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Destroy the World& Feel Good About It.
I have been sometimes labeled an environmental extremist, primarily because
I believe the real world is more important than the economy, and because I
believe we should do whatever is necessary to stop this extractive culture
from killing the planet that is our only home.
Labeling someone an extremist is a standard rhetorical device to demonize
the extremist and dismiss the persons perspective. Its kind of the loco-
motion of the rhetoric world in that everybodys doing it. The Nazis said the
Jews were extremists. Slavers said abolitionists were extremists. The Found-
ing Fathers of the United States complained of how poorly the Indians were
treating them as they stole the Indians land.
Today, the US bombs extremists all over the world, oftentimes using as their
reasoning the fact that extremists want to bomb the Americans,
whomtheylabel as extremists. Corporate apologists and other right-wingers
often call environmentalists extremists for any reason. You want genetically
modified organisms (GMO) labeled? Theyll call you an extremist. You want
areas of the ocean off limits to fishing, theyll call you an extremist. You want
to stop logging of old growth forests? Theyll call you an extremist.
It happens on the personal level, too, as garden-variety abusers would never
perpetrate their abuse if it werent for the extreme behavior of their victims.
It always pays to present oneself as the reasonable onethe one in the rea-
sonable centerand ones opponent or enemy as the unreasonable one, the
extremist.
Robert Jay Lifton wrote about how people cant commit any mass atrocity
without having what he calls a claim to virtue. That is, they must convince
others and especially themselves that theyre not in fact committing an atroc-
ity, but rather a positive good. Nazis werent committing mass murder and
genocide, but purifying the Aryan race. The United States has never com-
mitted mass murder, land theft and genocide, but rather it has manifested its
destiny. The dominant culture isnt killing the planet, but developing natural
resources.
All of this is true in our personal lives too. I have never once in my life been a
jerk, by which I mean that every time I have objectively been a jerk, I have had
my actions fully rationalized.
And likewise, by definition, almost no one will consider their own position ex-
treme. Their own position is the reasonable one, or they wouldnt have it. And
their own position is in the center, once again by definition, because it is from
their own perspective. This is as true of capitalists as it is of Christians, athe-
ists, environmentalists, Scientologists or members of the Manson family.
All of which speaks to the power of rationalization.
But that doesnt mean we should throw up our hands and give in to any sort
of relativism. The fact that an argument is misused doesnt mean the argu-
ment is never true. The Germans excuse for invading Poland to start World
War II was that a detachment of Polish soldiers had attacked a German instal-
lation. The fact these Polish soldiers were really Germans in Polish uniforms
doesnt mean that no one can ever claim self-defense. The fact that people
rationalize atrocities doesnt mean no one ever commits atrocities, and it
doesnt mean that every statement everyone makes in defense of their actions
is a rationalization.
The question becomes, where do we find solid ground?
Years ago, I got into an argument with a woman over whether rape is a bad
thing. I said it was. Sheand I need to say she was dating a postmodern phi-
losopher at the time, and has since dumped him and regained her sanityre-
sponded: No, we cansaythat rape is a bad thing. But since humans assign
all value and of course that statement is itself both inaccurate and a big
part of the problemhumans can decide whether rape is good or bad. There
is nothing inherently good or bad about it. It just is. Now, we can certainly tell
ourselves a series of stories that cause us to believe that rape is bad, that is,
we can construct a set of narratives reinforcing the notion that rape is harmful,
but we could just as easily construct a set of narratives that tell us quite the
opposite.
Theres one sense in which she was right: We can certainly create a bunch of
stories that valorize rape (or that valorize the Aryan race and demonize Jews;
or that valorize capitalism and demonize everyone who disagrees with it; and
so on).
To bring this back to environmental extremism, we can certainly create a
series of stories that cause us to believe it makes sense to deforest the
planet, vacuum the oceans, impoverish the majority of humans. If the stories
are effective enough at convincing us the stories are more important than
physical reality, it does not only make sense to destroy the world, but we will
feel good about it, and we will feel good about killing anyone who tries to stop
us.
