4. The Wilderness Was Never Empty

Watch Awake (you need to use your CC login to watch it)
https://web.microsoftstream.com/video/f630c384-a8fe-40aa-a1ad-f8332c8a82c9

Lewis, David Rich. 1995. “Native Americans and the Environment: A Survey of Twentieth-Century Issues,” American Indian Quarterly 19(3): 423-450.

Sandlos, John and Arn Keeling. 2017. “The Giant Mine’s Long Shadow: Arsenic Pollution and Native People in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories,” pp 280-312 in Mining North America: An Environmental History since 1522 by J.R. McNeill and George Vrtis (eds).

(optional) Mann, Charles C. 2002. “1491” The Atlantic Monthly.

(optional) Holst, Joshua. 2016. "Colonial Histories and Decolonial Dreams in the Ecuadorean Amazon: Natural Resources and the Politics of Post-Neoliberalism"
Latin American Perspectives 43: 200-220.

(optional) Survival International. Progress Can Kill

(optional) Watch Force/Resistance: From Standing Rock to Colorado Springs


If I had about 15 more days I’d teach a course just on this topic. Let’s step back a moment.

Columbus himself crashed when he arrived in the Bahamas, and indigenous islanders rescued him and his crew. He took their kindness for a weakness and returned with weapons, cutting off islander’s hands and forcing them to wear them on a cord around their own neck if they didn’t bring him enough gold each tribute day. I can’t assign too much reading but here’s a cute infographic that was going around awhile ago: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/columbus_day

One historian claims that mining, the obsession with gold, shaped the European mind in a way that rationalize the inhuman conditions in mines, uniquely shaping the dehumanization of labor and laborers that extends to the present moment. I’m not sure if I’d go that far, but the European obsession with gold must have seemed strange at the time.

Prior to European contact, the Americas had sewage systems, brain surgery, botanical gardens, and agricultural laboratories just to start the list. If you happen to read the optional article “1491” you’ll see that archeologists are in conflict over the exact number of people—in fact it’s possible that the Amazon Rainforest was in part caused by human impact! Indigenous peoples took fertile soil with nitrogen fixing bacterias from one part of the Amazon basin to others, the nomadic Waorani plant certain types of trees on the edge of their territory both to mark it and to return to it over a decade later when it bears a special kind of fruit. Trees whose fronds are used for roofs and other materials were spread. (Side note: This wasn’t an ecological Utopia—there were human rights abuses in some places (by today’s standards) and the larger empires (Incan, Aztec) had a marked environmental impacts that were dramatically different from the small-scale societies that resisted them—but all of this paled in comparison to the Europeans.)

In contrast, Europeans had disease, weapons and cruelty. Just to give you a sense of how completely and totally unsanitary Europeans were at the time, feel free to read this historical gem about King Louis XIV’s anal fistula (or don’t—it’s an interesting read but not mandatory. http://omgfacts.com/when-anal-fistulas-were-all-the-rage/

The plague that spread after European contact was devastating. More than 95% of the population of the Americas died. It’s almost hard to wrap your mind around.

So fast forward to the present moment:

When you step back and think about it, Anglo-American environmentalism is somewhat absurd.

Essentially, Europeans arrived in the Americas, brought a plague, set up a global economy of extraction and human rights abuses, intensified that system 200 years later with globablization, producing a global planetary disaster. We then respond to this disaster that we caused by pushing indigenous peoples off of their land (as we will discuss tomorrow at times “paying for conservation” by allowing oil companies and ranchers on “protected” land) as “conservation” and then promoting a kind of “sustainable development” that is driven by industry profits and actually produces environmental impacts.

If we were to shift our most damaging practices to less damaging (“sustainable”-ish ones) that would be a victory—ie shifting from petroleum consumption to solar and wind power. But often what we’re talking about is creating a new market for a “sustainable” solar panel which required mining toxic chemicals and all sorts of fossil fuels to produce to a place where people were previously subsistence farming and using candles—shifting a miniscule environmental footprint into a much larger one because our technology is “green”

The animation here is… pretty problematic (their animated representation of the indigenous tribe makes me cringe), but this short film does a pretty good job of showing how these development buzzwords are thrown around and how they operate in practice: https://www.survivalinternational.org/thereyougo

So in the “developed” United States, indigenous peoples were forced onto reservations where subsistence agriculture was outlawed to create more demand for agribusiness-produced foods. The Lewis article (required) gives you a sense of the environmental experience of indigenous peoples in the US. Sandlos and Keeling track the transformations that came from a very specific mine in Canada. I hope this helps you to turn a light bulb on and see environmental issues in a very different way.

We are taught to view environmental issues as a “tragedy of the commons” by scientists and economists, the idea being that “human nature” forces us to abuse any common good, and environmental destruction is inevitable. What if that is a lie? What if what economists thing is “human nature” is really just the way people act in a specific social system spread across the world first by colonialism and then by globalization? The indigenous groups I visit in the Amazon don’t share this “human nature” of maximizing consumption until their way of life is completely destroyed, and they either integrate into the system (as disadvantaged and poor) or they die completely (like the Tetete in my (optional) article, or if you want to read more on how uncolonized rural indigenous peoples are destroyed by “development” there’s an optional Survival International report you can read).

The degree to which governments will go to force extractive capitalism on people who do not want it is very clear in the movie Awake.

So given all of this I posit the following question: what if the root of our environmental problems isn’t the tragedy of the commons, what if it’s imperialism as spread by both the colonialism of the past and the present-day colonialism of economic globalization? How does that shift your thinking on what role environmental organizations should play? How can environmental organizations support front-line communities? Why do/don’t they?

«1

Comments

  • I do believe that the root of modern-day environmental problems are derived from the continuation of colonial institutions and the systematic oppression and exploitation of people and resources it flourished on. The readings from tonight only enforced that narrative in my mind. There are undeniable racial and ethnic prejudices at play with the Giant mining company in Yellowknife towards the Dene people and the police at Standing Rock with their indifference about the safety and sentiments of the community.

