The Culture of Make Believe

Rating:
Summary: A language other than make believe.
Review: "Something . . . happened to me during the late 1980s," Derrick Jensen reflects in his new book, "I thought I was insane. Then, as now, so much of what I saw around me made no sense. Our culture is killing the planet, yet most of us don't seem to care . . . What seemed profoundly important to me seemed of no importance whatsoever to most people, and what seemed important to so many people seemed trivial to me. I couldn't wrap my mind around it" (pp. 139; 141). Although Jensen is a familiar name to readers of The Sun magazine, where his interviews frequently appear, I discovered Jensen through his last book, A LANGUAGE OLDER THAN WORDS, in which he takes his reader on "a deeply intimate exploration of, among many other things, the complex relationship between domestic violence and how violence tricks out on a grander social scale" (p. xi). Although THE CULTURE OF MAKE BELIEVE is a less personal book, it offers an equally compelling look at how racism and hatred manifest in our Western world (p. xi).

In Jensen's May, 2002 Sun magazine interview with Father Thomas Berry, the deep ecologist tells Jensen that the West is in decline, and "the mission of our times is to reinvent what it means to be human." Jensen asks Berry, "Should we just get rid of Western civilization?" "Not at all," the 88-year-old Catholic monk replies. "Because the problem is within the Western world, the solution must be there also . . . humans need to be taught how to be human." This is also the basic premise of Jensen's 701-page manifesto on racism and hate, that it is time to "return to our humanity" (p. 602). "If we are to do that," he writes, "the first thing we must do is to see the inhumanity of our current system for what it is, and we must speak about it" (p. 602). And speaking out is exactly what Jensen does best in this highly researched book.

From the 1918 mob murder of a pregnant black woman in Georgia, to the 2001 death squad chainsaw murder of a seventeen-year-old Columbian girl, and to the economic and social activities that are "killing the planet" (p. xi), Jensen cuts through all the make believe of our culture to the reality which we normally ignore. Along the way, he covers a lot of ground, examining such subjects as hate groups, rape statistics, slavery, African diamond mines, racism, pornography, television, crime, the Union Carbide gas leak, and the Holocaust. Jensen's insights are compelling, and his publisher, Context, deserves recognition for publishing this sharp critique of our culture. "This book is a weapon," Jensen warns his reader. "It is a gun to be put into the hands of all of us who wish to oppose these atrocities, and a manual on how to use it. It is a knife to cut the ropes that bind us to our ways of perceiving and being in the world. It is a match to light a fuse" (p. xii). Through the CULTURE OF MAKE BELIEVE, Jensen made a believer out of me.

G. Merritt

Rating:
Summary: A gun, a knife, and a match........
Review: "This book is a weapon. It is a gun to be put into the hands of all of us who wish to oppose these atrocities, and a manual on how to use it. It is a knife to cut the ropes that bind us to our ways of perceiving and being in the world. It is a match to light a fuse." Derrick Jensen

I will begin by readily admitting that I am prejudiced towards the writings of Mr. Jensen. His previous work, A Language Older Than Words - Context Books - 2000 remains for me one of those landmarks in a lifetime of reading that served as a means for me to get my bearing when I felt tossed about by life. Thus I looked forward with high expectations to the release of The Culture Of Make Believe. I have not been let down.

I have only completed one third of this book and it is enough in and of itself to warrant me giving it five stars and recommending it as highly as possible to anyone with even a passing interest in considering what is going on in the world.

From the opening story, in the Preface, of the brutal murder of Mary Turner, her husband and unborn child in 1918, it is clear that Mr. Jensen is not going for some sort of easy formula type approach to understanding "hate as it manifests in our Western world." He makes no claims to be able to interpret what it's like to grow up in Western Culture for anyone other than the race and gender he is a part of. White males. But this is no diatribe against whites or males. He plants himself firmly in that group, which this reviewer is also a part of, and dares to ask some very searching and honest questions.

The quote that appears at the beginning of chapter one.......

"Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More outrageous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions." Primo Levi.

