PSDB On the advice of many Derrick Jensen’s “Endgame” has been on the ‘should read’ list for years, but somehow I have never gotten around to it. More recently a youtube clip of him reading an excerpt was brought to my attention, so I watched that, and then checked out sections of the books that are available online.
The clip in question is a reading of the apparently infamous “The enviromentalist version of Star Wars” analogy (text from book here). Many apparently feel that this is a wonderful encapsulation of all that is wrong with “mainstream environmentalism.” Actually it’s a pretty good encapsulation of all that is wrong with Derrick Jensen’s arguments.
The short version (if you want to save 9 min of your life) is that Jensen uses a Star Wars analogy to mock nonviolent activists. eg:
“In a surprise move that will rivet viewers to the edges of their seats, other groups of rebels file lawsuits against the Empire, attempting to show that the Environmental Impact Statement Darth Vader was required to file failed to adequately support its …”
Straw Man Fail
Not surprisingly the case for nonviolence is NOT best articulated by a random collection of “standard lines thrown out by pacifists“, which is what Jensen uses to (mis)represent the nonviolent argument. A fair critique of nonviolent action would discuss and attempt to refute people like Gene Sharp, Bill Moyer or George Lakey, none of whom are even mentioned on the site.
Excuse me? you are pretending to critique a political strategy and you don’t mention any of the important current writers and thinkers? much less discuss their work and ideas? What am I supposed to believe? That:
- Jensen’s grasp of the subject is so lame that he doesn’t even know about the core writing and thinking on it, and couldn’t be bothered to find out?;
- Jensen knew about them, but has such a limited grasp of political struggle that he didn’t understand them, and hence left them out?;
- Jensen knew about them, but since he had no intelligent response he instead chose to ignore them and substitute cartoons instead?
Strangely, none of the above explanations give me any confidence that Jensen is worth taking seriously as any sort of authority on political struggle; I’m funny that way. Regardless, the fact remains that Jensen has not even talked about the case for nonviolent resistance, much less refuted it.
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Greenfyre's 
I’ve bumped into Jensen before. He seems to think that if activism isn’t both 100% “in your face” and 100 “stick”, it’s a waste. This characterization may be slightly strawmannish itself, but I will stand by the claim that it’s less of an exaggeration than those Jensen routinely makes.
For instance, he openly mocked me for quoting Buckminster Fuller (“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”), drawing upon contrived analogies that any fundamentalist libertarian would have used (i.e. “what if someone was coming at Fuller’s wife with a knife?”; the parallels with the Ron Paul crowd’s idea of “force” is rather stunning.)
Jensen, and the Paulites, seem to think that all actions are equal – and thus you’d do the same thing if you were threatened in person by a human assailant and if you were challenged by a legal document put forth by a publicly-held corporation, effectiveness or even basic physics be damned. For that reason, I discount both as rageaholics and generally ignore them.
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No, I think you were fair to him. It may be fairer of me to categorize him as an ideologue, rather than an activist motivated by practical concerns – the quintessential radical, in the classical definition of the term, even though what he’s trying to change isn’t entirely ideological.
My motivation in fighting the climate fight is purely practical, by contrast, and my (one) personal exposure to him was kind of jading. Resorting to a passionate, pathos-driven straw-man in response to a mildly critical position didn’t exactly do much to boost my opinion of his reasoning. Hearing that he also straw-mans peaceful protest in his book lends more credence to this evaluation. That’s why I don’t put much weight in what he says.
All that said, I didn’t intend my closing paragraph, above, as an insult. It just meant that different problems call for different solutions, and he didn’t seem at all interested in acknowledging that when I met him (and, if I read you correctly, he’s dismissive of the idea altogether). It seems all Jensen has is a very large hammer, and… well, you know the rest.
He covers a lot of ground, or tries to, and his writing is full of everything from storytelling to Fromm.
I think he is familiar with a lot of writing on nonviolence but it does not resonate with him, or result in serious engagement with the theoretical writing on nonviolence that you cite.
The explanation for this is in his ontological and metaphysical assumptions, which make his perspective on the use of violence specific (very specific) to his own conceptual framework.
As the book discusses, he thinks our culture (civilization) will be its own undoing; but that the faster all infrastructure is brought completely down, the better, to end the cumulative destruction and suffering.
Sometimes he seems to use this as a heuristic. Other times he is speaking literally. He radically rejects androcentrism.
He also tries to articulate an ethics of care, so he also advocates less drastic and many nonviolent measures to ameliorate problems e.g. curbing emissions.
If and when the present civilization ends, he doesn’t believe there will be much left of humans, other than perhaps small pockets of sustainable communities. So some fans are also people who want to ensure they have some land and supplies to survive it. No I’m not kidding.
On the other hand, he is a superior analyst of, for example, how militarism has created the civilization that has been destroying the planet.
For someone looking at him through the lense of theories of nonviolence, however, it will be necessary to dive your deepest and examine his philosophical assumptions.
On a personal note, he also seems to appeal to a certain type of person. He is an open book. He is completely unguarded and wears all his emotions on his sleeve. He often appears profoundly depressed. I think more than a few people wear him on their T-shirts for some of the distorted reasons they wear poor Che.
cheers
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I have always dismissed him as a Zerzan-like poser, and every time I revisit him, I thank that decision for all the time it saved me.
In Unicorn-land, everything would be perfect, so you suck!
Not exactly something you can build on, or work with. But it’s meant to basically impress the impressionable, not actually accomplish anything. He wants fans, not allies.
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It’s a good post and a good analysis.
The author of the critique didn’t read Endgame and isn’t familiar with Jensen’s works. He admits to having read some online excerpts and watching a 9 minute youtube video of Jensen giving a talk.
Isn’t this a little like a denier reading a chapter on global warming from a textbook and claiming global warming is a hoax? [1]
As one who has read multiple of Jensen’s books I can say Jensen addresses the points Mike makes on many occasions. For example: Mike claims Jensen uses loaded words like ‘pacifist’. Jensen admits he uses loaded words in his books and even states on multiple occasions that ‘all writers are propagandists’. If Mike had bothered to read even the first chapter of Jensen’s seminal work Endgame he would know this. [2]
Mike also claims Jensen uses straw mans to take down pacifism, but he certainly does not. Jensen provides many examples of how pacifism fails–where tree-sitters were simply arrested and petitions and lawsuits failed or were ignored, because as Jensen notes the laws only serve those in power, and resisting non-violently only allows the destruction of the environment to continue. [3]
On a separate note, what does it bother you that Jensen promotes radical resistance? [4] That radical resistance might actually accomplish something? [5] That you might have to give up your toys to live sustainably? [6]
How many deniers has Greenfyre converted? 0? So creating a blog devoted to repeatedly refuting denier claims hasn’t convinced any deniers to switch sides? This is unsuprising since Greenfyre defines deniers as those who ignore the truth. Then what is the point, how are you meaningfully contributing to stopping the global destruction of the environment by debating with those who ignore logic? [7]
Jensen is one step ahead of those refuting deniers online, because he knows it is a feckless task since deniers will always deny global warming because it suits their ideological world view and acceptance would mean having to change their way of life. [8]
The reason Jensen is so unsettling is because accepting his premises means fundamentally changing your way of life, and this cannot be done peacefully because those in power will do everything they can to keep it. [9]
Read Endgame, strawmen only seem like strawmen when you critique someones work based on a 9 minute youtube video. [10]
Violence gets sh*t done. Ask the native f*cking americans how non-violence worked out for them. [11]
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this post is awesome.
completely agreed.