    I think that environmental organizations need to begin with introspection into who and in what context and with what goals the organization was established. Actively addressing and reforming the makeup of board members and talking with the communities possibly effected by any movement is essential by organizations for positive change. Lewis echoes this idea when he talks about tribal leaders needing to balance environmental preservation with the squeezing pressure by corporations, governments, organizations, and other tribes to reap to join in economic endeavors. By reflecting on the entire situation and their role in history, environmental organizations might be able to understand the complex inner-workings of neocolonialism. There then comes the possibility of cooperation with front-line communities against shared enemies in the form of oppressive corporations.

    First, the indigenous people and front-line communities need organizations to understand the trifold pressure they face:
    1) trying to maintain a cultural identity which is based on the land
    2) getting their community out of the cyclical poverty and disrespect of colonial-born systems
    3) striking a balance between the two in a way that does not threaten the autonomy they have as a nation.

  • This is a really interesting idea. The concept that its human nature to be selfish is undeniably a narrative I have heard, and probably believed, growing up. It's almost lazy and arrogant. Giving thought to it, I'm sure that it is a biproduct of colonialism and the continued imperialistic values of our nation.
    The role of environmental organizations is interesting through this lens. I think a change of diversity and representation in board members and power in the groups would make an incredible amount of change. Different, important backgrounds would give a more well rounded picture and I like to think that people from less colonialistic (I think I made this word up) backgrounds would bring a very important perspective to the groups. I can’t think of this ending in any way that isn't impactful for the better. This would ideally have immediate increase in support for frontline communities. In my head, it would be exponentially more beneficial to raise the bar for our countries standards for the environmental as a whole. I don't think this is being done, because I don’t think it can be done until all communities, especially front-line ones have higher standards as well. I think there's many reasons this isn't being done today. For starters, there's such little representation from front-line communities that I think they really just aren't even on big corporations radars. Or in the least, its very hard to get on the radars. Additionally, I think there's probably little political/economic advantages to helping front-line communities. There's likely not going to be much you can get in return, I'm thinking specifically long term. I also believe there's an aspect of, mostly implicit, racism. This can show itself in many different ways, with what the supporters of an organization react most positively to, what the actual decision makers for big organizations think, and there's probably many more ways the bias can show itself in these discussions.

  • @caroline22 said:
    The role of environmental organizations is interesting through this lens. I think a change of diversity and representation in board members and power in the groups would make an incredible amount of change. Different, important backgrounds would give a more well rounded picture and I like to think that people from less colonialistic (I think I made this word up) backgrounds would bring a very important perspective to the groups. I can't think of this ending in any way that isn't impactful for the better.

    Caroline, the more I thought about more representation or more diverse representation on the boards of environmental organizations, which I also advocated more, the more I wanted to clarify my previous thought. I believe as you do that, this is a critical step, but I think it is dangerous to assume that by 'letting' board members be front-line community members that they will get the same attention in meetings. If you just change up the demographics of the board without an outside party or transparency about what occurs in the meetings, these people can become only token members. Their presence would be to avoid criticism from the media or serve as an argument for the organization's agendas when confronted about having subaltern or local support. I am not sure how to mediate this problem completely. If anyone else has ideas besides a third-party spontaneous review of board operations, please chime in.

  • @a_hipp said:
    Caroline, the more I thought about more representation or more diverse representation on the boards of environmental organizations, which I also advocated more, the more I wanted to clarify my previous thought. I believe as you do that, this is a critical step, but I think it is dangerous to assume that by 'letting' board members be front-line community members that they will get the same attention in meetings. If you just change up the demographics of the board without an outside party or transparency about what occurs in the meetings, these people can become only token members. Their presence would be to avoid criticism from the media or serve as an argument for the organization's agendas when confronted about having subaltern or local support. I am not sure how to mediate this problem completely. If anyone else has ideas besides a third-party spontaneous review of board operations, please chime in.

    I totally agree- to jump off your clarification, I too think that more diverse representation would have incredible potential to be done unethically and un-impactfully. The only way I can think to really combat this is by having truly representative board groups. In my understanding, board members are the highest power in organizations and I am optimistic that putting people in that type of position of power would eventually end positively. I think all underrepresented demographics of people that are in positions of power (in all industries) have fought hard and dealt with the issues that you named. It can be done.
    A third-party spontaneous review of board operations also makes a lot of sense to me. I'm not entirely sure however that even that board would be checked and insured to be ethical and just. I suppose though that it would be formed from scratch most likely, and therefore an equal starting ground, whereas infiltrating board groups would take time.
    It really comes down to me as just a need for genuine desire to create change from these organizations. It can't be done half-assed or just due to social pressure from the outside. Whether thats realistic anytime soon however, I am skeptical.

  • Acute poisoning and lack of taking responsibility for dangerous practices on behalf of industries, companies, and even the feds, in this case, reminded me of other incidents in the 1930s such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. The weaponization of careless (and/or intentional) science and production against subaltern communities in both contexts produced long-term health problems. I think that today we view these as blatantly racist and despicable acts that, in hindsight, could have been easily avoided. Yet, subaltern communities are still disproportionally affected by industrial changes. Watching the Awake film made me realize that we have more work to do, as the health of the people who rely on that water is possibly in jeopardy. We have seen things go wrong in our lifetimes alone, such as in Flint, Michigan. I am left wondering to what extent environmental organizations deal work towards social justice for the people affected by ecological disasters. Their interest seems primarily in the wildlife and ecosystems affected, whereas social justice groups and lawyers are supposedly expected to deal with the human side of the crisis. Does anybody have more knowledge on this?

  • The important role of miseducation detailed in the oatmeal and Mann cannot be understated. It seems to me that the myth of a dichotomy of sustainable Indigenous living on this continent only being able to garner subsistence resources and support small populations vs. renegade colonialism being the only way to support any kind of complex, large society is crucial to the maintenance of the status quo. It falsely teaches us that any impediment to colonialism is a threat to our very way of life. Maintaining this narrative constrains even those who have hope for a better future and wish to do good. If we believe that there was nothing before colonialism, we are tricked into thinking that without it there can be nothing. This is a massive impediment to truly rethinking the ways we live to be able to continue living on this planet. It may be that until we begin to tell the truth about the past, we will not be able to move into the future which would indeed be a very just predicament.

