So long as we only believe in the justice of the state, of the law-made by those in power, to serve those in power-so long will we continue to be exploited by those in power.
Derrick JensenRead
No matter what we call it, poison is still poison, death is still death, and industrial civilization is still causing the greatest mass extinction in the history of the planet.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the inevitability and harsh reality of the consequences of industrial civilization on the environment and life on Earth.
Derrick Jensen's quote serves as a stark reminder that regardless of the terminology we use to describe harmful practices or their impacts, the underlying reality remains unchanged; destructive actions associated with industrial civilization are leading to severe environmental degradation and species extinction. It calls for an acknowledgment of the serious consequences of our actions and a recognition of the urgency needed to address these issues.
Themes
EnvironmentExtinctionIndustrial CivilizationAwarenessConsequences
In practice
Example use cases
In an environmental conference when discussing climate change impacts.
More from Derrick Jensen
All quotes βThe stories we are told shape the way we see the world, which shapes the way we experience the world.
Derrick JensenRead
Those in power have made it so we have to pay simply to exist on the planet. We have to pay for a place to sleep, and we have to pay for food. If we don't, people with guns come and force us to pay. That's violent.
Derrick JensenRead
So many indigenous people have said to me that the fundamental difference between Western and indigenous ways of being is that even the most open-minded westerners generally view listening to the natural world as a metaphor, as opposed to the way the world really is. Trees and rocks and rivers really do have things to say to us.
Derrick JensenRead
When dams were erected on the Columbia, salmon battered themselves against the concrete, trying to return home. I expect no less from us. We too must hurl ourselves against and through the literal and metaphorical concrete that contains and constrains us, that keeps us from talking about what is most important to us, that keeps us from living the way our bones know we can, that bars us from our home. It only takes one person to bring down a dam.
Derrick JensenRead
The big dividing line is not and has never been between those who advocate more or less militant forms of resistance, or between mainstream and grassroots activists. The dividing line is between those who do something and those who do nothing.
Derrick JensenRead
Similar quotes
The seventeenth century is everywhere a time in which the state's power over everything individual increases, whether that power be in absolutist hands or may be considered the result of a contract, etc. People begin to dispute the sacred right of the individual ruler or authority without being aware that at the same time they are playing into the hands of a colossal state power.
Jacob BurckhardtRead
It's always easier for people to face backward than to face forward.
Martha NussbaumRead
My books are about killing God.
Philip PullmanRead
You couldn't pretend you had lost nothing... you had to begin there, not let your blood freeze over. If your heart turned away at this, it would turn away at something greater, then more and more until your heart stayed averted, immobile, your imagination redistributed away from the world and back only toward the bad maps of yourself, the sour pools of your own pulse, your own tiny, mean, and pointless wants.
Lorrie MooreRead
Our whole social environment seems to us to be filled with forces which really exist only in our own minds.
Emile DurkheimRead
PILGRIM, n. A traveler that is taken seriously. A Pilgrim Father was one who [was] not permitted to sing psalms through his nose [in Europe], followed it to Massachusetts, where he could personate God according to the dictates of his conscience.
Ambrose BierceRead