Endgame, Volume 1: The Problem of Civilization [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Derrick Jensen is one of those authors that people love or hate. As for myself, I have mixed feelings about the guy and his message. Despite these mixed feelings, though, I never fail to read his books when they come out - and Endgame was by far an away the most anticipated and climactic one yet due to its highly controversial subject: taking down civilization. That's right, taking down civilization.

But why would anyone want to take down civilization, you might ask? At this point, I should say that if you have not already had the pleasure of receiving a formal introduction to the man and his work, you might want to start with one of his earlier publications, such as Listening to the Land, A Language Older Than Words, The Culture of Make Believe, Strangely Like War and Welcome or the Machine. In fact, I would recommend reading them all. They lay the groundwork from which Endgame both springs and builds upon: specifically, that civilization is F-U-B-A-R and doomed to collapse in the near but not too distant future, if not from climate change, then from resource depletion, soil erosion, toxic buildup or any other of the common environmental factors outlined in Jared Diamond's Collapse or the Worldwatch Institute's annual State of the World reports.

Or you might want to just dive right in, since in Volume I of Endgame Jensen outlines many of the fundamental flaws of our cherished civilization. And although each page reads with the power and relevance of an anarcho-primitiveist manifesto, Endgame, the two-volume summation of Jensen's writing career, amounts to nearly 1,000 pages in total - a lot of lumber for a strident call to arms. In fact, under the right circumstances, the book itself is large enough to be used as a blunt instrument to aid the deconstruction of civilization. All jokes aside, though, the net result is a rather awkward flow: a seemingly never-ending concatenation of ideas that, although related by theme, often contradict each other - by the author's own admission:

"Why do you think I laid out the premises explicitly for you, put you in a position of actively choosing to agree or disagree with them? Whey do you think I've approached this form so many directions? Why do you think I've expressed my own fears, expressed my own confusion? Why do you think I've made points, undercut or contradicted them, and then made them again? ... The point is the process I am trying to model. The point is that you puzzle your own way through, and figure out for yourself what, if anything, you need to do." (p 886)

Although I enjoyed the book thoroughly, and often recommend it to friends, Jensen does not come off as being genuine here. By this, I don't mean that he is purposefully deceiving the readers so much as himself. Along with all the interesting environmental science, psychology and poetry the book contains, the underlying current of rage and despair that makes his writing so profound reaches an all time high in Endgame - to the point where he calls upon the reader to "go on the offensive," imploring us to blow up dams, tear up concrete and knock down cell phone towers. Just "don't get sloppy," he advises. "Don't tell anyone who doesn't need to know. Don't get caught" (Dams: Part IV).

Of course, the minute some 16-year-old kid is locked up for taking Jensen's advice and demolishing a dam - or worse - I am sure Jensen will quote something from the 2-page chapter entitled "Responsibility" in his defense - a chapter which, remarkably enough, is little more than an apology for doing such things as blowing up dams to protect your "land base". Or perhaps he will quote one of the many disclaimers ("but don't listen to me, follow your heart") he so sparingly peppers throughout a book predominately dedicated to inspiring illegal activities. Considering the average age of his readership is probably around twenty-four, devoting only two pages to responsibility in a book of this nature is, in my opinion, an abominable abrogation of balance. But, hey, like most geniuses, Jensen is not known for his emotional balance.

All books have weaknesses, just as all authors have weaknesses, and having met Jensen on more than one occasion and sat in on many of his lectures around the country, I am very much aware that the overall importance of his thought far outweighs the single-minded, dam-demolition-obsessed demagogic carelessness of his presentation. In conclusion, I highly recommend that you read this book - but be careful not to leave it lying around where one of your curious, trigger-happy kids might find it unattended. The content is dangerous enough to require parental discretion - which I advise.

Some books you might also want to check out of a similar theme: Green Rage: Radical Environmentalism, Against Civilization, My Name is Chellis and I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization, and Igniting a Revolution.

j.w.k.

It's a great book. Read it and think and then "do" something if you feel the urge.

But just one thing I really would like to understand better (even if attempts to understand things, as opposed to blowing them up, are just so much mental masturbation) is how phrases like "crash of civilization" and "civilization has to go" and such are thrown about with abandon.

I want to know what would constitute truly uncivilized (and therefore presumably preferable) conditions. Not by genuflection to the idyllic American Indian past, but with reference to our own future when, by hypothesis, civilization will either have crashed on its own or will have been elbowed off the pavement by readers of this book.

