Mother-Hatred

“And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet

and the winds long to play with your hair”
― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

I am willing to give a pretty large latitude to stupidity. People do and believe stupid things all the time. Generally though, when we don't have a huge vested interest in our stupidity, it gives way eventually to enlightenment when such enlightenment is finally hammered home to us. Even then, sure, people are willfully stupid sometimes, even when it isn't in their best interests and they don't or ought not to have a vested interest in that particular stupidity.

I don't think stupidity explains everything though. I don't think that we are merely unenlightened about the health of the Earth and natural systems or about their importance. I don't think that we are merely unenlightened when we insist that our Western capitalist consumerist way of doing things is the best possible life, even though parents today are mortally afraid of the future their children will inherit, human beings are intentionally and systematically alienated from their fellow man and the Earth, murder and perversion flourish, we eat artificial foods and sleep television dreams and we become more and more like the living dead than like men and women. I think it is not ignorance, not accidental, not a mere lapse in our education level or intelligence. I think it is more like willful hatred. 

 We are equal opportunity haters, to be fair. We don't just hate the planet, we hate each other and ourselves too. 

Long ago, we bought into a certain view of the universe based on human power, and over and over again we have doubled down on that bet until we have the human world as it is now in the so-called civilized societies. This is the foundational magic of Western Civilization, now the foundational magic of all industrial societies, that it is okay - no, it is your right - to treat the universe as your bitch. To treat the universe as mere stuff to bend to your will, and to treat other human beings that way too, at least within certain rules. And it is on one level perfectly understandable why we would have done that. Every being wants power, but beings do not always want what is good, especially when what they want is out of balance. Take a simple example, sugar: there is probably scarcely a human being on the planet for whom sweet things do not taste good. Over most of human existence on this planet, that was okay because sweet things were rare and good to eat when you could find them. When you suddenly have a diet full of sugar, sodas, donuts, twinkies and so on, suddenly that normal desire becomes a disease because you are now capable of actually eating too many sweet things.

Over most of the human tenure on this planet, we lacked the capability to extend our power very far. We discovered fire, and that was good. We made stone arrows and spears and that was good too. In time we discovered agriculture and domesticated animals, and it too was a good thing, although in time it brought some bad things in its wake. Power structures, autocrats, police states, greed and envy, wealth and poverty. It's clear that now, we have exponentially more power than our early ancestors could possibly have imagined. Early humans, even humans as late as the Romans or the Medieval Europeans, could not have conceived that there would ever come a time when Nature would need any kind of protection from us. The issue was always one of protecting ourselves from Nature. Any damage that the Roman Empire for instance could have done to Nature was a drop in the bucket in a world that was almost entirely wild and sparsely populated overall by humans.

And even though our power has increased exponentially and continues to, we have not backed off in the slightest from this unholy love of power. It has become more entrenched, and we no longer know who it is that is benefiting from this power and who is being objectified and oppressed by it. It is like we have a society of slaves without slaveholders. Who is ultimately wielding this power anymore? It wields itself. You might say that the "One Percent" are the beneficiaries, but are they really? Does all their money and power actually make them happier? Do they feel that they have more loving relationships, more meaning in their lives, more purpose in living, than we do? I very much doubt it. They are enslaved by power just as we are or actually even more so, their financial benefits from their slavery notwithstanding. 

The Earth is objectified, other people are objectified, we even objectify ourselves. What is another way of saying that? What are you saying when you say that the whole world and everyone in it, including yourself, are nothing but grist for some inhuman mill or other, whether it be a mill of reason, work, industry or even sex? Yes, we have dehumanized sex as well, it is very common. It's a billion dollar industry. When someone hates you passionately, at least you can say that they care enough to do it passionately. This is hate without passion, pure dehumanization, pure devaluation, pure disrespect, pure objectification. It's worse than hate. It is the spiritual equivalent of some bloodless Nazi bureaucrat counting the terrified naked Jewish women as they go off to the gas chambers so he can complete some official list or other. 

"Three thousand ninety-eight, three thousand ninety-nine, four thousand. Okay that's the lot, quitting time. Let's go grab a beer at the burlesque show, Hans..."

Hate.  It's an ugly thing, isn't it?

Let's just be absolutely clear, I am in no mood for beating around bushes. This society hates Nature, it hates itself, and it hates you. The only joys officially sanctioned are the joys of conquest, acquisition and humor, so that we can fuck over the world and each other and then laugh about it after.

I really don't want to talk to you about this sort of stuff, but we have to face our reality. It's like someone spits on your mother, you aren't going to take it kindly. I don't take it kindly, she's my mother gods damn it and she is being dragged through the mud and raped. I owe very little loyalty to this country or this civilization, I hope civilization melts down at this point. I owe all loyalty to them, they who speak to me through the leaves, and to the Earth.

I would much rather talk to you about the whisper of the cottonwoods and the quizzical gazes of squirrels and the joyful burble of quick-running streams. I would rather tell you about the smiles I feel from trees and the dreams I have of a better future for children, closer to Nature, far from the trash-strewn gutters of the cities. The playful breezes and dancing clouds, the smell of autumn leaves. The roar of the thunderstorms, the patter of rain, the smells of roasting corn and pumpkins and the smell of cedar trees. Mango's purr when he is happy. The sound mourning doves make when they take flight. The smell of fig leaves. I would rather tell you about the Ones who have seized me from the inside out and given my life meaning. The Ones that have shown me wonderful things from the Dreaming. I would infinitely rather talk about these things, but you can never really know them until you have grieved for what has been destroyed. You don't love the Earth if you only want to get good things from her and not share the bad things, you are only being opportunistic. If you seek to love her, you must grieve for her, right down to the pith of your being. That is why I tell you these things, so that you too can feel this pain that I feel. So that together you and I can be lovers of our Mother, not merely her sunshine friends.