Burning Down the House: Capitalism at the Expense of All Life part 2

By Juan Santos

“...That’s part of the fundamental problem; that people do not even understand that
the real world is what is real; without a real physical world you don’t have any kind of economic system. The real world is primary; that’s the first thing we need to do; is to recognize that the real world is primary.” – Derrick Jensen –

It is upon us now to confront the greatest crisis in the lifespan of humankind.
Civilization - the destructive way of the City – has carried us to a climax of radical imbalances, a global eco-crisis, a state the traditional Hopi elders called Koyaanisqatsi:

koy.aa.nis.qat.si (Hopi) [n] 1. crazy life 2. life out of balance 3. life disintegrating 4. life in turmoil 5. a way of life that calls for another way of living.

Two intersecting realities face us; the two faces of eco-crisis. “Eco” means “home.” It is the root meaning of the terms “ecology” and “economy.” We face collapse in both arenas – arenas which are regarded as “separate” by virtue of a semantic, psycho-cultural sleight of hand, but which are, in reality, profoundly interdependent. In this essay, we will explore three premises, in the hopes that their exploration will help enable us to maintain our balance, to see clearly what is unfolding – collapsing - around us and within us; and so that we might act in accordance with the forces of Life, and thus sustain ourselves for this generation and the generations of our children’s children’s children. We live in a culture and under an economic system that is killing the world, and it is crucial that as it collapses we are able to deconstruct it, to dismantle the illusions that we have been steeped in since birth, that we become sane enough, so that – at a minimum – those of us who survive might never again reproduce a way of “life” that holds the potential to destroy all life; that we might not repeat or replicate a way of death.

All of us have been raised in a global capitalist civilization; all of us, even the most radical and astute among us, the most indigenous among us, have internalized much of its values, its premises; its lenses. The lenses are tinted. Their color is death. We don’t see clearly the relationship between ecology and economy. We are cutting off our own left hands, blow by blow, with an axe at the wrist, and call it “Making a Living.” The elitists see it more clearly: They call it “Making a Killing.”



Read the rest at The Fourth World: http://the-fourth-world.blogspot.com/2008/10/burning-down-house-capitalism-at.html