The Eco-Modernist Manifesto: a Program of Genocide and Ecocide

January 3rd, 2016

Awake Goy

3rd January 2016

The idea that anthropocene — the human alteration of natural ecosystems — can be good or even great, as promised in the recently released Ecomodernist Manifesto, is purely delusional. Worse, it underlies a narrative in which the wholesale destruction of nature and of sustainable indigenous societies is repackaged as a noble mission — one whose ultimate purpose is the complete alienation of humans from the planet that spawned us.

Robert Jay Lifton noted that before you can commit any mass atrocity, you must convince yourself and others that what you’re doing is not atrocious, but rather beneficial. You must have what he called a “claim to virtue”. Thus the Nazis weren’t, from their perspective, committing mass murder and genocide, but were ‘purifying the Aryan Race’. They weren’t waging aggressive war but gaining necessary Lebensraum (territory). The United States has never committed genocide, but rather has fulfilled its Manifest Destiny. It has never waged aggressive war, but rather has ‘defended its national interest’ and ‘promoted freedom and democracy’.

Today, the dominant culture isn’t killing the planet, but rather ‘developing natural resources’.

This is to say that any culture foolish and insane enough to murder the planet that is our only home would of course be foolish and insane enough to attempt to provide justifications for this murder.

That brings us to An Ecomodernist Manifesto, the same sort of claim to virtue we’ve come to expect from this culture’s several thousand year tradition of nature-hating.

And the Earth is Remade by Human Hands

Heck, the first written myth of this culture is of the hero Gilgamesh deforesting what is now Iraq to build a city and make a name for himself. Fast forward a few thousand years, and that’s the same nature-hating and empire-building story being told in An Ecomodernist Manifesto (and that has been told in myriad ways in between).

The narcissism, entitlement, and gaslighting starts at the beginning:

“To say that the Earth is a human planet becomes truer every day. Humans are made from the Earth, and the Earth is remade by human hands.

“Many earth scientists express this by stating that the Earth has entered a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene, the Age of Humans. As scholars, scientists, campaigners, and citizens, we write with the conviction that knowledge and technology, applied with wisdom, might allow for a good, or even great, Anthropocene.”

“The Earth is remade by human hands” … ‘Remade’ is such a nice word, isn’t it? Much better than ‘destroyed, murdered, ravaged, grievously harmed’, don’t you think? Gilgamesh and those who came after didn’t deforest and desertify what was once called the Fertile Crescent, they ‘remade’ it from cedar forests so thick that sunlight never touched the ground, into cities and deserts.

The Egyptians and Phoenicians didn’t kill the forests of North Africa, they ‘remade’ them into navies and deserts. This culture hasn’t wiped out 98% of the world’s ancient forests, wetlands, grasslands; it’s merely ‘remade’ them, complete with ‘remaking’ the plants and animals there into extinction.

This culture isn’t killing the oceans; it’s merely ‘remaking’ them such that there probably won’t be any fish. It’s not extirpating elephants and great apes and great cats and two hundred species per day; it’s merely ‘remaking’ them so they’re extinct. It doesn’t commit land theft and genocide against Indigenous peoples, instead it merely ‘remakes’ them and their land-bases.

Not all Humans — Just the Powerful Ones

Further, the sort of remaking they’re talking about in this Manifesto is not done by all humans, as they claim. It’s done by specific sorts of humans, who feel entitled to take everything on the planet, the sorts of people who might call it a ‘human planet’.

I live on Tolowa Indian land in what is now far northern California. The Tolowa lived here for at least 12,500 years, and when the Europeans arrived, the place was a paradise. There were so many salmon in the rivers that the rivers were “black and roiling” with fish. The Tolowa and Yurok and Hoopa lived here truly sustainably, and could have continued to do so more or less forever.

Members of the dominant culture arrived less than 200 years ago, and immediately embarked on campaigns of extermination – the authors of An Ecomodernist Manifesto might call these ‘campaigns of remaking’ – against the human and nonhuman inhabitants.

And what was the point of all of these campaigns of extermination remaking? It was no different in the 1830s than it is now, and it is no different now than it was in the time of Gilgamish.

The point is to allow Gilgamish to create a city and make a name for himself; I mean, to allow the Chosen People to enter the Promised Land; I mean, to allow the superior ones to create an empire upon which the sun never sets; I mean, to allow the superior ones to Manifest their Destiny; I mean, to allow the superior ones to create a Thousand Year Reich; I mean, to allow the superior ones to do so much damage to the planet that they name a fucking geologic epoch after themselves; I mean, to “allow for a good, or even great, Anthropocene.”