........sets the stage as he begins to question many of the standard responses sometimes given as to what hate is, how it manifests itself, and why any of us keep fueling it by making believe that the more socially acceptable definitions of "hate" (i.e., as put forth by "hate groups," the KKK, various manifestations of Nazi theory and practice, etc.), are not the same, on a foundational level, as that which is promoted by an economic system which seeks to turn everything living into an object which can them be made into a commodity and sold.

His exploration of the issue of rape is especially disturbing. He looks at the incident of rape of males in prison and compares society's outrage at it with the much higher incidence of woman getting raped in the day to day culture at large. His examination of how our current criminal system determines what will and will not be labeled a "hate crime," and how rape has been removed from such a category, when added to his questioning of what makes a police state and the meaning of "terrorism" down to the parent-child level, all add up to a very powerful and disturbing look at something many do not appear willing to confront. Could it be that Western civilization, as we know it, is past the point of being something that can be reformed? Is something more radical the solution needed?

I also found his retelling of the story of Ham, Noah's son, from Ham's perspective, brought to mind the retelling of the story of Abraham and Isaac from Isaac's perspective by Alice Miller in The Untouched Key, or the rebellion of Lucifer in heaven by Phillp Pullman in the excellent trilogy His Dark Materials - Putnam.

Regardless of whether or not you agree with Mr. Jensen's thoughts near the end (Yes, I did peek at the end) I hope you will give consideration to reading this book.

"People are not fundamentally hateful. Our hate is not a result of several billion years of natural selection. It's a result of the framing conditions under which each of us are raised. It's a result of the unquestioned assumptions that inform us. If we want to stop the hate, we need to get rid of the framing conditions." Derrick Jensen

Rating:
Summary: A Foundation for Changing the World
Review: After diving into "A Language...." and establishing a new perception for seeing the world in a much different light, I whole heartly endorse Mr. Jensen as one of the few leading the way into a possible NEW WORLD order, one involving understanding,forgivness and redemption for the hate and greed that have been at the forefront of civilization.
With "Culture of Make Believe" Derrick has done the research for us, compiling hundreds of observations and conclusions about the current state of affairs which have lead us to the insanity of our present state. Read, observe and apply all that has been reveiled. Thank you Mr. Jensen for giving many the tools to see and hopefully a changed heart to act upon these atrocities that have kept us all from "experiencing" the world as human beings.
Highly recommended and a must read!

Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Follow-Up
Review: An engaging and fitting follow-up to Jensen's earlier book, A Language Older than Words. When I picked it up, the size surprised me since it just about doubles ALOtW in length. But, the pages aren't wasted, and Jensen hits the reader with interesting facts/statistics and insightful connections right from the first page. His style and ability to weave many things into one solid and sometimes overlooked point is remarkable. If you have read ALOtW and have enjoyed it, then by all means, pick up The Culture of Make Believe.

Rating:
Summary: Can you read this book?
Review: Can you read this book and not cry? Can you read it and not feel the smoke coming out your ears? Can you read it and not look up gaping in awe as Jensen forces you to see things you've never looked at (or turned your eyes away from)?

That's what THE CULTURE OF MAKE BELIEVE is all about-- seeing. Most of the time all we let ourselves see is our make believe fairy tale. Jensen digs up the fairy tale and exposes it as the fraud that it is. If we're to turn away from our world-devouring, life degrading culture, we first have to see it for what it is. This book is the definitive tale of our culture's steady progression towards the creation of hell on earth. It goes through detail after detail of the insanity that pervades the past and present of our civilization. But, it's also the first step to a new direction. You can't begin walking another way until you see another way is possible. And you won't have the motivation to change if you think there's nothing wrong with the path you're on. This book accomplishes both tasks. And it makes you ache to get up and do something. It makes you ache to get out there and get active. It makes you want to save the world!

So read this book and tell me, can you read it without crying, without steaming? Can you read it without running outside and saying, ENOUGH, we need new directions and we need them now?!!

