Scathing commentary about western civilization mixed with scathing memoir about his father's abuse. Details the violence at the heart of our society and so many of our interpersonal relationships. Very sad or outraging to read at times, but ultimately the insights and renewed perspective are worth it. ( )

I’ve been hearing of the work of Derrick Jensen for the past decade. He’s hard to avoid if you run in nature connection circles. In 2012 I read “Deep Green Resistance,” edited by Jensen. In 2014, at the Prairie Festival at the Land Institute in Kansas, this book was recommended to me. I’m now in a course with David Abram focused on the animate earth and human communication with the more-than-human-world. The title of this book might lead to believe that it is topical to such explorations, so I decided to finally give it a try.

Unlike the material of his contemporaries (David Abram, Charles Eisenstein, Martín Prechtel), this book is not the least bit eloquent; it is sickeningly blunt and raw. That said, it was written more than twenty years ago, and Jensen was a forerunner in many ways, so other authors have Jensen to thank for breaking the ice and giving them the space to iterate and polish some of his ideas.

Jensen retells the story of his abusive father, including graphic retellings of his own and his siblings molestation and rape. This material sets the tone for the entirety of the book. Jensen moves on to explore behaviorism and the experiments humans have perpetrated on plants and animals, ranging from the ignorant to the deranged and psychotic. I don’t think I’ve ever said this before, but, coming to the end of my third decade in this life, I can say that I’m just barely old enough to be able to read a book like this. I would not recommend it for adolescence, as Jensen fails to ground any sense of positive potential in regard to the role that humans might have on this earth.

Jensen only gives a cursory overview of what “A Language Older Than Words” might look like. To him, this often means asking (in English), for his dogs to stop eating chickens—not the height of interspecies communication. One exception to this is his exploration of a field of science called “primary perception” referring to the ability of other lifeforms to be aware and responsive to the wellbeing of other life around them. ( )

I loved this! Particularly the second half. The chapter "The Plants Respond" was amazing, and I loved the description of how he taught his first writing class.

What I learned from this book:
I learned more than I'd like to about Jensen's abuse as a child and how he dealt with a terrifying inescapable situation, building psychological barriers in the interest of immediate survival. I learned of his personal transformation from voting for Reagan and a future of gainful employment to a rejection of wage slavery and dedication to environmental activism. Most importantly, I learned that ubiquitous atrocity and destruction on all levels will only stop when we begin to truly listen--that is, to become present to the pain of personal and collective trauma and to hear the desires of those others and parts of ourselves who were silenced long ago. This would be an almost hopeless message given how thoroughly we have destroyed our formerly intact and livable world, if not for the author's own personal story of childhood trauma and recovery, which provided “an avenue of understanding into many of the culture's otherwise incomprehensible actions.” (p.183) Only those of us who also come to understand the macrocosm of trauma which leads to atrocity and begin listening to the voices of other cultures and species silenced by the incessant lies of destroyers stand a chance of acting on behalf of life and stopping the suicidal course of this culture.
8/1/2009
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Absolutely profound review of our ways of being in and with the natural world. ( )