I would like specifics about what level or rate or manner of technology, mobility, consumption, and reproduction would qualify as "uncivilized" and pass muster with Derrick? I am not trying to be trollish here, I really want to know. Because if we don't know, we'll just start the whole thing up again unconsciously.

Is it that all food I eat should originate less than N miles from where I eat it or what? What is that number of miles? What kinds of tools, if any, are sufficiently uncivilized? Is any division of labor acceptable? And so on. I know, I know, the answer would be something like "Why ask me? Those answers will be organically emergent from the community, will define themselves aright, once civilization is gone for good! Single-source-point answers are just playing the civlizers' own game!" Yet still I wonder...

In these books, Derrick includes conversations with software and hardware hackers who talk about hacking down agricultural and industrial civilization, but meanwhile with such a boyish gleam in their eye about high-tech and such a hard-on for it in their tone of voice that their words somehow aren't really convincing. They love the stuff! Presumably high-tech is civilization and must go? Yet they really seem to love their toys, if only such could be used aright - to "liberate" people and such. Still, those toys are products of the entire industrial infrastructure.

What about weapons? Who would defend the revolution and how? Remember that "one sinner destroyeth much good" (cf. also 'The Parable of the Tribes') Maybe I am just nit-picking, but I feel there is a slippery slope that needs to be addressed, and possibly, ugh, enforced. Or maybe somehow, with "civilization" gone, everybody would be nice enough from then on not to make trouble, or maybe the nasty ones can all be killed in the revolution.

Derrick's main thing is to be hard-headed and real, not a starry-eyed pacifist New-Ager building castles in the air. Therefore, in that spirit, I think these questions should be addressed. If civilization were to "crash" tomorrow (whatever that means) then wouldn't the first order of business, as Derrick himself states, be to secure food, water, shelter, etc. as quickly and effectively as possible? But isn't that process likely to eventually replicate something resembling a form of civilization?

So there needs to be enforcement of um ... guidelines, unless the landbases everywhere are so depleted that nothing remotely resembling "civilization" (whatever that is) can ever be replicated (Fred Hoyle's point). However, according to Derrick, we need to take it all down well before things reach that point of final depletion, so I think my questions will become issues.

Maybe I am just nuts, or seeking only to avoid the actual hard work of blowing up a dam.

Civilization is killing the planet. I can see you rolling your eyeballs, but wait: what does "civilization" mean? Derrick Jensen defines civilization as (abbreviated): "...a complex of stories, institutions, and artifacts - that both leads to and emerges from the growth of cities,...with cities being defined...as people living more or less permanently in one place in densities high enough to require the routine importation of food and other necessities of life." (Endgame Vol 1, p. 17)

This civilization goes way beyond even food and other necessities. Look around you: just about everything in sight is a human artifact. Where did those artifacts come from? If you start to investigate and realize how many species are wiped out (hundreds of species per day, as opposed to a natural extinction rate of one species every 5 years), how many indigenous people are ousted from their own land (where they were subsisting by growing or gathering food on that land) in order to support our lifestyles (for instance, raising cattle on land that traditionally belonged to the indigenous people of Mexico and sending nearly all of that beef to the US and the UK), you will find out just how bloody our hands are. There's something terribly wrong with this picture and no matter how loud environmentalists yell, no matter how many people start recycling and replacing their lightbulbs with more "environmentally-friendly" ones, it's not looking any rosier.

And think about this: if the previous paragraph took you 2 minutes and 33 seconds to read (you probably read faster than that), one more Rainforest species went extinct - to support our lifestyles.

In Endgame Volume 1: The Problem of Civilization, Derrick Jensen gives case after case showing how the dominant culture is killing the planet. Endgame picks up where the last chapter of his previous work, The Culture of Make Believe, leaves off. In that chapter he dared to speak what few are willing to hear: "...the next step is to get rid of our whole inhumane system, to quit valuing production over life, and to physically stop those who do. The next step is to bring down that which originated in conquest abroad and repression at home. The next step is a planet liberated from the destruction; the next step is the end of civilization." (Culture, p. 602) In Endgame Volume 1 he honestly examines, without flinching, the morality and feasibility of doing just that. He challenges us to get past the belief that what we're doing currently is enough. It's not enough, and we're running out of time. He challenges us to get off our butts and do whatever it takes, and that's not one thing, that's many things. He states over and over that, "We need it all."

People, human and non-human, will defend and fight for who and what they love. If you love this planet, you will read this book and answer the challenge. Civilization is killing the planet. What are you going to do about it? In Endgame Volume 2: Resistance he explores just what that might take.