  • edited April 2020

    I think the questions asked are really interesting and provide a new way to look at the issue of development and the environment. I do think the excuse that human nature as inherently greedy with no interest for the common good is a concept we use as an excuse to continue exploiting resources and damaging ecosystems. In bringing up societies not so tainted by greed you are bringing up a contradiction to that argument. I think colonialism, imperialism and economic globalization account for most environmental in-sustainability and destruction. I think this stems from a shift in the societal view of property and resources. the native populations of the Americas were part of communities in which resources were shared and the idea of property ownership did not exist. In Europe people lived as parts of communities as well but they owned property and were looking out for the success of their family unit and not necessary the success of the entire community. I think it could be argued that this caused a shift towards greed and an incentive to be thinking about ones own financial success over anything else. This can be seen in most if not all the of the environmental disasters we learned about last night. DAPL was a complete disregard for the safety and right to clean water for both Native populations and the general population for the economic gain of big corporation and the same can be said about the Giant mine.

    This is interesting when considering environmental organizations, maybe their goals should be more focused on re shaping societal views on resources and wealth. I think one main way this can be achieved is working to have a more complete representation of different groups in these groups. This would introduce a new wealth of experiences that can begin to move the environmental agenda forward with concerns for more than just the elite.

  • As we have learned, environmental destruction is often a result of existing systems of power. I think environmental organizations should incorporate more opposition to the values and societal rules perpetuated in and by the industrialized West. In expanding an environmental organizations critiques to address systematic issues would indirectly affect positive environmental change. In this way, a despeciailzation of environmental organizations to encompass subjects that are not strictly of the natural world would in return enhance the environment as well as the quality of human life.

  • Enviromental injustices and human rights abuses have often been justified by the argument of it being a direct result of human nature. While I don’t think humans are inherent anti-atruism, nor do i think cooperation and mutualism are necessarily antithetical to our biological makeup, to some extent, it is irrelevant either way. Whichever inherent property we assign to humans, there are plenty of examples of the opposite. For the most part, I do not believe humans are confined to their biological makeup. Of course we cannot live without food or water, so in that way we have a biological restrictions on certain bodily capacities. However, I think humans transcend most “human natures” they are assigned, are become a product of social and cultural codes. In the documentary Awake, as well as elaborated on by mateo today, we saw a societal structure different from the one we all live in. There was no homelessness, malnutrition, federal or state law enforcement, violence etc. This is a model we can look to when violence, for example, is justified as “natural human behavior.”

  • @SpencerFier said:
    The important role of miseducation detailed in the oatmeal and Mann cannot be understated. It seems to me that the myth of a dichotomy of sustainable Indigenous living on this continent only being able to garner subsistence resources and support small populations vs. renegade colonialism being the only way to support any kind of complex, large society is crucial to the maintenance of the status quo. It falsely teaches us that any impediment to colonialism is a threat to our very way of life. Maintaining this narrative constrains even those who have hope for a better future and wish to do good. If we believe that there was nothing before colonialism, we are tricked into thinking that without it there can be nothing. This is a massive impediment to truly rethinking the ways we live to be able to continue living on this planet. It may be that until we begin to tell the truth about the past, we will not be able to move into the future which would indeed be a very just predicament.

    I really like your point about about large societies being important in maintaining the status quo. This ties into what Mateo was saying about the camp set up during DAPL. He mentioned that within the camp everyone was cared for. There were no instances of homelessness or hunger and from an outsiders perspective that might seem unrealistic to ever have on a large scale. But maybe that's just because it challenges our colonial perspective on what a society should look like.

  • I definitely feel like the "human nature" being referred to isn't really nature at all but a product of socialization. There's nothing intrinsic about people which makes them only self-serving. I definitely feel like environmental degradation isn't a "tragedy of the commons." It's hard to say that when the U.S. system of government was in of itself forced upon people with other economic practices. I think environmental organizations don't center frontline or more specifically indigenous communities because doing so requires some acknowledgement of the way settler-colonialism pushes environmental destruction. That acknowledgment leads to some thinking that in order to tackle environmental issues we have to take on social ones as well. At that point the accusations of being unrealistic or too idealistic are pretty immediate. Polar bears are a comfortable task to confront, deconstructing the settler-state definitely is not for most popular environmental orgs.

  • @SpencerFier said:
    The important role of miseducation detailed in the oatmeal and Mann cannot be understated. It seems to me that the myth of a dichotomy of sustainable Indigenous living on this continent only being able to garner subsistence resources and support small populations vs. renegade colonialism being the only way to support any kind of complex, large society is crucial to the maintenance of the status quo. It falsely teaches us that any impediment to colonialism is a threat to our very way of life. Maintaining this narrative constrains even those who have hope for a better future and wish to do good. If we believe that there was nothing before colonialism, we are tricked into thinking that without it there can be nothing. This is a massive impediment to truly rethinking the ways we live to be able to continue living on this planet. It may be that until we begin to tell the truth about the past, we will not be able to move into the future which would indeed be a very just predicament.

    I totally agree with everything you're saying here. I would almost push your idea of telling the truth about the past to say that we can't move forward until we stop repeating the past. Part of what is interesting about what Lewis and Sandlos is the ways in which they call attention to current issues of treaty violations, stealing land, and the government as a force of colonization. I think we're not only tricked into believing that there was nothing before colonization but that we're living in a post-colonial society. By telling stories of indigenous people and broken treaties of the past we get stuck in a cycle of positing those struggles only as part of history.

  • @charlotte said:

    @SpencerFier said:
    The important role of miseducation detailed in the oatmeal and Mann cannot be understated. It seems to me that the myth of a dichotomy of sustainable Indigenous living on this continent only being able to garner subsistence resources and support small populations vs. renegade colonialism being the only way to support any kind of complex, large society is crucial to the maintenance of the status quo. It falsely teaches us that any impediment to colonialism is a threat to our very way of life. Maintaining this narrative constrains even those who have hope for a better future and wish to do good. If we believe that there was nothing before colonialism, we are tricked into thinking that without it there can be nothing. This is a massive impediment to truly rethinking the ways we live to be able to continue living on this planet. It may be that until we begin to tell the truth about the past, we will not be able to move into the future which would indeed be a very just predicament.