This book is a must read. You can't afford NOT to read it. It's a 700 page horror story. But it's not fiction. Neither is it fun. But it's amazing. And it helps you realize you're not alone. And you're not crazy. You're not crazy for thinking things around you are awful. You're not crazy for wanting something different. Even though this book is full of horrors, Jensen gives hope and inspiration. We cannot ever have a real hope and a real future if we continue to ignore reality. We can't get back to the heaven that is our natural birthright as living members of the earth until we look at the hell that we've forced upon ourselves and our neighbors. Let's leave hell behind and rediscover heaven.

Rating:
Summary: The Culture of Make Believe
Review: Derrick Jensen continues his deep examination of our dysfunctional civilization from his previous two beautifully powerful works, A Language Older Than Words and Listening to the Land, delving deeper still into the horror of man's (yes, gender specific) inhumanity to man. In this compelling mammoth volume, The Culture of Make Believe, Jensen bombards the reader with historical and contemporary accounts of atrocity after atrocity of our own destructive culture, until we can no longer look away with a blind eye or deaf ear. We can no longer "make believe" that the American Dream comes without cost to our own shared humanity and the planet.

Starting by exploring and defining the hate crimes of racism and rape, Jensen continues, chapter after chapter, to prove that the ultimate hate crime is towards ourselves. He successfully weaves meticulously-researched historical accounts, statistics and interviews, with his own personal deep ecological commentary. Jensen delves deeply, sociologically and psychologically, into the perpetuation of violence, hatred, exploitation and domination of non-white cultures from the beginnings of colonial America, through the slavery and genocide of African slaves, Native Americans and immigrants, to other crimes of power and exploitation by early American capitalists, and now, modern globalizing corporations.

He follows by lacing together the hate legacy of African slavery and the KKK with the modern capitalistic economics of the modern judicial and prison system. (and asks- aren't we incarcerating the wrong people?) In reflective commentary, Jensen consciously self-examines the abstract meaning of his own white privilege.

Jensen continues relentlessly to confront capitalism as The System of exploitation -- the conversion of humans into machines and ecosystems into waste -- questioning the basis for the objectification of all Life forms -- human and non-human. He asks passionately, how have we come to value economic production over the process of living, and of Life itself? And who is benefiting? Jensen continues on by exposing the U.S. military system and the war at hand. He asks, who is profiting from these economic wars (hate crimes) of past and present, resulting in our civilization's continued legacy of genocide?

After chapters and chapters of unquestionable and painful evidence, Jensen asks the reader to question Western Industrial Civilization itself and our own participation in it. He asks us boldly to confront these painful truths of how and why have we as a civilization have come to conquer the world, and how we can stop wanting it.

The power of this book is not in the facts themselves (as convincing and important as they are), but rather, in Jensen's courage to not be afraid to point out the obviously insane state of the world that we continually deny: that Western Industrial Civilization is causing the greatest mass extinction in the history of the planet. He reminds us that the Holocaust by the Nazis in the last century was not the only holocaust; we must wake up to the current holocausts against the forests, the salmon, the soil, the water, the Earth -- of Life itself.

But most poignantly and effectively, what Jensen emphasizes is the meaning of Ecocide -- that this hatred and distruction, this ongoing Holocaust, this annihilation of Life itself, is ultimately against ourselves. And the question is: whether the cultural urge to convert living things to dollars is stronger than the will to survive. This question dangles precariously over our conscience like a rope left tied for hanging ourselves, as we blindly and deafly go about our daily lives of consumption and alienation from the Other.

Ultimately, Jensen asks us to question our own obedience to this cultural dysfunctionality, to speak out vehemently against it. And the reader cannot ignore this call. By the end, at the thirty-first chapter, we sit convinced, exhausted, and yet, motivated to stand up and revolt.

What solution does he offer us? Caught up in a tangled web of our own enslavement of a system that rewards the conversion of the living to the dead, our only hope, he implores, is a return to our humanity. He asks us to bravely tell our own stories, to simply tell the truth, and simply not to fight the reality of the despair. We must question, question, question; we must dismantle this civilization and rebuild one based on the power of interconnectedness, not alienation.

