Derrick Jensen
Derrick Jensen
Derrick Jensenis an American author and radical environmentalistliving in Crescent City, California. According to Democracy Now!, Jensen "has been called the poet-philosopher of the ecological movement."...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth19 December 1960
CountryUnited States of America
Derrick Jensen quotes about
civilization
Civilization is not and can never be sustainable.
thinking culture killing
I think a lot of us are increasingly recognizing that the dominant culture is killing the planet,
school people hated
As is true for most people I know, I've always loved learning. As is also true for most people I know, I always hated school. Why is that?
believe law justice
So long as we only believe in the justice of the state, of the law-made by those in power, to serve those in power-so long will we continue to be exploited by those in power.
dream civilization people
To reverse the effects of civilization would destroy the dreams of a lot of people. There's no way around it. We can talk all we want about sustainability, but there's a sense in which it doesn't matter that these people's dreams are based on, embedded in, intertwined with, and formed by an inherently destructive economic and social system. Their dreams are still their dreams. What right do I -- or does anyone else -- have to destroy them. At the same time, what right do they have to destroy the world?
disrespect arbitrary body
I no longer see Descartes' statement as arbitrary. It is representative of our culture's narcissism. This narcissism leads to a disturbing disrespect for direct experience and a negation of the body.
morning writing blow
Every morning when I awake I ask myself whether I should write or blow up a dam. I tell myself I should keep writing, though I'm not sure that's right
mass-destruction hatred historical
If we hope to stem the mass destruction that inevitably attends our economic system (and to alter the sense of entitlement - the sense of contempt, the hatred - on which it is based), fundamental historical, social, economic, and technological forces need to be pondered, understood, and redirected. Behavior won't change much without a fundamental change in consciousness. The question becomes: How do we change consciousness?
civilization occupation culture
From the beginning, this culture - civilization - has been a culture of occupation.
love trust mean
Have you ever felt love? Did you need scientific proof of this? How would you have definitively and scientifically proved your love existed? If you could not prove it, would that mean your love didn't exist? What would you trust: your own feelings, or science?
men land dimes
I thought that, given the system of rewards central to our economic system, in which profit maximization is valued above all else and specifically above life, it is probably just as irresistible to the owners of capital (human or otherwise) to exploit workers (and the land): "Nothing personal," they say as they load their property onto the ship bound for the Middle Passage, "but a man's gotta turn a dime.
civilization
Civilization can never be sustainable.
mother hope giving-up
A wonderful thing happens when you give up on hope, which is that you realize you never needed it in the first place. You realize that giving up on hope doesn't kill you, nor did it make you less effective. In fact it made you more effective, because you ceased relying on someone or something else to solve your problems - you ceased hoping your problems somehow get solved, through the magical assistance of God, the Great Mother, the Sierra Club, valiant tree-sitters, brave salmon, or even the Earth itself - and you just began doing what's necessary to solve your problems yourself.
lying onions layers
Like the layers of an onion, under the first lie is another, and under that another, and they all make you cry.