    I totally agree with everything you're saying here. I would almost push your idea of telling the truth about the past to say that we can't move forward until we stop repeating the past. Part of what is interesting about what Lewis and Sandlos is the ways in which they call attention to current issues of treaty violations, stealing land, and the government as a force of colonization. I think we're not only tricked into believing that there was nothing before colonization but that we're living in a post-colonial society. By telling stories of indigenous people and broken treaties of the past we get stuck in a cycle of positing those struggles only as part of history.

    @charlotte I think you're totally right. Even when I was watching 'Awake' and seeing the treaties broken before my very eyes, I was still seeing them things of the past. Even as I was seeing Indigenous land stolen and exploited, I still framed it in my mind as part of the history of violence to expand oil infrastructure. I didn't see it within the broader legacy of colonialism and see the government as the colonists. All that to say, even as somebody who has studied colonialism and its continuing legacy, I still failed to see Standing Rock in such explicit terms, focusing on them instead as relegated to contemporary times. When you commented above calling the government a force of colonization it was immediately so obvious, but yet I failed to see it as such prior. To me this just personally showed how deeply rooted the colonialist version of history we have been taught is in our minds, at least mine. Here I am reading about and watching the legacy of colonialism all the way from 1492 (Mann), to the 19th century (Sandlos), to the present momment (Awake), and It seems a part of me was still willfully ignoring the obvious unbroken thread sewing them all together. Either my mind is far more imbued with colonial lies than I like to think, or I'm just stupid, so I hope this resonates with other people. :)

  • @charlotte said:

    @SpencerFier said:
    The important role of miseducation detailed in the oatmeal and Mann cannot be understated. It seems to me that the myth of a dichotomy of sustainable Indigenous living on this continent only being able to garner subsistence resources and support small populations vs. renegade colonialism being the only way to support any kind of complex, large society is crucial to the maintenance of the status quo. It falsely teaches us that any impediment to colonialism is a threat to our very way of life. Maintaining this narrative constrains even those who have hope for a better future and wish to do good. If we believe that there was nothing before colonialism, we are tricked into thinking that without it there can be nothing. This is a massive impediment to truly rethinking the ways we live to be able to continue living on this planet. It may be that until we begin to tell the truth about the past, we will not be able to move into the future which would indeed be a very just predicament.

    I totally agree with everything you're saying here. I would almost push your idea of telling the truth about the past to say that we can't move forward until we stop repeating the past. Part of what is interesting about what Lewis and Sandlos is the ways in which they call attention to current issues of treaty violations, stealing land, and the government as a force of colonization. I think we're not only tricked into believing that there was nothing before colonization but that we're living in a post-colonial society. By telling stories of indigenous people and broken treaties of the past we get stuck in a cycle of positing those struggles only as part of history.

    Absolutely! This is why I love reading the "post-colonial" literature but I bristle a bit at the name, and how it situates colonialism (even if the "post" is indexing post-modernism and post-structuralism). In Latin America academia there's a move towards "decolonial" literature which both recognizes that colonialism is a process that has not ended and that our goal as activist-academics should be to find ways to reverse this on-going process of colonialism. It gets diverted into existentialism as well, unfortunately, but there's a lot to like about that approach.

  • @charlotte said:
    I definitely feel like the "human nature" being referred to isn't really nature at all but a product of socialization. There's nothing intrinsic about people which makes them only self-serving. I definitely feel like environmental degradation isn't a "tragedy of the commons." It's hard to say that when the U.S. system of government was in of itself forced upon people with other economic practices. I think environmental organizations don't center frontline or more specifically indigenous communities because doing so requires some acknowledgement of the way settler-colonialism pushes environmental destruction. That acknowledgment leads to some thinking that in order to tackle environmental issues we have to take on social ones as well. At that point the accusations of being unrealistic or too idealistic are pretty immediate. Polar bears are a comfortable task to confront, deconstructing the settler-state definitely is not for most popular environmental orgs.

    The sentiment that you're expressing in your last sentence really resonates with me. I feel like the more I learn and deeper my understanding of the actually root problems gets, the less and less I am able to connect those issues with concrete strategies to confront them. It feels like the problematic system is a Jenga tower and to fix it without destroying it you have to remove every block simultaneously. Having said that, I do not present it as an excuse to give up go back to focusing on polar bears. The true task our generation faces in the next decade is to find those first, small steps that will set us on the road to radical, sweeping systemic change.

  • @Madison said:

    @SpencerFier said:
    The important role of miseducation detailed in the oatmeal and Mann cannot be understated. It seems to me that the myth of a dichotomy of sustainable Indigenous living on this continent only being able to garner subsistence resources and support small populations vs. renegade colonialism being the only way to support any kind of complex, large society is crucial to the maintenance of the status quo. It falsely teaches us that any impediment to colonialism is a threat to our very way of life. Maintaining this narrative constrains even those who have hope for a better future and wish to do good. If we believe that there was nothing before colonialism, we are tricked into thinking that without it there can be nothing. This is a massive impediment to truly rethinking the ways we live to be able to continue living on this planet. It may be that until we begin to tell the truth about the past, we will not be able to move into the future which would indeed be a very just predicament.

    I really like your point about about large societies being important in maintaining the status quo. This ties into what Mateo was saying about the camp set up during DAPL. He mentioned that within the camp everyone was cared for. There were no instances of homelessness or hunger and from an outsiders perspective that might seem unrealistic to ever have on a large scale. But maybe that's just because it challenges our colonial perspective on what a society should look like.

    @Madison
    Yeah I feel you. That question was definitely looming in the back of my mind during that part as well. From the little bit that I've learned about pre-Colombian American societies, I'd say that that kind of communitarianism (if that's a word) isn't usually seen above a small scale and while inequalities do generally appear in larger more complex societies, I think the selfishness and greed of Euro-American society that leads to the tragedy of the commons is thankfully not inevitable or natural.

