🚀 go-pugleaf

I guess it�s strange to find a publisher doing this, but I really
believe in the below, and as far as time allows, I want to start a
conversation in this discussion about it. Thanks.


A LANGUAGE OLDER THAN WORDS BY DERRICK JENSEN
Q&A



How do you react when people tell you that Language changed their lives?
Was that your intention?

It seems to me that the writer�s job is to articulate that which we know
in our hearts to be true, but has yet to be articulated. When the
nightly news delivers either obfuscations or outright lies about matters
of direct concern to us�I immediately think of the pandemic of cancer,
child abuse, and rape, the greatest mass extinction in the history of
the planet�it is a relief to simply hear (or read) the truth.  I can
still remember how I felt when I first read works by R.D. Laing, Neil
Evernden, Noam Chomsky. It was great. I had always thought that I was
the crazy one, not the culture.  Everyone is walking around wounded and
alienated, but no one talks about it.  Through these writers, and of
course through direct experience, I realized that alienation is not a
normal condition of existence, and that we needn�t walk through life
alone and terrified.  What a wonderful realization, and what a wonderful
gift from both the world of books and the wide world with its vibrant
life and energy.  So my intention was simply to tell the truth as I
understood it�to articulate that which I knew in my heart to be true.
With every sentence I ask myself, is this true?  Is it accurate?  Is it
precise?  Is it honest?  So no, my intent really wasn�t to change
anyone�s life: it was just to tell the truth. All that said, I cannot
tell you how good it makes me feel to hear that Language has changed
people�s lives. First, it makes me happy to pass on the gifts that were
given to me. And then, repetitive as it may sound, it makes me happy to
hear that someone�s happy. But the greatest satisfaction I receive comes
from the knowledge that any change that Language may affect is sorely
needed. If we are to meet our real needs without destroying others, and
indeed all life on the planet, we need to dramatically change how we
live, and this needs to happen as soon as possible.

What inspired you to write this book?

The impulse came when I first began observing the dissonance between our
public and private experiences of interspecies communication. I often
asked people at readings how many of them had ever participated in a
fully mutual conversation with something other than a human being�with,
for instance, a pet or a household plant.  Everyone would laugh, and
then a woman�it was always a woman, for some reason�would shyly raise
her hand.  Then more and more people, until maybe half had their hands
raised.  I would ask, �How many of you have ever before stated this
publicly?�  More laughter, and all the hands would drop.  I knew then
that I wanted to explore interspecies communication, and I knew as well
that to merely try to show that chimps, for example are
intelligent�using humans as our definition of intelligent�seemed to me
to miss the point entirely.  Instead of merely trying to make the case
that nonhumans can communicate I wanted to put the spotlight back where
it belongs: on us.  Why is it that some of us listen, and some of us do
not?   What are the implications of not listening?  Who benefits from
it?  Who suffers?   Once the questioning began, there was no turning
back: I merely tried to follow all the lines of questioning as far as I
could.


But this is a memoir�where�s the connection? You discuss domestic abuse
and talking to �nonhumans,� but what does domestic abuse have to do with
interspecies communication and what do either of these have to do with
your life story?

The act of listening.  Before you can exploit or abuse someone, you have
to stop listening to them, silence them, you have to deafen yourself not
only to their voice but to your own empathies and, finally, to your
conscience.

It seems like you're not so much interested in talking to animals as you
are in the metaphor of listening and communication as the means to a
more humane world....

