(But the only thing more over-rated than civilization are symbols of civilization.)
If we believe the narrative that is fed to us, this thing we call civilization is the epitome of human existence. The most logical and only desirable arrangement of the human experience, realized.
We have become civilized therefore we have, become.
But what is civilization?
Is it a socioeconomic arrangement?
Capitalism Vs Socialism?
Is it intellectual thought?
Is it agriculture?
Domestication?
Is it technological and scientific development?
Is it culture?
Is it religion? Language? Art? Literature? Politics?
Is it global interconnection/ interdependence via modern forms of communication and travel?
A combination of development of all of the above?
We are told it is something to revere and without it we will surely perish. Without it we are nothing and we will return to a form of existence that was 'nasty, brutish and short.' This is a myth that has been busted many times.
Really, civilization is nothing but symbols. Abstract ideas that ultimately life does not require. It is a collection of ideas that often get in the way of the very things we are told depend on it. Harmony, quality of life, connectivity, a meaningful existence.
To blindly accept that pre-civilization, we had none of these things, is arrogant and incorrect. A number I like to quote often, is that for 99% of human existence we were not civilized. We were not domesticated, we did not farm, we did not have much of a religion (if any), our technology was very rudimentary, language was not necessary, and art was not needed or prevalent. What we did have was direct lived experience with very few symbols disconnecting us from real life. Arguably, day to day life was art, was religion, was science. We can look to the few remaining gatherer-hunter tribes for evidence of quality of life, pre-civ.
Ultimately, untouchable abstract concepts do not substitute lived experience.
When we watch the flames of Notre Dame lick the Parisian sky, we naturally mourn the loss of a massive symbol of civilization and its achievements. Yet, we aren't mourning in quite the same way, the breaking up of the ice bergs, species extinction, young black men shot by police, Palestinian homes getting wrecked, the murder of trans-gendered person, kids dying in ICE detention and on and on. Yet, these are the natural outcomes of civilization. Religion, technology, economic disparity, politics, 'society,' are killing the planet and pitting us against each other. Now one of civilizations greatest symbols is up in flames, so perhaps it is a good time to seek some perspective and to ponder what really matters to us. Whether this thing we call 'civilization' is really all its cracked up to be...
Nothing lasts.
It will fall. It will crumble. It will burn.
But everything that matters will survive.
Don't believe me? Or want to consider this more?
Start here:
-The Hazda
-Against Civilization
-The Garden of Peculiarities
-Abundance Without Affluence
-A People's History of Civilization
-Why Hope?
-Feral
If you have not read George Monibot's "Feral" yet. This BBC feature is a great (and very eye-pleasing) summary of his thesis:
BACK TO NATURE
"Civilization is boring. It has many virtues, but it leaves large parts of our minds unstimulated. It uses just a fraction of our mental and physical capacities. To know what comes next has been perhaps the dominant aim of materially-complex societies. Yet, having achieved it, or almost achieved it, we have been rewarded with a new collection of unmet needs. Many of us, I believe, need something that our planned and ordered lives don’t offer."
Fueled by black liquids and unholy music, inspired by Washington Irving, Cormac McCarthy, Norse Mythology, Native American folklore and Tillamook county, I hammered out a sordid horror story for Samhain, this weekend. Hope to have it up by All Hallow's Eve.
"We exist in a landscape of absence wherein real life is steadily being drained out by debased work, the hollow cycle of consumerism and the mediated emptiness of high-tech dependency. Today it is not only the stereotypical yuppie workaholic who tries to cheat despair via activity, preferring not to contemplate a fate no less sterile than that of the planet and (domesticated) subjectivity in general. We are confronted, nonetheless, by the ruins of nature and the ruin of our own nature, the sheer enormity of the meaninglessness and the inauthentic amounting to a weight of lies. It’s still drudgery and toxicity for the vast majority, while a poverty more absolute than financial renders more vacant the universal Dead Zone of civilization. “Empowered” by computerization? Infantilized, more like. An Information Age characterized by increased communication? No, that would presuppose experience worth communicating. A time of unprecedented respect for the individual? Translation: wage-slavery needs the strategy of worker self-management at the point of production to stave off the continuing productivity crisis, and market research must target each “life-style” in the interest of a maximized consumer culture."
"We can either passively continue on the road to utter domestication and destruction or turn in the direction of joyful upheaval, passionate and feral embrace of wildness and life that aims at dancing on the ruins of clocks, computers and that failure of imagination and will called work."
John Zerzan 'Future Primitive'
Photo by JFP/ Getty Images
The above photo is from the cover of George Monbiot's book "Feral: Searching for enchantment on the frontiers of rewilding," which is a rather compelling journey into the possibilities of encouraging true 'wilderness' in landscapes such as Britain's countryside and within ourselves; for the sake of ecology and for the sake of our sanity. ('Encouraging' might be the wrong word here, 'let happen,' might be better terminology, as Monbiot argues human intervention is the last thing the wilderness needs.) While the book doesn't dive too deep into ecopsychology, it is clear it is one of the driving forces behind Monbiot's research and adventures.
Monbiot spent about five years living in the Cardigan Bay area of Wales, close to where I went to university, contemplating the devastated landscape and the true definitions of 'wilderness' and 'conservation.'
If you've experienced the much celebrated British countryside, you'll be able to speak of endless hills and fields devoid of trees, plant variety and large mammals. It is shocking to think that most people accept that the landscape has always been so sparse and monotonous. As a child, I always assumed that was what the Welsh landscape was supposed to look like. However, there are legends abound of forests so dense that a squirrel could travel the length of wales without ever touching the ground. What you are seeing in Wales and most of the UK, is a 'second countryside,' deforested by agriculture, the propagation of monoculture and kept that way by stunted ecological and conservation policies. One of the key revelations of this book is, what Monbiot calls 'Shifting baseline syndrome,' which essentially means our standards and expectations are skewered by our lack of real understanding of what the 'baseline' for our land base once was. In other words, most ecological policy sets standards and measures successes based on an already depleted standard. Measuring fish stocks in comparison to the 1970s is ridiculous considering they'd already been devastated by then. Or being convinced that the treeless, grassy landscapes, grazed by sheep is 'natural' or when considering that elk, boars, wolves, bears and even elephants once roamed much of western Europe. Our baseline is nowhere near the potential level, of flora and fauna abundance and diversity that our land can handle and even thrive with.
Monbiots also spends some time but not enough for my liking, discussing our isolation, in particular modern children's isolation from the wild and how this affects their intellectual, emotional development and dare I say, spiritual well-being.
Ultimately, he advocates for a rewilding of Britain's countryside and uses case studies to show how rapidly nature can thrive when simply left alone. This is also a worthy treatise on how interconnected and interdependent plants and animals are on each other and how 'the wild' perfectly establishes a sustainable balance by itself.
Monbiot will no doubt dissapoint the likes of Green Anarchists/ Primitivists and anti-civilization writers such as John Zerzan and Derek Jensen, as he is not advocating for the end of industrial civilization or that we all return to a permanent wild primitive existence. Perhaps, he is naive in thinking true re-wilding can happen within this techno-centric, industrial based, capitalist run civilization.
However, this is the first piece of radical ecology that offers some practical ideas, tangible efforts and genuine hope for the health of our planet and our sanity.
One thing is for sure, if you're Welsh, you'll hate sheep after reading this.