  • @cara said:
    Enviromental injustices and human rights abuses have often been justified by the argument of it being a direct result of human nature. While I don’t think humans are inherent anti-atruism, nor do i think cooperation and mutualism are necessarily antithetical to our biological makeup, to some extent, it is irrelevant either way. Whichever inherent property we assign to humans, there are plenty of examples of the opposite. For the most part, I do not believe humans are confined to their biological makeup. Of course we cannot live without food or water, so in that way we have a biological restrictions on certain bodily capacities. However, I think humans transcend most “human natures” they are assigned, are become a product of social and cultural codes. In the documentary Awake, as well as elaborated on by mateo today, we saw a societal structure different from the one we all live in. There was no homelessness, malnutrition, federal or state law enforcement, violence etc. This is a model we can look to when violence, for example, is justified as “natural human behavior.”

    I agree with you in that humans are not confined to their 'human nature.' I do however have a hard time believing that these different societal structures you mentioned become difficult to scale. I think there is something to be said about humans, and most animals for that matter, to be more focused on their own and their families well being. In a society that has millions of families, come from different backgrounds, live in different places, I believe it would be truly difficult to have everyone lookout for each other to avoid such things as malnutrition and homelessness. I think in these societies where everyone does cooperate for 'the common good' of all people everyone looks on one another as family, which I do not necessarily see scalable to a society as large as somewhere like the US.

  • @a_hipp said:
    I do believe that the root of modern-day environmental problems are derived from the continuation of colonial institutions and the systematic oppression and exploitation of people and resources it flourished on. The readings from tonight only enforced that narrative in my mind. There are undeniable racial and ethnic prejudices at play with the Giant mining company in Yellowknife towards the Dene people and the police at Standing Rock with their indifference about the safety and sentiments of the community.

    I think that environmental organizations need to begin with introspection into who and in what context and with what goals the organization was established. Actively addressing and reforming the makeup of board members and talking with the communities possibly effected by any movement is essential by organizations for positive change. Lewis echoes this idea when he talks about tribal leaders needing to balance environmental preservation with the squeezing pressure by corporations, governments, organizations, and other tribes to reap to join in economic endeavors. By reflecting on the entire situation and their role in history, environmental organizations might be able to understand the complex inner-workings of neocolonialism. There then comes the possibility of cooperation with front-line communities against shared enemies in the form of oppressive corporations.

    First, the indigenous people and front-line communities need organizations to understand the trifold pressure they face:
    1) trying to maintain a cultural identity which is based on the land
    2) getting their community out of the cyclical poverty and disrespect of colonial-born systems
    3) striking a balance between the two in a way that does not threaten the autonomy they have as a nation.

    I agree with your main point on how organizations need to first do a lot of introspection work. I was just wondering what you mean with "cyclical poverty. And by "threaten the autonomy they have as a nation" you mean that by the organizations who want to work with native communities or by the "squeezing pressure by corporations, governments, ... to join in economic endeavors"?

  • Not really sure where I'm going with this but just thinking a little more linguistically here. Reading all of the responses has made me think about what we mean when we say "human nature". I think a lot of the things we use the phrase in reference to are by no means instilled in us as a result of our humanity, but rather they seem more like "capitalism-nature" or some sort of bi product of growing up in a society like ours. Not to say that that serves as any more of an excuse for selfishness, but just some food for thought. I'm curious what other people think of that wording?

  • @slothman said:

    @cara said:
    Enviromental injustices and human rights abuses have often been justified by the argument of it being a direct result of human nature. While I don’t think humans are inherent anti-atruism, nor do i think cooperation and mutualism are necessarily antithetical to our biological makeup, to some extent, it is irrelevant either way. Whichever inherent property we assign to humans, there are plenty of examples of the opposite. For the most part, I do not believe humans are confined to their biological makeup. Of course we cannot live without food or water, so in that way we have a biological restrictions on certain bodily capacities. However, I think humans transcend most “human natures” they are assigned, are become a product of social and cultural codes. In the documentary Awake, as well as elaborated on by mateo today, we saw a societal structure different from the one we all live in. There was no homelessness, malnutrition, federal or state law enforcement, violence etc. This is a model we can look to when violence, for example, is justified as “natural human behavior.”

    I agree with you in that humans are not confined to their 'human nature.' I do however have a hard time believing that these different societal structures you mentioned become difficult to scale. I think there is something to be said about humans, and most animals for that matter, to be more focused on their own and their families well being. In a society that has millions of families, come from different backgrounds, live in different places, I believe it would be truly difficult to have everyone lookout for each other to avoid such things as malnutrition and homelessness. I think in these societies where everyone does cooperate for 'the common good' of all people everyone looks on one another as family, which I do not necessarily see scalable to a society as large as somewhere like the US.

    I agree with the issue of feasibility in terms of creating a society where everyone is cared for and violence is minimal. I think what you said about seeing everyone as a family member is a really good way to put it. That's likley how people felt at standing rock, everyone was unified as a family under a common goal. Unfortunately, I don't think that would be feasible large scale in the United States, I think people spend too much time focusing on their differences to see the rest of their community like family. It's not that I think a society like standing rock is not feasible in any situation, but I don't see it feasible here. American identity is defined in ones ability to pick themselves up by their boot straps and work to make something of themselves and there is a certain damage to ones pride when accepting charity. Most of us also live in large cities where a community like that at standing rock would be impossible.

  • @caroline22 said:
    Not really sure where I'm going with this but just thinking a little more linguistically here. Reading all of the responses has made me think about what we mean when we say "human nature". I think a lot of the things we use the phrase in reference to are by no means instilled in us as a result of our humanity, but rather they seem more like "capitalism-nature" or some sort of bi product of growing up in a society like ours. Not to say that that serves as any more of an excuse for selfishness, but just some food for thought. I'm curious what other people think of that wording?

