The ancient civilizations practiced low-impact logging - they had no bulldozers, feller-bunchers, skidders, and so on. Nonetheless, they created disaster. Read the oldest book we know of - The Gilgamesh Epic. Look at what low impact logging did to the Middle East - the forests, which once covered most of the region, are gone. I've seen so many photos of glorious ancient temples, which are today completely barren - not a single tree or bush visible anywhere - nothing but a vast countryside of hot sand. Read Perlin's book, "The Forest Journey".
They practiced low impact farming - no herbicides, no pesticides, no synthetic fertilizers, no mechanized equipment - their methods are what many today would consider to be "state of the art sustainable agriculture." Nonetheless, they created disaster. Tofu is not free. Read "Topsoil and Civilization", which can be downloaded free from an Aussie website.
Sustainable mining is such is nonsensical notion that I will not trouble myself to piss on it.
But these ancient civilizations are all moonscapes today. Yes, the modern industrial versions of logging, farming, and mining are ridiculously more destructive. However, all are unsustainable. In the end, both slowly unsustainable and rapidly unsustainable will result in the same moonscape. Can we learn something from this?
Did the wolf advance upon being domesticated and transformed into the miniature collie? Did the turkey advance upon being domesticated and raised in huge factories? Were the wild Meso-American grasses advanced by being genetically engineered into domesticated corn - a plant as bizarre as Michael Jackson - a plant that fuels population explosions, and the consequent ecocide?
If wandering space aliens had visited 100,000 years ago, humans would not have stood out from the rest of the wildlife. The turkey and the human were essentially equals - they both did a good job at living, and they didn't rock the ecological boat. But, 40,000 years ago, humans were painting on the walls of caves. Something changed.
The Paul Shepard books do a good job of pissing on domestication in The Others. I love his book "Nature and Madness", but it's a bitch to read.
Axtel's book, "The European and the Indian" does a lovely job of comparing the two cultures, and pissing on some racial/cultural superiority myths.
One of my favorites is Turnbull's book, "The Human Cycle", which compares the Pygmies to upper-class England. Here's a quote from it:
"Perhaps in our culture we romanticize childhood as we do because the child serves as an omnipresent reminder of a wonder and mystery with which we tend to lose touch as we grow older. In other cultures, however much the child may be a source of wonder, people do not idolize the condition of childhood. On the contrary, they recognize it as a time of ignorance and pain, a time of deep emotional hurt just as much as a time of joy. If they do not look back to childhood with nostalgia, perhaps it is because, for them, the world has remained a place of wonder, and the older they get the greater the wonder."
The Hebrew god unleashed a great flood, because he was sick of humans. He regretted creating them. He saw humans as thoroughly wicked. Every thought that crossed their minds was evil. They were a mistake.
This very closely parallels the Sumerian flood story. Too many humans made too much noise, and the gods were no longer able to get a good night's sleep. Humans, in fact, were created while the gods were shit-faced drunk. Hence, we are a flawed and pathetic species.
Domesticated civilized people tend to see humans as essentially flawed - and having a profound need for salvation or enlightenment. The world is a place of evil. This is not a place of wholeness, goodness, and balance. Nothing here is sacred. All of reality, if given enough time, will inevitably reach a similar conclusion. This cannot be helped. The universe is sick and flawed.
I don't know. I think that it's possible to examine the three billion year movie of life and see something beautiful and sacred and good. With one brief exception.
What troubles me is that the Earth Crisis doesn't seem to the be result of a one-time, one-place accident that got out of hand, snow-balled into an icky chain reaction, and messed up everything -- just a stoopid and colossally tragic episode of the bad luck from Hell.
The evidence seems to suggest that civilization started independently in multiple locations. And I see this as more ominous than a single accident that initiated a terrible chain reaction. It's not a mere boo-boo, but some kind of dark tendency. A creepy inclination to slide into pathological self-extinction mass behaviors. Yikes! Hide the women and lock up the liquor cabinet!
Up until somewhere around 40,000 years ago, we were too, um, advanced to conceive of stupid shit like domestication. But, at some point we DID conceive of domestication, and we DID actually do it. And look what happened! The end result is the world that you see around you now. Ack! The evidence suggests that we were wild, free, and happy for a long, long time. And then we went sideways, and everything got totally fucked up and ridiculous. I'm so embarrassed!
Wild worked pretty good. Domestication has sucked, sucked hard, and sucked consistently, without fail. Do we really need a third path? At this point in time, a functional way of living is starting to look mighty attractive. Why fart around when we know of a way of living that worked pretty good? Plus, it was fun and healthy. It just might be in our interest to contemplate the obvious. Despite the fact that it's cultural heresy. Don't ya think?
We have enough intelligence to enable us to get into deep trouble, but not enough to learn from our mistake and back out, repair the damage, and find a smarter path. While the Alps were being ravaged by colossal torrents, the bozos kept cutting down da fucking trees, knowing what the result would be. They lived like there was no tomorrow. Like we do. Dead end.
The modern concept of progress -- that each generation is better than the one before it -- is a bit over 200 years old. (Marquis de Condorcet first popularized the notion in a 1795 book.)