Jensen's passionate words are powerful weapons themselves, and it is about time that they were fired. He is not afraid to speak the truth; this book is a brilliantly articulate incantation of revolution of not only thought but action that is so desperately needed in this time of wasted power, fear, illusion, fascist censorship and paramount distruction. The audience of this book is not just historians, economists or sociologists of slavery and racism, war and politics. Neither is it just for social and environmental activists, but rather it is for all of us, because ultimately, we are all interconnected partners (knowingly or unknowingly) in this hate crime of Ecocide.

Rating:
Summary: A book to read, absolutely
Review: Derrick Jensen writes with great prose and passion a story that most of us feel close to us, but not close enough to react for our own sake. This book lays down before the reader the great destructiveness of our civilization in a way that the amnesia afflicting most of us is thrown into oblivion. He is, to my knowledge, the only writer treading through the many inescapable issues of our culture -racism, violence, destruction of the natural world, among other subjects, and I do not think he misses any-, linking them in a very intelligible way. One of the best books I have read on the impossible future of civilization.

Rating:
Summary: The book that actually took me somewhere...
Review: Derrick's writings are amazing and I can actually say that this book is truly a work of its own.

With personal stories and historical information, Derrick explores the destructive elements of civilization and takes no prisoners!

Rating:
Summary: We Are All Good Germans
Review: Had I grown up in Nazi Germany a soldier, would I have aided the genocide? I would like to think that I would have protested the slaughter by working underground with escapees. However, I might have been a totally different person. Perhaps the harsh SS training would have turned my heart into an icicle, filled my head full of propaganda, and habitualized my body to subordination. Perhaps I would have been a willing executioner. Perhaps it would have been impossible for me to lift my consciousness above the zeitgeist - not many did.

Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20. Understanding the present is much more difficult. Could it be that colonialism, imperialism, the KKK, and every other boot-licking, world-plundering, cold-blood-murdering institution somehow mutated and merged into one New World Order bent on killing the planet and everything/-one that stands in its way? Moreover, if one were raised inside such an institution, believing it completely natural, and even being rewarded for participation in its mundane work-a-day activities, would it be possible for that person to awake to the insanity of their culture?

Along with all of us, Derrick Jensen grew up inside such a culture, realized what was happening, and wrote this book to tell other potential executioners what is going on. Reading The Culture of Make Believe is like looking into the mirror of our culture, and chances are you will not like what you see. I'm not saying this to rub it in your face, but to give a word of caution. Let me to be more explicit. If you are able to accept new information into the ken of your mind, this book will radically alter your perception of reality. You might not be able to live the same way there after. It's like having the psychological sanity rug pulled out from under you - or blasted to pieces. Upon finishing, you will feel as if you had a full-frontal lobotomy, or as though you just swallowed a gallon of hydrochloric acid. That's the aftertaste of Western Civilization - no frappacino.

Sounds ambitious, most people would agree. I imagine submitting Jensen's thesis to Ph.D. advisors. "What's your topic?" they'd ask. "I want to write a critique of Western Civ." After a giggle, they would reply with something like, "Sorry, it's too broad. Narrow it." Well, if you count A Language Older Than Words (the thematically congruent if discontinuous part I of this book), Jensen foots the bill in a mere 984 pages, which, although placing it somewhere on par with War and Peace, nonetheless forms a tight, if unusually bulky critique of this 3,000-year institution. Altogether or taken separately, the two books provide one hell of a tour I highly recommend. Jensen's authenticity bleeds off the page. Perhaps the best, that is most relevant, book I have ever read.

Rating:
Summary: Will make you consider a different point of view...
Review: I assign this book when I teach Race and Ethnic relations to students at a University. This book really outlines the systematic process that people at the top of the hierarchy go through to maintain the status quo (status top). Any resistence is met by annihilation and no resistence means that the minority group has successfully been silenced. I highly recommend this book and Jensen's other book "A language older than words" that suggests that because of our unfortunate mentality ($$$$$$$$$$$$-though shall have no other gods before me) we have forgotten the language that allowed us to communicate as equals with other beings and the land, not as dominators focused on exploiting (see Raine Eisler's work). If you like to think, and most do not (let's not step out of our comfort level), this is a book that will get you thinking!!!