    I think I agree with you in that its not exactly productive to think about human nature in this way. Firstly, I think it would be impossible to really give a firm definition or guidelines for what it means to be human, in a social capacity. There are tons of societies that function in different ways and I don't think you could really find a single society that outlines 'true' human nature. I think when early anthropologists sought to explain this by looking at different cultures, such as the indigenous in the Americas or those in Africa, as 'primative' in a way we just added to the confusion on what it is to be human. I do however think it can be agreed upon to see real change, especially one like rallying everyone together for a common cause such as saving the planet. Change meaning changing the way we think about other people. Not that this goes against human nature or something but it definitely goes against society in its current state, in a big way.

  • @Madison said:

    @slothman said:

    @cara said:
    Enviromental injustices and human rights abuses have often been justified by the argument of it being a direct result of human nature. While I don’t think humans are inherent anti-atruism, nor do i think cooperation and mutualism are necessarily antithetical to our biological makeup, to some extent, it is irrelevant either way. Whichever inherent property we assign to humans, there are plenty of examples of the opposite. For the most part, I do not believe humans are confined to their biological makeup. Of course we cannot live without food or water, so in that way we have a biological restrictions on certain bodily capacities. However, I think humans transcend most “human natures” they are assigned, are become a product of social and cultural codes. In the documentary Awake, as well as elaborated on by mateo today, we saw a societal structure different from the one we all live in. There was no homelessness, malnutrition, federal or state law enforcement, violence etc. This is a model we can look to when violence, for example, is justified as “natural human behavior.”

    I agree with you in that humans are not confined to their 'human nature.' I do however have a hard time believing that these different societal structures you mentioned become difficult to scale. I think there is something to be said about humans, and most animals for that matter, to be more focused on their own and their families well being. In a society that has millions of families, come from different backgrounds, live in different places, I believe it would be truly difficult to have everyone lookout for each other to avoid such things as malnutrition and homelessness. I think in these societies where everyone does cooperate for 'the common good' of all people everyone looks on one another as family, which I do not necessarily see scalable to a society as large as somewhere like the US.

    I agree with the issue of feasibility in terms of creating a society where everyone is cared for and violence is minimal. I think what you said about seeing everyone as a family member is a really good way to put it. That's likley how people felt at standing rock, everyone was unified as a family under a common goal. Unfortunately, I don't think that would be feasible large scale in the United States, I think people spend too much time focusing on their differences to see the rest of their community like family. It's not that I think a society like standing rock is not feasible in any situation, but I don't see it feasible here. American identity is defined in ones ability to pick themselves up by their boot straps and work to make something of themselves and there is a certain damage to ones pride when accepting charity. Most of us also live in large cities where a community like that at standing rock would be impossible.

    For sure, and reading this made me think of something. I think there are a lot of problems with the idea of Nationalism but I think I can see the goal. If everyone has can be brought together based one at least one thing (such as pride for a country) it is easier to think about everyone as family and rally for one another. I guess that sounds like a light argument for nationalism, which I'm not trying to do just trying to say I get why it exists.

  • @caroline22 said:

    @a_hipp said:
    Caroline, the more I thought about more representation or more diverse representation on the boards of environmental organizations, which I also advocated more, the more I wanted to clarify my previous thought. I believe as you do that, this is a critical step, but I think it is dangerous to assume that by 'letting' board members be front-line community members that they will get the same attention in meetings. If you just change up the demographics of the board without an outside party or transparency about what occurs in the meetings, these people can become only token members. Their presence would be to avoid criticism from the media or serve as an argument for the organization's agendas when confronted about having subaltern or local support. I am not sure how to mediate this problem completely. If anyone else has ideas besides a third-party spontaneous review of board operations, please chime in.

    I totally agree- to jump off your clarification, I too think that more diverse representation would have incredible potential to be done unethically and un-impactfully. The only way I can think to really combat this is by having truly representative board groups. In my understanding, board members are the highest power in organizations and I am optimistic that putting people in that type of position of power would eventually end positively. I think all underrepresented demographics of people that are in positions of power (in all industries) have fought hard and dealt with the issues that you named. It can be done.
    A third-party spontaneous review of board operations also makes a lot of sense to me. I'm not entirely sure however that even that board would be checked and insured to be ethical and just. I suppose though that it would be formed from scratch most likely, and therefore an equal starting ground, whereas infiltrating board groups would take time.
    It really comes down to me as just a need for genuine desire to create change from these organizations. It can't be done half-assed or just due to social pressure from the outside. Whether thats realistic anytime soon however, I am skeptical.

    How to be diverse but without POCs become token members: Maybe just by not being ethnocentric, raicist, or an asshole (sorry)? The fact that we need a thrid-party reviewing operations to have a decent inclusion of those people in the front-line sounds so scary (and brings lots of questions of who are the memebers of that thrid-party, what would they be looking for to make it more "fire" than what it is, etc.). I know where you are coming from tho, we live in societies historically racist and ethnocentric, but it just frustrates me that we still need to discuss this. If we are going to work within the system, at least give leadership positions to those who know what is going on in the field, have knowledge, and first hand experience. I just really believe white people should really start giving those spaces but also do not leave "diversity" or "justice" on their shoulders, white people can be followers to...

  • edited April 2020

    @slothman said:

    @cara said:
    Enviromental injustices and human rights abuses have often been justified by the argument of it being a direct result of human nature. While I don’t think humans are inherent anti-atruism, nor do i think cooperation and mutualism are necessarily antithetical to our biological makeup, to some extent, it is irrelevant either way. Whichever inherent property we assign to humans, there are plenty of examples of the opposite. For the most part, I do not believe humans are confined to their biological makeup. Of course we cannot live without food or water, so in that way we have a biological restrictions on certain bodily capacities. However, I think humans transcend most “human natures” they are assigned, are become a product of social and cultural codes. In the documentary Awake, as well as elaborated on by mateo today, we saw a societal structure different from the one we all live in. There was no homelessness, malnutrition, federal or state law enforcement, violence etc. This is a model we can look to when violence, for example, is justified as “natural human behavior.”

    I agree with you in that humans are not confined to their 'human nature.' I do however have a hard time believing that these different societal structures you mentioned become difficult to scale. I think there is something to be said about humans, and most animals for that matter, to be more focused on their own and their families well being. In a society that has millions of families, come from different backgrounds, live in different places, I believe it would be truly difficult to have everyone lookout for each other to avoid such things as malnutrition and homelessness. I think in these societies where everyone does cooperate for 'the common good' of all people everyone looks on one another as family, which I do not necessarily see scalable to a society as large as somewhere like the US.