Far more realistic is the notion of continuous decline. In the Christian myths, everything turns to shit and ends in Armageddon. In the Norse myths, everything turns to shit and ends with Ragnaršk.
The ancient Greeks saw human decline as a series of historic ages. In the ninth century BC, the farmer Hesiod wrote Works and Days in the dark age following the collapse of Mycenaean civilization. The ecosystem was devastated after centuries of abuse, and the population had rapidly plummeted, to a mere 10% of its former peak.
In Hesiod's story, people of the long lost Golden Age lived like gods, pure in spirit, without toil or sorrow, in perpetual youth and continuous celebration. The Earth was healthy then, and provided food in great abundance.
The Golden Age was followed by the farmers of the matriarchal Silver Age, when men obeyed their mothers. This second generation was far less noble because they were simple, childish, and foolish. They did not give honor to the sacred, and were impure in mind and body.
The Silver Age was followed by a strong and terrible third generation, the Bronze Age. These people were hard of heart, violent, and warlike. They destroyed themselves and went to Hades.
The Bronze Age was followed by the farmers, explorers, and conquerors of the fourth generation -- the Iron Age. Finally, these people were followed by a fifth generation that never rested from labor or sorrow. Disagreement was the norm -- between father and son, guest and host, brother and brother. They were dishonorable, dishonest, and disrespectful -- violent, foul-mouthed, and fascinated by every form of evil.
Isn't this closer to the truth than the imbecilic myth of progress?
I guess I feel a stronger connection to the family of all life. There are zero humans running around today who have my blood in them. I have not reproduced, and I am glad. To bring a child into the world, into this culture, would cause so much unnecessary harm. By remaining child-free, I have prevented so much injury to the family of life.
When I lived in the Keweenaw, I developed a strong connection to that land. I wanted it to be healthy again. I wanted the white pine to return, and the whitefish. Whether or not there were humans in this picture simply did not matter. What matters is the health of the community, the health of the family. If one clan in the family gets sick and dies, it's OK. The family will carry on. What's not OK is a clan that goes on a murdering spree.
Humans gave it a good try. History doesn't tell us many tales of miraculous rapid revolutionary mass enlightenment, if any - certainly nothing even remotely comparable to the scale of the changes we now need to make in order to pull out of our tailspin. We tried. We can be proud of that. Not everyone can be a winner.
If we all come back as ravens or redwoods, won't that be an "advance?" Won't that make the world a better place? More peaceful. More beautiful. More healthy. Why get so fixated on the fate of humankind? Our trajectory is clear, our velocity is rapid, and, at this very late point in the game, we don't have many real options. Do we?
Enjoy the sunset. Feast on the perfection of Creation. Make a joyful noise. Celebrate the sacred beauty of it all. Feed the seekers.
The criminals are reasonable and appropriate leaders for a nation of criminals -- endless legions of fat people, driving around in fat three ton wheel chairs, living in fat cavernous McMansions. We get exactly what we deserve. Reap what you sow. When America looks in the mirror, it can only see George W. He is who we are.
When Odin went for a drink at the Well of Mimir (the well of stories, the well of memories) he got a vision of the future. He could foresee that the gods were doomed, because the bound-up forces of nature would some day become un-bound again, and respond with righteous vengeance. In one version of the story, only the god Vidar survived -- the personification of primordial forest. Anyway, after his drink, Odin was changed. Forever after, he was on the melancholy side. He had learned more than he should have. This made him sad.
I feel like Odin. Being aware in an age of sleeping. Living in a culture that is furiously committing mass suicide, racing down the path to self-extinction. The sane one who wakes up in the insane asylum. My God! Nothing but frantic full-bore craziness!
For the most part, I enjoy the warm and loving company of nature far more than human company. With humans, I generally bite my tongue. But other times I surrender to pointed questions and plunge into endless and pointless arguments. And these tend to leave a sour and daffy aftertaste. Folly. Why bother? Why not go for a pleasant walk in the woods, and enjoy some caring and comforting company?
As the era of cheap energy & overbreeding wheezes and wilts, the herd will come to see that all of our cherished myths are non-sensical and self-destructive. But they will also remain trapped in long-running patterns and habits and addictions -- which the herd will cling to till the bloody end. A truly sustainable future remains impossible until a healthy, normal, natural, and long-needed die-off occurs.
So, we are in the peculiar position of having to piss on the traditional path of education, wealth, and status. The hope for our future, peculiarly, lies in the deaths of billions. This feels funny to critters who define success as more and more and more of everything. This feels funny to critters who have been taught that two-legged critters are extremely intelligent & god-like. Our old sense of committment to building a better tomorrow, in fact, now seems to be about permanently destroying the thoughts and things that our mis-directed genius has inflicted upon us. What kind of goofy shit is this? I'm so confused!
I mean, the incredible goofiness of it all is magnified by the fact that almost nobody wants to talk about it or think about it. Being present in reality, in the fullness of its darkness, is not something that modern folks have any interest in. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream. Wheee!!