Silencing

[eyelidlessness]

There is a language older by far and deeper than words. It is the language of bodies, of body on body, wind on snow, rain on trees, wave on stone. It is the language of dream, gesture, symbol, memory. We have forgotten this language. We do not even remember that it exists.

In order for us to maintain our way of living, we must, in a broad sense, tell lies to each other, and especially to ourselves. It is not necessary that the lies be particularly believable. The lies act as barriers to truth. These barriers to truth are necessary because without them many deplorable acts would become impossibilities. Truth must at all costs be avoided. When we do allow self-evident truths to percolate past our defenses and into our consciousness, they are treated like so many hand grenades rolling across the dance floor of an improbably macabre party. We try to stay out of harm’s way, afraid they will go off, shatter our delusions, and leave us exposed to what we have done to the world and to ourselves, exposed as the hollow people we have become. And so we avoid these truths, these self-evident truths, and continue the dance of world destruction.

As is true for most children, when I was young I heard the world speak. Stars sang. Stones had preferences. Trees had bad days. Toads held lively discussions, crowed over a good day’s catch. Like static on a radio, schooling and other forms of socialization began to interfere with my perception of the animate world, and for a number of years I almost believed that only humans spoke. The gap between what I experienced and what I almost believed confused me deeply. It wasn’t until later that I began to understand the personal, political, social, ecological, and economic implications of living in a silenced world.

This silencing is central to the workings of our culture. The staunch refusal to hear the voices of those we exploit is crucial to our domination of them. Religion, science, philosophy, politics, education, psychology, medicine, literature, linguistics, and art have all been pressed into service as tools to rationalize the silencing and degradation of women, children, other races, other cultures, the natural world and its members, our emotions, our consciences, our experiences, and our cultural and personal histories.

My own introduction to this silencing--and this is similarly true for a great percentage of children as well within many families--came at the hands (and genitals) of my father, who beat my mother, my brothers, and my sisters, and who raped my mother, my sister, and me . . ..

We became a family of amnesiacs. There’s no place in the mind to sufficiently contain these experiences, and as there was effectively no way out, it would have served no purpose for us to consciously remember the atrocities. So we learned, day after day, that we could not trust our perceptions, and that we were better off not listening to our emotions. Daily we forgot, and if a memory pushed its way to the surface we forgot again. There’d be a beating, followed by brief contrition and my father asking, "Why did you make me do it?" And then? Nothing, save the inconvenient evidence: a broken door, urine-soaked underwear, a wooden room divider my brother repeatedly tore from the wall trying to pick up speed around the corner. Once these were fixed, there was nothing left to remember. So we "forgot," and the pattern continued.

This willingness to forget is the essence of silencing. When I realized that, I began to pay more attention to the "how" and the "why" of forgetting--and thus began a journey back to remembering.

What else do we forget? Do we think about nuclear devastation, or the wisdom of producing tons of plutonium, which is lethal even in microscopic doses for well over 250,000 years? Does global warming invade our dreams? In our most serious moments do we consider that industrial civilization has initiated the greatest mass extinction in the history of the planet? How often do we consider that our culture commits genocide against every indigenous culture it encounters? As one consumes the products manufactured by our culture, is s/he concerned about the atrocities that make them possible?

We don’t stop these atrocities, because we don’t talk about them. We don’t talk about them, because we don’t think about them. We don’t think about them, because they’re too horrific to comprehend. As trauma expert Judith Herman writes, "The ordinary response to atrocities is to banish them from consciousness. Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word unspeakable."

As the ecological fabric of the natural world unravels around us, perhaps it is time that we begin to speak of the unspeakable, and to listen to that which we have deemed unhearable.

A grenade rolls across the floor. Look. It won’t go away.

An excerpt from A Language Older Than Words by Derrick Jensen

[stilltrucking]

In our most serious moments do we consider that industrial civilization has initiated the greatest mass extinction in the history of the planet?

I don't think that is correct. At least not yet. It may be true if we continue on our present course.

The Day The Earth Nearly Died - programme summary

The extinction, at the end of the Permian Period and the beginning of the Triassic, has puzzled scientists for many years.
Some 95% of lifeforms in the oceans became extinct, along with about three-quarters of land species.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/20 ... died.shtml

Other than that I find it very interesting. For the past couple of months I been dwelling on something mnaz wrote about "the not quite conscious stuff"

I don't know how to describe it. It is just over the horizion of my awareness. Maybe just beyound the reach of language. Thoughts I repress from consciousness.

