and the biosphere. Where did I say it didn't?

[TehAlexJonesChannel]

@linghun You are a ethical, good, and empathetic person, why can't more people realize the human race needs to come to a graceful exit, soon.

[linghun]

@TehAlexJonesChannel thank you for your supportive comments

[timothyforvendetta]

: ) yay, nice to see you with video quality I can understand.

[jaysonball]

thanks for the upload!



[ChallengeCivBlog]

@jaysonball Glad you enjoyed it. Definitely check out the blog for more along those lines...