Not at all.  I'm not so interested in listening as metaphor.  It's too
abstract.  It doesn't mean anything to me.  I am interested in
listening.  If you and I are sitting across from each other, and you are
trying to tell me something about what you need, it won't help you if I
listen �metaphorically.�  What you need is for me to listen to you, to
discover what you need.
The Okanagans have a wonderful word: En'owkin. There is no English
equivalent. It means, for all intent and purpose, "I challenge you to
give me the opposite perspective to mine so that I can understand how
best to change my thinking and thus accommodate your concerns and
problems." The act of listening doesn't mean we will always agree, nor
that we will never fight, nor even that we will necessarily like each
other.  But it means that we will treat the other with respect.  It
would not be possible to beat or rape a child if one were to listen to
the child, attend to the child's needs.  By the same token, we could not
be destroying the planet if we were to simply listen to the planet,
listen to what it needs.  Talking to the animals is not the important
thing, listening is what matters here.  The primary difference between
Western and indigenous philosophies is that even the most progressive
Westerners think of "listening" to the natural world metaphorically. We
perceive ourselves as living in a dead world, that we are the only
sentient, speaking, feeling beings on Earth.  That is certainly not how
Native Americans and many other people perceive the world. The
difference is simple: they perceive themselves IN the world, which, with
all its creatures, is itself a living, sentient being. In high school we
called this world an "eco sysytem."

Are you saying that if we listened to a tree, forests would no longer be
clearcut, that there would be no more rape, no more genocide?

Only if you understand that the tree is part of a larger entity, and in
that respect as important as the largest and tiniest communities living
in the "umbrella" community called Earth. It is no coincidence that when
our culture first arrived here in North America, the rivers were full of
salmon, the plains full of bison, and the skies full of Eskimo curlews,
and now they are gone--extinct or nearly so.  And it is no coincidence
that many of these cultures had no record of rape or child abuse. They
listened to both the natural world and to each other.  Our abuse of each
other and of the world emerges from how we are raised to perceive each
other and the world.  If someone were raised to perceive others as
little more than objects to be exploited, it should come as no surprise
when that person behaves in an exploitative manner. If, on the other
hand, you perceive the world as filled with lives that are just as
precious as yours is to you, we find a balanced, healthy community.

Your relationship with the many animals you write about is striking. Yet
you are not a vegetarian. How can you maintain a belief in intimate
relations with non-humans�like trees, frogs, coyotes, ducks and the
rest�and then eat them?

Well, first of all, I don�t eat frogs or coyotes� When I was younger, I
would turn off my feelings before I killed a fish, or a bird, or a
grasshopper or fly.  Something stirred, but it was too deep, and I knew
also that if I allowed it to well up I would never go through with what
I intended. I no longer go away while my arm raises and brings down the
hatchet.  I know that the answer�to what question I�ve no idea�is not to
shy away from death, and even killing, and of course really look long
and hard at feeling.  Death is everywhere, and will seek me out no
matter where I hide, now and again in the causing, and later in the
receiving. This understanding developed, oddly enough, while I was
sitting on the toilet. I realized that every time I defecate, I kill
millions of bacteria.  Every time I drink I swallow microorganisms,
every time I scratch my head I kill mites. Because life feeds off life,
and because every action causes a killing, the purpose of existence
cannot be to simply avoid taking lives.  That isn�t possible.  It is
possible, however, to treat others, and thus ourselves, with respect,
and to not unnecessarily cause death or suffering.  This seems so
obvious I�m embarrassed to say it, but it�s so frequently
ignored�consider the mass rapes and child abuse endemic to our culture
or the 150 million children enslaved, factory farms�and you�ll have to
agree it�s not so obvious. Having said this, I hate to kill.  It's hard
for me to do it, no matter whether we�re talking about chopping off a
duck's head, seeing a moth describe a curved arc into my windshield, or
pulling a carrot.  It's a life. So what I try to do, insofar as
possible, is to live in the awareness that my life necessitates the
taking of other lives, and that ultimately someone or something else
will take mine. Through my intimate experience of living day to day with
these nonhuman-others whom I eventually killed and ate I grew to
understand something known to farmers and peasants worldwide: it is no
contradiction to love a creature and eat it.  I have had brief glimpses
of death, and killing, as something not always frightening, BUT INSTEAD
SOMETHING to be accepted and even celebrated with respect and in full
cognizance of the loss. Death is a requisite part of a beautiful dance
that necessarily ends in death for us all.  It is the ducks' deaths now,
and my death later, that allow the dance to continue.

You write that high-jumping, teaching creative writing, and Crohn's
disease, among other things, helped make you who you are, you actually
thank the Crohn's disease in the acknowledgements to your book. Forgive
me for being a blunderbuss, but how do you get to a point where you can
thank a disease for ruining your life?