    But this immense cities in the US were creating for the centralization of power and resources which were beneficial for capitalism, so I guess it is hard to see them in another way than through the capitalists lenses they were built on. Nevertheless, even within centralization and state-nations, there can be more policies which are built under the idea of common good, or communism. I do not think that the idea of homo-economicus and the culture that capitalism left us with will change fast, but sometimes structures can change first, and Cuba can be an example of how that can get close to look like in a bigger scale. Nevertheless, I also believe that we can break that centralization too, it was human made and can be undone.

  • @Julieta said:
    I agree with your main point on how organizations need first to do a lot of introspection work. I was just wondering what you mean with "cyclical poverty. And by "threaten the autonomy they have as a nation," you mean that by the organizations who want to work with native communities or by the "squeezing pressure by corporations, governments, ... to join in economic endeavors"?

    No problem, I will clarify. By cyclical poverty, I refer to the social, political, and cultural institutions that oppress subaltern groups and keep them from getting out of poverty. For example, indigenous people were under colonial practice, forced off of their land and means of sustenance. Pair that with the poor treatment of the government over the years, racism and cultural appropriation, and targeted violence, they are 'stuck' to some extent from getting a high paying job because of the day to day challenges they face. This is not in any way to diminish the will power and autonomy of indigenous people. Please forgive me if my words unintentionally offend in any way, that is not my intention.

    As to your other questions, I am referring to the decision to, for example, sell land to an outside corporation for monetary compensation in hopes that that will bring jobs to their community. Leaders may be put in that situation by environmental organizations as well who want to take their land and preserve it by relocating the indigenous people to let the forest regrow. In both cases, the local leader is asked to give up an area that is sacred and important to his people. (S)he may sell the property hoping for a place in the economic gains, which still results in the loss of cultural capital and the possibility of them not getting a voice in what happens to the land. Or (s)he could try and save their land by joining an environmentalist group who may have other ideas about how to conserve the area that results in them not being able to utilize the space like before. It is a sad spot to be in as both outsiders try and sell you on their plans, or you risk saying no to both and fearing that another institution will come in and seize the land/makeup excuses/ violate your land claims. Then you are entirely disconnected from what happens next.

    Hopefully, that was more clear, sorry for the long paragraph!

  • In The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon argues that the dynamics of the development of colonialism which “almost never exploits the entire country. It is content with extracting natural resources and exporting them to the metropolitan industries thereby enabling a specific sector to grow relatively wealthy, while the rest of the colony continues, or rather sinks, into underdevelopment and poverty”(106). Under Fanon’s observation, there are still many dynamics of the racialized colonialism existing in Latin America, and its conditions are not limited to the colonial times of the 16th century.
    For me all these reading and movies which talk about modern shapes of colonialism, have not changed much my opinion about international organizations because I was always skeptical of where they were coming from. I have seen how they almost always ended up mantaining the same system of colonization, and somehow I always decided to go for more "radical" social movements instead. Anyway, they do make me think a lot about the "radical" movements I follow myself. Mateo's example on how many people involved in social movements brought their own agenda and made the rivality against the police even worse shows that. Also the video from yesterday on how leftist movements failed to understand the cultural aspects of nindegenous movements , or in Yellowknife how labour unions, environmnetal organizations, and the resistence from the native communities failed to create solidarity because of the different goals they have, which ended up bein really counterproductive. I believe that the left has a lot to reconsider, even more than organizations because of the ideals they hold. I do not think that the extent of change we need on environmnetalism is going to happen through organizations. It is going to happen through grassroot movements, and communism has been as colonizing and capitalism sometimes, and I think that is where we should start thinking more about.

  • @Madison said:

    @SpencerFier said:
    The important role of miseducation detailed in the oatmeal and Mann cannot be understated. It seems to me that the myth of a dichotomy of sustainable Indigenous living on this continent only being able to garner subsistence resources and support small populations vs. renegade colonialism being the only way to support any kind of complex, large society is crucial to the maintenance of the status quo. It falsely teaches us that any impediment to colonialism is a threat to our very way of life. Maintaining this narrative constrains even those who have hope for a better future and wish to do good. If we believe that there was nothing before colonialism, we are tricked into thinking that without it there can be nothing. This is a massive impediment to truly rethinking the ways we live to be able to continue living on this planet. It may be that until we begin to tell the truth about the past, we will not be able to move into the future which would indeed be a very just predicament.

    I really like your point about about large societies being important in maintaining the status quo. This ties into what Mateo was saying about the camp set up during DAPL. He mentioned that within the camp everyone was cared for. There were no instances of homelessness or hunger and from an outsiders perspective that might seem unrealistic to ever have on a large scale. But maybe that's just because it challenges our colonial perspective on what a society should look like.

    I agree with both of you. Erasing previous societal structures or disregarding them as lesser alters the scope of possibility int he modern day. For example, foraging lifestyles are often described as regressive, harder and characterized by more suffering. While that common narrative is beginning to be dismantled, it has served to restrict our current life to be in automatic favor of progress and industry.

  • @Julieta said:

    @caroline22 said:

    @a_hipp said:
    Caroline, the more I thought about more representation or more diverse representation on the boards of environmental organizations, which I also advocated more, the more I wanted to clarify my previous thought. I believe as you do that, this is a critical step, but I think it is dangerous to assume that by 'letting' board members be front-line community members that they will get the same attention in meetings. If you just change up the demographics of the board without an outside party or transparency about what occurs in the meetings, these people can become only token members. Their presence would be to avoid criticism from the media or serve as an argument for the organization's agendas when confronted about having subaltern or local support. I am not sure how to mediate this problem completely. If anyone else has ideas besides a third-party spontaneous review of board operations, please chime in.