Youth is the conscience of humanity. I heard that somewhere I can't remember who said it.
I am old with a bad conscience but I have hopes for a good death if I can tear through the vale of my own deceit.

[eyelidlessness]

I don't think that is correct. At least not yet. It may be true if we continue on our present course.

The operative word was "initiating", and I think the statement relies on predictions based on continued trends (which, let's be honest, aren't really at risk of being curtailed).

[stilltrucking]

ten four

I did not read it carefully enough

[hester_prynne]

As I wrote in the other thread, I've been trying so hard not to speak out anymore.
This article you posted, is the sorrow I feel.
I want to speak out. How does one do this without going under from the consequences? I've lost jobs and eaten at the foodbank for speaking out and I know it can be much worse than that. I am totally baffled.
Stifled.
Fearful.
Burned.
What about that? Where do I go from here?

I really liked that article.
H

[eyelidlessness]

There's no magical solution that doesn't require sacrifice. Let's be clear, we live in a culture that destroys whole peoples as a matter of doing every day business. It's a ruthless, amoral juggernaut, and it won't tolerate instability.

That's not really a good excuse not to act, though. And I think there's still some Germans alive from the War era who might warn of the consequences of defaulting on this basic responsibility.

"A grenade rolls across the floor. Look. It won’t go away."

[hester_prynne]

Yes the grenade rolls. I've seen it rolling since I was a kid.
I've stared at it, evacuated the room, lain on the floor in tears, kicking my legs in wild protest against injustices.
Perhaps a better way of doing it will come to me as I test my abilities to be silent.
H

[e_dog]

yeah, i think that whole asteroid striking the planet probably wiped out more spoecies than grand ole industry but i could be wrong. but second place aint too shabby. Yeah Industrial Revolution! Yea! Mankind or as eecummings say manunkind, etc. pity it not, or somethin to that Affect.


Busy monster(S).

[eyelidlessness]

yeah, i think that whole asteroid striking the planet probably wiped out more spoecies than grand ole industry but i could be wrong.

I already answered this. The author didn't comment on what industrial civilization has wiped out, but what it will wipe out if trends continue, which they will.

[stilltrucking]

e-dog

yeah, i think that whole asteroid striking the planet probably wiped out more spoecies than grand ole industry but i could be wrong

According to the latest scientific mythology it was not an asteroid that was the culprit in the Permian extinction. It was carbon dioxide from Volcanoes in Siberia. Good old global warming.

Yeah civilization. It is all women's fault That is probably why Eve was punished. Civilization arose with agriculture, a woman’s discovery the archeologists say.

Once you have crops you have a settled community, surpluses, than comes temples, city states, kings, priests armies, [bureaucrats underarm deoderants and so forth.

Lets go back to the good old days. 20 years seems like a ripe old age to die.

[eyelidlessness]

According to the latest scientific mythology it was not an asteroid that was the culprit in the Permian extinction. It was carbon dioxide from Volcanoes in Siberia. Good old global warming.

I wonder if there's ever been a theory advanced that dinosaurs brought on their own demise by abusing their ecological support base. It might not be factually true (we don't really know), but it sure would be a great metaphor for civilization.

Yeah civilization. It is all women's fault That is probably why Eve was punished. Civilization arose with agriculture, a woman’s discovery the archeologists say.

Once you have crops you have a settled community, surpluses, than comes temples, city states, kings, priests armies, [bureaucrats underarm deoderants and so forth.

Agriculture existed for thousands of years before civilization. Civilization is just settlement characterized by the growth of cities. I don't see what it has to do with women, as women didn't spearhead the formation of cities. Civilized agriculture is decidedly more destructive than non-civilized agriculture, also.

Lets go back to the good old days. 20 years seems like a ripe old age to die.

Life expectancy in non-civilized, non-colonized cultures tends to be higher than that of any period of civilization up to about the 1950s. Civilization has been around for 6,000 years. It took that long to catch up.

And frankly, the vast majority of people who live past 70 are drug addled zombies who spend more time talking about health problems than living life.

[stilltrucking]

Sorry I suppose I have studied too much anthropology

The paleolithic and neolithic are civilizations.


Venus of Willendorf The name Venus was a sexist joke by a male anthropologist early in the last century.