The disease didn't ruin my life.  The truth is that I am really happy.
It could have ruined my life.  It could have killed me. But it didn't.
But that's not really what I am thankful for.  I am thankful for the
lessons that the Crohn's Disease taught me.  One of the ways that I
survived my childhood was by distancing myself from my own pain, from my
own body, and from holding in my emotions, which were too strong for me
to be able to feel. Crohn's Disease taught me that it was no longer
beneficial, or even possible, for me to ignore my feelings.

Your mother helped you through the initial bout with Crohn�s, and you
now live near each other. How did this arrangement come about?

I now live on the same plot of land as she does.  In Language, I
describe in passing a terrible car wreck in which she broke her neck and
was rendered functionally blind.  So I have committed to living near her
in case she needs help.  In Spokane, it worked best to live a few miles
away.  Here it happened to work best to live on the opposite ends of a
parcel of forested land. We all are, of course, only two or three
generations removed from a time when most parents--most elders--lived
with the younger generations. And even now this is only an issue for
people of European descent.  When I tell my Native American friends
about the arrangement, they accept it as typical. For a long time I had
a lot of resentment toward my mom for not leaving my abusive father.  My
mother and I really hashed all that out maybe eight or nine years ago in
a series of increasingly intense conversations, culminating in a long
talk sitting in her car in the garage to her house.  She said something
during that conversation that is the reason we can have a good
relationship today, "I think about those mistakes every single day. Not
an hour goes by that I don't regret what I did and didn't do."  Her
heartfelt acceptance of that responsibility allowed me to let go of my
resentment. We still talk about it, of course, and actually reasonably
often, but I'm at peace with her role when I was a child.

Do you think many of the problems regarding �the nuclear family� may
stem from the alienation of family members from each other? What would
have happened had this talk never happened between you and your mother?

I would say that alienation within the nuclear family is a symptom more
than a cause.  And I would say that the nuclear family is itself a
symptom.

How can the notion of family be a symptom? What is it a �symptom� of?

We are social creatures.  We evolved in communities, and many cultures
do not perceive children as �belonging� to their parents, but as being
important parts of the larger community.  I cannot answer what would
have happened if that talk�or rather series of talks�had never taken
place between my mother and me, because really, the talk itself is not
the point.  The point is that the conversations manifested willingness
on both of our parts to attempt to understand the past�to not bury
it�and to understand how the past influences the present.  If the first
rule of any dysfunctional family�or social system�is that you cannot
talk about the atrocities, I would say that the first rule of recovery
from atrocity�and ultimately the first rule of preventing atrocities�is
to speak of them honestly.  So in order for us to be in any sort of
meaningful adult relationship, we had to talk about our perceptions and
understandings.

Can you tell us something about your teaching style? How did it come
into being?

It's all based on the understanding that real learning is
self-discovered, self-appropriated.  I am not a teacher by virtue of the
fact that I can cram information into their brains. My job is to help
students develop into the beautiful people they were born to be, and
already are. Learning is a wonderfully mysterious process, it is
arrogant to believe that anyone knows best what others need to learn.
So it became my job to attempt to create an atmosphere in which the
students felt comfortable enough to begin to learn on their own.  And
just as the first "rule" of writing is "Don't bore the reader," the
first "rule" of teaching for me is, "Don't bore the student."  It's part
of my job to make the class interesting enough that people want to come
simply because they enjoy it.  One of the great tragedies of our whole
system, of so-called education, is that it makes learning�naturally a
tremendously fun process�a tedious, stultifying experience. Because we
learn by doing, I�m there as a cheerleader.  So students write about
what they care about, and in so doing write far more than they would
have otherwise.  And they learn grammar: when you are trying to make a
point about something that matters to you deeply, suddenly you care
about clarity, which means you care about misplaced commas, not because
it is some abstract rule to be internalized, but because you want people
to understand you. Much of the learning in the classroom takes place
primarily because I listen to the students, and care about them, and do
not
try to impose a predetermined agenda on them.  The joke I often tell
myself is that if any of these students had ever before simply been
accepted and cherished for who they are, I would have to get a real job.