A Language Older Than Words (12 page)

I once stood behind a woman and her little boy in line to board an airplane. He looked up at her. "What if the plane crashes?"

"Shhh," she said, "we don't
talk
about that."

There is a sense in which Nollman was right. The price of admission to public discourse is an optimistic denial pushed to absurd lengths. I live less than three miles from the Spokane River, which begins about forty miles east of here as it flows out of Lake Coeur d'Alene. Lake Coeur d'Alene, one of the most beautiful lakes in the world, is also one of the most polluted with heavy metals. There are days when more than a million pounds of lead drains into the lake from mine tailings on the South Fork of the Coeur d'Alene River. Hundreds of migrating tundra swans die here each year from lead poisoning as they feed in contaminated wetlands. Some of the highest blood-lead levels ever recorded in human beings were from children in this area. Yet just last summer the
Spokesman-Review,
the paper of record for the region, wrote that concern over this pollution is unnecessary because, in their words, "there are no human bodies lining the Spokane River."

The resemblance between this behavior—a steadfast refusal to acknowledge physical reality—and my own denial as a child is frightening. I see myself at the kitchen table, bringing the spoon to my mouth with a mechanical precision that would have made Descartes proud. I see my father by my bed, a dark figure on a background nearly as dark, and in that one so-brief instant of awful recognition, I feel my consciousness slip away—
This can
not happen. This cannot happen to me
—quickly, like running foot
falls down a distant corridor, or like the last bit of water sucking down an open pipe. As my consciousness disappears, so, too— poof-—does my father. Poof, no more father, no more rape. Poof, no more clearcuts, no more lead, no more crash. Suddenly for all our claims to rationality, we are, each and every one of us, as much out of our minds as we are out of our bodies. Poof.

Just today a friend told me she used to date a man who hunted. She hated the fact that he killed.

"Do you eat meat?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied, "but I don't have to see them die." A moment's pause, and she added, "I can't believe I just said that." Another pause, and we both laughed.

Poof.

A few weeks ago I participated in a conference of about twenty-
five environmentalists and small farmers. For three days we at
tempted to name values we hold in common and in opposition to each other. The purpose was to begin a dialogue between these two beleaguered groups, which may lead to better working relationships as we both try to stop the destruction of family farms and farming communities by transnational agribusiness corporations.

One of our exercises was to pretend that the year was 2018, and that somehow our culture had undergone a revolution in values such that we were now living sustainably. We wrote what we believed sustainable communities and farms would look and feel and smell like, what technologies would be used, and so on.

I don't know whether it broke my heart more to perform the exercise or for the group to share the results. This was due in part to the fact that no mention was made, either in the setup of the exercise or in the answers, of the nearly insuperable physical difficulties we face—for example, the fact that those in power control guns, tanks, airplanes, biological and nuclear weapons, as well as all major media outlets, and have shown themselves time and again more than eager to use these various tools to destroy any perceived threat. Nor did anyone mention the probably unconscious and certainly irrational imperative that drives all of the destruction. My discomfort arose primarily because even when we spoke of technology, no one mentioned the crash. We spoke much of "appropriate" or "friendly" technologies, but we did not define either one, nor did we mention how or why people would implement these technologies. Finally, I could hold back no longer.

"Everyone here knows industrial civilization isn't sustainable. We all know that any technology that relies on the use of nonrenewables is by definition not sustainable. We also know that by definition, any technology or activity that damages any other community—human or nonhuman—isn't sustainable. Finally, everyone here knows that there's no way within the next twenty years we'll make a transition to a technologically sustainable culture. The best we can hope for is that we begin to throttle down our overblown technology, to bring ourselves to a soft landing instead of a full crash."

Everyone seemed to agree, and it came clear to me that while these thoughts had probably occurred to nearly everyone in the room, no one else had been willing to speak until someone broke the ice. Poof.

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.

There are times the lies get to me, times I weary of battering myself against the obstacles of denial, hatred, fear-induced stupidity, and greed, times I want to curl up and fall into the problem, let it sweep me away as it so obviously sweeps away so many others. I remember a spring day a few years ago, a spring day much like this one, only a little more sun, and warmer. I sat on this same couch and looked out this same window at the same ponderosa pine.

I was frightened, and lonely. Frightened of a future that looks dark, and darker with each passing species, and lonely because for every person actively trying to shut down the timber industry, stop abuse, or otherwise bring about a sustainable and sane way of living, there are thousands who are helping along this not-so-slow train to oblivion. I began to cry.

The tears stopped soon enough. I realized we are not so outnumbered. We are not outnumbered at all. I looked closely, and saw one blade of wild grass, and another. I saw the sun reflecting bright off the needles of pine trees, and I heard the hum of flies. I saw ants walking single file through the dust, and a spider crawling toward the corner of the ceiling. I knew in that moment, as I've known ever since, that it is no longer possible to be lonely, that every creature on earth is pulling in the direction of life— every grasshopper, every struggling salmon, every unhatched chick, every cell of every blue whale—and it is only our own fear that sets us apart. All humans, too, are struggling to be sane, struggling to live in harmony with our surroundings, but its really hard to let go. And so we lie, destroy, rape, murder, experiment, and extirpate, all to control this wildly uncontrollable symphony, and failing that, to destroy it.