AGRICULTURE: DEMON ENGINE OF CIVILIZATION
http://imperium.lenin.ru/~kaledin/tmp/agricltr.txt

Agriculture had numerous consequences, mostly deleterious, which is why a sober academic like Jared Diamond, a physiologist at the U.C.L.A. School of Medicine who has studied it extensively, could call agriculture “the worst mistake in the history of the human race.”

http://vtcommons.org/node/431

Social Change

The surplus production that agriculture made possible was the key to the
social transformations that made up another dimension of the Neolithic
revolution.

http://history-world.org/agriculture1.htm

But never mind

And frankly, the vast majority of people who live past 70 are drug addled zombies who spend more time talking about health problems than living life.

"Frankly my dear..."
You are way too hip for me.

[eyelidlessness]

Sorry I suppose I have studied too much anthropology

Really? Because the anthropological definition of civilization is settlements characterized by the growth of cities (source).

The paleolithic and neolithic are civilizations.

Why? The use of tools and agriculture exists outside civilization.

The name Venus was a sexist joke by a male anthropologist early in the last century.

What's your point?

* * *

I find it interesting that you go on to quote Jared Diamond saying that agriculture is the "worst mistake in the history of the human race" shortly after you claimed that non-civilized humans live only 20 years. What are you smoking, so I can stay away from it?

"Frankly my dear..."
You are way too hip for me.

Alright. I didn't say it to be hip. I said it because it's true. Most people who live beyond a natural life expectancy (which is around the 70s) usually have failing health, feel miserable, participate little in life activities, increasingly need assistance, and develop mental and psychological problems that interfere with their ability to coherently interface with the world. You know it, I know it, everyone who's ever had an elderly relative on these fucked up pharmaceuticals knows it.

And because our culture reviles and refuses to spiritually deal with death, instead of accepting it as part of a life cycle and treating our bodies as temples, we live fast, die hard and then drug up to escape the inevitable consequences.

[e_dog]

theres nmo such thing as "the" anthropological (or archaelogical) definition of civilization. these concepts are always contested. ideological assumptions are imbedded in attemts at fixity, as dogma.

Wat is Dogma? The Dog Mother of Civilization.

What is civilization? A set of more or less complicated tools, based in repression, used for further repression and production, designed for the impossible task of containing nature and shaping an abode for the creative and murderous animal -- humanity.

[stilltrucking]

I dont know e-dog my dogma ate my karma.

Chimps use tools, they finger paint I suppose they have a civilization?
The first modern humans were the Cro-Magnons, they the first artists. Tool making goes back beyond the first humans but art does not.
We have the exact same brains as the Cro-Magnons. (Paleolithic, old stone age) (or at least our skulls are the same) We are natural born killers and artists.


Cartoon courtesey of the New Yorker.

eyelid
nevermind
I am too old for conversations like this
I just don't have the testosterone for it anymore

you made a remark about getting under my skin
You think you know me
You insult me
What is your point?

If you don't understand why I said the the title Venus Of willendorf is a sexist joke I can't tell you. I suppose you are just not sexist enough to get it.


I got two brothers in their seventies, neither one is a zombie
One races motorcycles on the senior circuit
the other is a cowboy.

You told me a while back how well you get along with the old folks
You are an ageist I see that now.
It is ok
Geezers used to scare me too when I was your age.

the difference between us is you have never been old
but I have been young
check back with me in forty years

can you get to that?
condensenion is in the eye of the beholder I suppose.

youth the conscience of humanity.
I meant that as a good thing
sorry it sounded like condenscension to you


now go pick on somebody your own age

Homo habilis
H. habilis, "handy man", was so called because of evidence of tools found with its remains. Habilis existed between 2.4 and 1.5 million years ago.years ago
The bulge of Broca's area, essential for speech, is visible in one habilis brain cast, and indicates it was possibly capable of rudimentary speech.


Homo sapiens neanderthalensis
existed between 230,000 and 30,000 years ago..., are the first people known to have buried their dead, with the oldest known burial site being about 100,000 years old.

Homo sapiens sapiens (modern)
Modern forms of Homo sapiens first appear about 195,000 years ago.
About 40,000 years ago, with the appearance of the Cro-Magnon culture, tool kits started becoming markedly more sophisticated, using a wider variety of raw materials such as bone and antler, and containing new implements for making clothing, engraving and sculpting. Fine artwork, in the form of decorated tools, beads, ivory carvings of humans and animals, clay figurines, musical instruments, and spectacular cave paintings appeared over the next 20,000 years. (Leakey 1994)





http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/species.html