    I totally agree- to jump off your clarification, I too think that more diverse representation would have incredible potential to be done unethically and un-impactfully. The only way I can think to really combat this is by having truly representative board groups. In my understanding, board members are the highest power in organizations and I am optimistic that putting people in that type of position of power would eventually end positively. I think all underrepresented demographics of people that are in positions of power (in all industries) have fought hard and dealt with the issues that you named. It can be done.
    A third-party spontaneous review of board operations also makes a lot of sense to me. I'm not entirely sure however that even that board would be checked and insured to be ethical and just. I suppose though that it would be formed from scratch most likely, and therefore an equal starting ground, whereas infiltrating board groups would take time.
    It really comes down to me as just a need for genuine desire to create change from these organizations. It can't be done half-assed or just due to social pressure from the outside. Whether thats realistic anytime soon however, I am skeptical.

    How to be diverse but without POCs become token members: Maybe just by not being ethnocentric, raicist, or an asshole (sorry)? The fact that we need a thrid-party reviewing operations to have a decent inclusion of those people in the front-line sounds so scary (and brings lots of questions of who are the memebers of that thrid-party, what would they be looking for to make it more "fire" than what it is, etc.). I know where you are coming from tho, we live in societies historically racist and ethnocentric, but it just frustrates me that we still need to discuss this. If we are going to work within the system, at least give leadership positions to those who know what is going on in the field, have knowledge, and first hand experience. I just really believe white people should really start giving those spaces but also do not leave "diversity" or "justice" on their shoulders, white people can be followers to...

    We don't live in a society "historically" racist and ethnocentric, we live is a society that is currently racist and ethnocentric. While of course ideally that wouldn't be the case and we could just propose- don't be "ethnocentric, racist, or an asshole," thats just not realistic at the current moment. Lots of current, "successful" people in positions of power are all of those things. I think its a really cool thought experiment of like how do we really work with what we've got if we tried to make these changes to these organizations tomorrow?
    That's a really great point about "giving those spaces but also do not leave "diversity" or "justice" on their shoulders." That's a super important idea.

  • @SpencerFier said:

    @charlotte I think you're totally right. Even when I was watching 'Awake' and seeing the treaties broken before my very eyes, I was still seeing them things of the past. Even as I was seeing Indigenous land stolen and exploited, I still framed it in my mind as part of the history of violence to expand oil infrastructure. I didn't see it within the broader legacy of colonialism and see the government as the colonists. All that to say, even as somebody who has studied colonialism and its continuing legacy, I still failed to see Standing Rock in such explicit terms, focusing on them instead as relegated to contemporary times. When you commented above calling the government a force of colonization it was immediately so obvious, but yet I failed to see it as such prior. To me this just personally showed how deeply rooted the colonialist version of history we have been taught is in our minds, at least mine. Here I am reading about and watching the legacy of colonialism all the way from 1492 (Mann), to the 19th century (Sandlos), to the present momment (Awake), and It seems a part of me was still willfully ignoring the obvious unbroken thread sewing them all together. Either my mind is far more imbued with colonial lies than I like to think, or I'm just stupid, so I hope this resonates with other people. :)

    I completely understand your point of seeing them as history and its totally fair, as history is repeated it's easy to group those things with the larger problem. This made me wonder what a solution to this issue would be, I don't really see an answer to changing the way things like Standing Rock are framed because no matter what I think people will still group it with the history of native people being mistreated. I think a documentary explicitly showing the pattern could be really powerful.

  • @Madison said:

    @slothman said:

    @cara said:
    Enviromental injustices and human rights abuses have often been justified by the argument of it being a direct result of human nature. While I don’t think humans are inherent anti-atruism, nor do i think cooperation and mutualism are necessarily antithetical to our biological makeup, to some extent, it is irrelevant either way. Whichever inherent property we assign to humans, there are plenty of examples of the opposite. For the most part, I do not believe humans are confined to their biological makeup. Of course we cannot live without food or water, so in that way we have a biological restrictions on certain bodily capacities. However, I think humans transcend most “human natures” they are assigned, are become a product of social and cultural codes. In the documentary Awake, as well as elaborated on by mateo today, we saw a societal structure different from the one we all live in. There was no homelessness, malnutrition, federal or state law enforcement, violence etc. This is a model we can look to when violence, for example, is justified as “natural human behavior.”

    I agree with you in that humans are not confined to their 'human nature.' I do however have a hard time believing that these different societal structures you mentioned become difficult to scale. I think there is something to be said about humans, and most animals for that matter, to be more focused on their own and their families well being. In a society that has millions of families, come from different backgrounds, live in different places, I believe it would be truly difficult to have everyone lookout for each other to avoid such things as malnutrition and homelessness. I think in these societies where everyone does cooperate for 'the common good' of all people everyone looks on one another as family, which I do not necessarily see scalable to a society as large as somewhere like the US.

    I agree with the issue of feasibility in terms of creating a society where everyone is cared for and violence is minimal. I think what you said about seeing everyone as a family member is a really good way to put it. That's likley how people felt at standing rock, everyone was unified as a family under a common goal. Unfortunately, I don't think that would be feasible large scale in the United States, I think people spend too much time focusing on their differences to see the rest of their community like family. It's not that I think a society like standing rock is not feasible in any situation, but I don't see it feasible here. American identity is defined in ones ability to pick themselves up by their boot straps and work to make something of themselves and there is a certain damage to ones pride when accepting charity. Most of us also live in large cities where a community like that at standing rock would be impossible.

    I see what both of you are saying in terms of feasibility. I guess it I just struggle with the idea that mutual aid, or giving everyone a livable future is impossible. The way I'm looking at it, the way societies can function without that already isn't feasible for so many people. The boot-straps narrative you're talking about is so deeply ingrained, I really hear that. In some ways though, deconstructing those types of political common senses we just allow to control communities (or lack thereof) is the kind of thing that will break out of the patterns of inequality and degradation we're seeing and actually makes life feasible for people who are purposefully marginalized. I'm not at all advocating against the smaller scale changes that are efficient and effective. I think I'm more so just pushing that a level of acceptance with the concept that large scale shifts are impossible is allowing cycles of inequality to repeat themselves. This started off as a thought with a way of becoming "environmental" but that part did not pan out. Oops!

Sign In or Register to comment.