But not all narratives are equal. For example, what if someone told you story
after story extolling the eating of dog shit. Youve been told these stories since
you were a child. You believe them. You eat dog shit hot dogs, dog shit ice
cream, General Tsos dog shit. Maybe your enculturation is so strong that dog
shit actually tastes good to you. But you have a physical body, and no matter
what stories you tell yourself, this diet might make you sick or kill you. To
make the example a little less silly, substitute the words Big Mac, Whopper or
Coca Cola for dog shit.
Heres the point: Physical reality eventually trumps narrative. It has to. It can
just take a long time. In the case of this cultures destruction of the planet, it
has so far taken some 6,000 years (considerably less, of course, for its vic-
tims).
www.greenfuse.work
No matter what stories we tell ourselves, drinkable quantities of clean water
are a good thing. I recently saw anarticlethat began: Fracking for oil and
natural gasor having enough water to drink. Thats the possible dilemma
facing a number of countries including the United States, according to a new
report released by the World Resources Institute last weekthough experts
disagree on the real implications of the report and what should be done about
it. The journalists evidently consider it perfectly sane to consider the choice
between having water to drink and oil and gas from fracking a dilemma, and
consider it perfectly reasonable for experts to disagree as to what should be
done about this.
This is insane.
We are animals. We require clean water to drink. We require clean and healthy
food to eat. We require a livable habitat. We require a livable world. Without
them we die.
The health of the real world is the basis of a functioning, healthy, sustainable
moral philosophy. It has to be, because it is the source of life.
And now, at last, to environmental extremism. I do believe environmental
extremists exist. I believe it is extremist to intentionally fabricate quadrillions
(with a q!) of lethal doses of Plutonium. I believe it is extremist to bomb the
moon.
I believe it is extremist to construct so many damsmore than one large dam
per day for hundreds of yearsthat 25% of this worlds rivers no longer reach
the ocean. I believe it is extremist to build more than 70,000 dams over six-
and-a-half feet tall in the United States alone (if we removed one of these
dams every day, it would take more than 200 years to get rid of them all:
salmon dont have that time; sturgeon dont have that time). I believe it is ex-
tremist to drive runs of salmon extinct, runs that were so big that entire rivers
would be black and roiling with fish, runs so big you could hear them for
miles before you would see them.
I believe it is extremist to drive passenger pigeons extinct, pigeons who flew
in flocks so large they darkened the sky for days at a time. I believe it is ex-
tremist to cause 200 species per day to go extinct. I believe it is extremist to
cause, as biologist Michael Soul has said, vertebrate evolution to come to an
end. I believe it is extremist to bathe the world in endocrine disruptors. I be-
lieve it is extremist to put so much plastic into the oceans that there is ten
times as much plastic as phytoplankton (imagine that of every eleven bites
you take, ten of them are plastic).
I believe it is extremist to have an economy based on infinite growth on a finite
planet. I believe it is extremist to have a culture based on having been told to
go forth and multiply on a finite planet. I believe it is extremist to destroy
98% of native forests, 99% of native wetlands, 99% of prairies. I believe it is
extremist to go on destroying them.
I believe it is extremist to put in yet another shopping mall on the largest re-
maining prairie dog village in the Front Range of Colorado, especially when
prairie dogs have been reduced by 98% of their range and population. I be-
lieve it is extremist to vacuum the oceans, such that if you weighed all the fish
in the oceans, the total weight would be only 10% of what it was 140 years
ago. Stolid scientists are saying the oceans could be devoid of fish within the
next generation.
I believe it is extremist to murder the oceans. I believe it is extremist to murder
the entire planet. I believe it is extremist to mass produce neurotoxins (e.g.
pesticides) to release into the world. I believe it is extremist to change the cli-
mate. I believe it is extremist to steal land from every Indigenous culture. I be-
lieve it is extremist to commit genocide against every Indigenous culture. I
believe it is extremist to have one culture overspread the entire planet.
I believe it is extremist to believe the world was made for you. I believe it is
extremist to act as though you are the only species on the planet. I believe it is
extremist to act as though you are the only culture on the planet.
I believe there are environmental extremists on this planet, and I believe they
are called capitalists. I believe they are called members of the dominant cul-
ture. I believe that unless they are stopped, these extremists will kill the
planet. I believe they must be stopped.
-Derrick Jensen
derrickjensen.org
deepgreenresistance.org