The End of Violence! Really … ?

The authors of An Ecomodernist Manifesto also state:

“Violence in all forms has declined significantly and is probably at the lowest per capita level ever experienced by the human species, the horrors of the 20th century and present-day terrorism notwithstanding.”

Who would have guessed that when you redefine violence perpetrated by your culture as not being violence but rather as ‘remaking’, that you can then claim that “violence in all forms has declined significantly”?

I’m not sure members of the two hundred species driven extinct today would agree that “violence in all forms has declined significantly.” Nor would members of Indigenous human cultures being driven from their land, or being exterminated: Indigenous human languages are being driven extinct at an even faster relative rate than are nonhuman species.

But I guess none of this counts as violence in any form whatsoever. Because of this culture’s ‘remaking’ of the planet, wildlife populations across the world have collapsed by 50% over the past forty years. Because of this ‘remaking’, the oceans are acidifying, and are suffocating in plastic. I guess none of this counts as violence in any form.

This ‘remaking’ of the planet is causing the greatest mass extinction in the history of the world, in fact so far as we know the greatest mass extinction in the history of the universe. And violence is down? Only because they don’t count the violence they don’t want to count.

They also don’t count the violence of subsistence farmers being driven from their lands. Nor do they count the violence of humans (and nonhumans) losing their traditional ways of living in this great ‘remaking’. They don’t count the horrors of factory farming or row-crop agriculture.

The Rule of Law and Increased Freedom. Oh Yeah?

The authors state, “Globally, human beings have moved from autocratic government toward liberal democracy characterized by the rule of law and increased freedom.”

I don’t think those subsistence farmers forced from their land and into cities would agree they’re living in a time of increased freedom. And I don’t think any of us have the freedom to live free of the world this culture is ‘remaking’.

Do I have the freedom to live in a world with more migratory songbirds each year? More amphibians? Do I have the freedom to live in a world not being murdered? This culture gives its victims the choice: ‘Adapt to the world we are remaking to suit us, or die.’ This is not fundamentally different to the choice this culture has long offered Indigenous peoples, of ‘Christianity or death‘, or ‘Give away your lands and assimilate, or death.’

Once you give in to this culture, stop defending your land from this culture, become dependent on this culture, work for this culture, identify with this culture, propagandize for this culture, serve this culture, then the culture and its proponents may stop attacking you. But if you don’t give in, you will be exterminated. As we see. And none of this is considered violence.

The Ecomodernist Manifesto a Program of Genocide and Ecocide - Freedom

Living Marxism?

A few years ago I was interviewed by a dedicated Marxist who believes it’s possible to create an industrial system in which all economic exchanges are voluntary, absent of any violence or coercion.

Of course, as with the authors of An Ecomodernist Manifesto, he didn’t count violence against nonhumans or the natural world as violence. He also said that cities could exist under such a society.

I asked, “What do you use for transportation?”

He said, “Buses.”

I asked, “Where do you get the metals for the buses?”

“Mines.”

“Where do you get the miners?” Mining is one of the first three forms of slavery, and the primary way to get people into mines has always been coercion, whether it’s at the point of a sword or gun; or through laws such as those of apartheid; or through other means of destroying people’s access to land, and therefore access to food, clothing, and shelter, and therefore self-sufficiency.

He said, “You pay them enough that they’ll do it.”

I said, “What about pollution in the river? We agree that mines pollute, right? It’s impossible to have a mine without harming the land and water and air, right?”

He agreed.

I said, “What about the people who live next to the river which will now be polluted?”

He said, “You pay them to move.”

I said, “What if they’ve lived there for 12,500 years, and their ancestors are there, and they refuse to move?”

He said, “Pay them more.”

I said, “what if they refuse your money.”

He said, “How many are there?”

I said, “What difference does that make? Let’s say 500.”

He said, “We vote.”

I said, “So the millions of people in the city vote to take the land from the 500 people who live along the river?”

He said, “Yes.”

I said, “You do realize that by not questioning the industrial infrastructure, you have moved within one minute from being a staunch advocate for only voluntary economic exchanges, to defending colonialism, land theft from the Indigenous, and democratic empire, right?”