Claims to Virtue

"Exploitation must not be seen as such. It must be seen as benevolence. Persecution preferably should not need to be invalidated as the figment of a paranoid imagination; it should be experienced as kindness....In order to sustain our amazing images of ourselves as God’s gift to the vast majority of the starving human species, we have to interiorize our violence upon ourselves and our children, and to employ the rhetoric of morality to describe this process.” R.D.Laing

FOR YEARS I’VE BEEN haunted by a fantasy involving someone like Jesus. This person—woman or man, it doesn't matter—comes into a community and talks about love. She, or he, tells people they should treat each other with respect, and that this respect must extend to humans and nonhumans alike. A crowd gathers as this person says they should do unto others as they'd have others do unto them, and they begin to murmur quietly as they hear that they should share with each other everything they own. The discomfort of especially the crowd's children grows more noticeable as this stranger tells them they should love each other, love the land. (He or she says nothing about loving the enemy.) The children hide giggles behind their hands, and now even the adults bite the insides of their cheeks. Finally, after much hesitation, one of the community members responds, "Friend, we respect what you have to say, and thank you for telling us, but can't you tell us something we don't already know?" The stranger looks closely, and seeing the obvious well-being of the people, realizes that her (or his) words are redundant. The stranger merges into the community, and all continue with the dailiness of their lives.

The reality of our Judeo-Christian culture is of course far different. A primary purpose of Judeo-Christianity has not been to move us toward a community where the teachings of someone like Jesus—simple and necessary suggestions for how to get along with each other—are made manifest in all aspects of life, but instead to provide a theological framework for a system of exploitation. Easy as this is to say, not many people say it (at least in public). It is more convenient for exploiter and exploited alike to pretend their parasitic relationship is Natural, ordained by God. It is easier to believe in a logic that leads directly from original sin to totalitarianism—
Because human beings are selfish, evil creatures, they must be controlled; therefore might, guided by
an all-seeing God as interpreted by an elite priesthood, makes right
—

than it is to take responsibility for one's own actions, and to fight for egalitarianism. It is easier to listen to the voice of God than it is to listen to the voice of one's conscience, suffering, and outrage. And it is easier to follow the well-worn yet faulty logic leading once again from original sin this time to apocalypse—
Because human beings are evil, and have sinned, they must die. All
beings on earth die. Therefore, all beings on Earth must be evil, and
must have sinned. Death is the flower of sin. To avoid death requires
the annihilation of evil: therefore, all things on Earth must be anni
hilated
—far easier than it is to accept one's death as natural. It is all so easy, so sanctimonious, to shift responsibility for your own choices and their consequences onto the divine plan of some invisible God.

If you feel like raping a woman, don't just do it; have your God decree that under some circumstances such behavior is not only acceptable, but righteous, your God-given right: "And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her . . . then thou shalt bring her home to thine house. ... If thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go wither she will; but thou shall not sell her for money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou hast humbled her."

Rape alone is problematic as a method of social domination, in that it only temporarily provides the rapist control; to extend this over time, to permanently "make merchandise of her," you must have your God issue a series of decrees hemming women in, binding them to you as your property. Have your God say (while hoping no one notices your own lips moving) that because Eve listened to the serpent—remember, my father never beat anyone who didn't have it coming—every woman "shall welcome [her] husband's affections, and he shall be [her] master." Have your God say any woman who has sexual intercourse freely will be put to death (her body not being her own). Any
man, too, who has sex with another man's wife shall die, because he
has diddled with another man's property, although no punishment shall be meted out on the man who has intercourse with an unmarried woman (but we'll put her to death for good measure). Small wonder that one of the daily Orthodox prayers reads: "I thank thee, O Lord, that thou has not created me a woman.

.....

"
The deal is off with the coyotes. They're back, they're eating chick
ens, and they'd better watch out. If it's war they want, well, it's war they'll get.

It lasted two years, and they kept their end of the bargain far better than I kept mine. I probably only killed six or seven birds the whole time. But I don't care, damn it. They're my birds, to kill or not, and the coyotes are eating them. I talked to a friend, the guy who used to kill bears in Alaska.

"New coyotes, new deal."

The next day I awoke early from a dream, walked to the window to look out on a cold February dawn. I saw a coyote trotting away, empty-handed, as it were, and I opened the window. I shouted, as I had two years before, "Please don't eat the chickens, and I'll give you the head, feet, and guts when I kill them."

It didn't work. The coyotes came back with a vengeance. Week after week. A chicken. A duck. I'd dream of chickens, and another bird would be gone.

I pictured this new batch of coyotes, tough young dogs wrecking the neighborhood. If they were people, they'd lean against buildings, smoke cigarettes, and make rude comments to passersby. Or maybe these were the pups of the ones I'd made the deal with, ungrateful wretches no longer satisfied with crumbs from my table but determined—damn them—to take everything I owned. Worse yet, these might be the original coyotes, sick of my promises—
Next weekend. I'll kill one and give you the guts. I swear. I mean it.
Maybe they just came to take what they thought was their due.

Sometimes I'd see them, and wish I was holding a gun. I would've shot them where they stood. Or at least that's what I told myself; had the gun been in my hand instead of safely stowed in the closet, I don't know if I would have followed through.

Over the years I've known many people with no such hesitation about coyotes; ranchers, for example—those who shoot first, and rarely ask questions later. I didn't want that; I just wanted them to stop taking chickens.

Finally I called a friend and asked her to help me put up a fence. It took us the better part of two weeks to get around to it, in which time the coyotes took a couple more chickens. Because I didn't want to confine the birds, the completed fence ran around only half my property, cutting off easy access from the woods to the east and forcing the coyotes to cover a long stretch of open ground if they wanted a clean shot at a meal. I figured, rightly enough, that the dogs could (and would be happy to) patrol the open area. The only birds who got it after that were the ones who squeezed through the fence to forage in the woods. I figured they were asking for it.