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"We need to stop this culture before it kills the planet": A conversation with Derrick Jensen

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None of this, of course, is news to Derrick Jensen. He is the author of essential works such as A Language Older Than Words and Endgame. His worldview has nothing to do with party politics, incremental reform, leftist in-fighting, corporate compromise, or anything that seeks to tweak but ultimately maintain the ongoing global crime we call civilization.

 

"My loyalty," he told me, "is with the nonhuman and human victims (or targets) of this culture, and my work is toward stopping this culture's assaults on nonhumans, on the land, on the planet itself, on women, on indigenous peoples, on the poor."

 

If you've grown weary (and wary) of the entrenched Left and all the words left unspoken, you owe it yourself to read the rest of our conversation below. Afterwards, you just might start realizing that you also owe to the planet to get busy.

 

Our exchange took place during the week of January 17 and went a little something like this"

 

Mickey Z.: We're starting this conversation as another MLK Day is observed. Not much of a chance that we'll hear this Dr. King quote--"The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be"--mentioned much by the corporate media, huh?

 

Derrick Jensen: Just today I read an article stating that, no surprise, industrial-induced global warming will be far worse than estimated, and if carbon emissions continue as expected, could render much of the planet uninhabitable within 100 years. Even now, 150-200 species are driven extinct every day. This culture extirpates indigenous peoples. The oceans are being murdered. And today I saw a study of rates of fire retardant in every fetus. And on and on. And yet those of us who are working to stop this planetary murder are sometimes characterized as extremists.

 

I think the real extremists are the people who value capitalism over life, the people who value civilization over life. I cannot think of any more extreme position than valuing this insane culture over life.

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