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From the beginning, this culture - civilization - has been a culture of occupation.

Derrick Jensen

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Derrick Jensen
Age: 63
Born: 1960
Born: December 19
Author
Environmentalist
Novelist
Philosopher
Writer
Civilization
Beginning
Culture
Occupation

More quotes by Derrick Jensen

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I thought a forest was made up entirely of trees, but now I know that the foundation lies below ground, in the fungi.
Derrick Jensen
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To believe Christianity stands in opposition to slavery is at best to think anachronistically and at worst to not understand Christianity.
Derrick Jensen
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I am only so beautiful as the character of my relationships, only so rich as I enrich those around me, only so alive as I enliven those I greet.
Derrick Jensen
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No matter what we call it, poison is still poison, death is still death, and industrial civilization is still causing the greatest mass extinction in the history of the planet.
Derrick Jensen
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The stories we are told shape the way we see the world, which shapes the way we experience the world.
Derrick Jensen
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For us to maintain our way of living, we must tell lies to each other and especially to ourselves. The lies are necessary because, without them, many deplorable acts would become impossibilities.
Derrick Jensen
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Civilization can never be sustainable.
Derrick Jensen
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The big dividing line is not and has never been between those who advocate more or less militant forms of resistance, or between mainstream and grassroots activists. The dividing line is between those who do something and those who do nothing.
Derrick Jensen
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All the mega corporations on the planet make their obscene profits off the labor and suffering of others, with complete disregard for the effects on the workers, environment, and future generations. We have a straightforward proposal: if they want public money, we want public control. It's that simple.
Derrick Jensen
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By deafening ourselves to the emotional consequences of violence we have become confused by its relationship to sex. We have come to believe that violence equals aggression, and we have come to base our model of sexuality on our model of violence... converting an act of aggression into an act of consensual sexuality.
Derrick Jensen
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If you only had a limited time to life (which is of course the case), how would you spend your time?
Derrick Jensen
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I think it's very important for us to start to build a culture of resistance, because what we're doing isn't working, clearly.
Derrick Jensen
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Surely by now there can be few here who still believe the purpose of government is to protect us from the destructive activities of corporations. At last most of us must understand that the opposite is true: that the primary purpose of government is to protect those who run the economy from the outrage of injured citizens.
Derrick Jensen
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We cannot hope to create a sustainable culture with any but sustainable souls.
Derrick Jensen
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I wondered what it does to each of us to spend the majority of our waking hours doings things we'd rather not do, wishing we were outside or simply elsewhere, wishing we were reading, thinking, making love, fishing, sleeping, or simply having time to figure out who the hell we are and what the hell we're doing.
Derrick Jensen
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There is always money to kill people. There is never enough money for life affirming ends.
Derrick Jensen
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Learning has to come from doing, not intellectualizing.
Derrick Jensen
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To be clear, civilization is not the same as society. Civilization is a specific, hierarchical organization based on 'power over.' Dismantling civilization, taking down that power structure, does not mean the end of all social order. It should ultimately mean more justice, more local control, more democracy, and more human rights, not less.
Derrick Jensen
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We have a need for enchantment that is as deep and devoted as our need for food and water.
Derrick Jensen
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The process of schooling does not give birth to human beings - as education should but never will so long as it springs from the collective consciousness of our culture - but instead it teaches us to value abstract rewards at the expense of our autonomy, curiosity, interior lives, and time.
Derrick Jensen