Derrick Jensen
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Derrick Jensen, an American author who lives in Northern California, has published several books which challenge contemporary society and cultural values, including The Culture of Make Believe (2002), and many essays.
Jensen emphasizes the hate, dishonesty, and destructiveness in contemporary industrialized culture. He argues that this culture will soon collapse because of the damage being done to the planet.
Jensen proposes that a different way of life is possible, and it can be seen in many past societies including Native American cultures. This different way of life is characterized by honesty, appreciation of beauty, and connectedness with the natural world.
Politically Jensen's work is in favor of revolution - in values, the self, and society - often in line with the ideas of eco-anarchism and primitivism.
Oft-repeated themes in Jensen's work include discussion of his abusive father, the similarity of different forms of oppression in industrial society, the role of lying in maintaining systematic oppression, interspecies communication, and what he sees as the need to bring down civilization.
Related authors include Jack Forbes (Columbus and Other Cannibals), Dave Edwards, Daniel Quinn (Ishmael, The Man Who Grew Young), Stephen King (The Running Man), John Zerzan (Against Civilization: A Reader and Elements of Refusal), Neil Evernden (The Natural Alien), Stanley Diamond (In Search of the Primitive: A Critique of Civilization) and Lewis Mumford (Technics and Human Development and The Pentagon of Power).
He has taught creative writing at Pelican Bay State Prison and Eastern Washington University.
Partial list of published works
- Derrick Jensen, Listening to the Land: Conversations about Nature, Culture, and Eros, 1995, 2002
- ----, George Draffan, and John Osborn, Railroads and Clearcuts: Legacy of Congress's 1864 Northern Pacific Railroad Land Grant, Spokane: Inland Empire Public Lands Council, 1995
- ---- and Robert McChesney, "Free Press For Sale: How Corporations Have Bought The First Amendment: An interview with Robert McChesney," The Sun, September, 2000.
- ---- A Language Older Than Words, 2000
- ---- The Culture of Make Believe, New York: Context Books, 2002, ISBN 1893956288, LoC HT1523.J46 2002
- ---- and George Draffan, Strangely Like War: The Global Assault on Forests, 2003
- ---- Standup Tragedy (live CD)
- ---- The Other Side of Darkness (live CD), 2004
- ---- Walking on Water: Reading, Writing, and Revolution, 2004
- ---- and George Draffan, Welcome to the Machine: Science, Surveillance, and the Culture of Control, 2004
- ---- Endgame, Vol 1: The Collapse of Civilization and the Rebirth of Community , forthcoming
External links
- Jensen's essays (http://www.derrickjensen.org/essay.html)
- http://www.derrickjensen.org