Sacred Land, Sacred Sex - Rapture of the Deep

385 Pages·1992·74.375 MB·English

by  Dolores LaChapelle

CONCERNING DEEP ECOLOGY
om —«e AND CELEBRATING. LIFE
‘DOLORES LACHAPELLE
This book is for the San Juan Mountains
and
for John Davis and for Julien Puzey who keep asking the real questions.
SACRED LAND SACRED SEX
«~ -- RAPTURE OF THE DEEP
CONCERNING DEEP ECOLOGY
om —«- AND CELEBRATING LIFE
DOLORES LACHAPELLE
“Man is not the supreme triumph of nature but rather an element in a supreme activity called life.”
R. Murray Schafer
Kivaki

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Copyright © 1988 Dolores LaChapelle
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in
any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including
information storage and retrieval systems, except for brief
reviews, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Kivaki Press
585 East 31st Street
Durango, CO 81301
Publisher’s Cataloging in Publication
LaChapelle, Dolores, 1926-
Sacred land, sacred sex: rapture of the deep: concerning
deep ecology and celebrating life / Dolores LaChapelle.
p. cm.
Reprint of work first published in 1987.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-882308-11-5
1. Nature—Religious aspects. 2. Human ecology—Religious
aspects. 3. Spiritual life. I. Title.
BL435.L33 1992 291.1'78362
QBI92-1837
First Edition
Second Printing, 1992
Printed in the United States of America
2 3 4 96 9954 93
Permissions and Acknowledgments
In defining Deep Ecology—a new discipline that not only crosses all (1974). Reprinted by permission of E. J. Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands; the
normal academic boundaries but the artificial boundary between humans poem, “Escape,” by D.H. Lawrence, from The Complete Poems of D.H.
and the rest of life as well—it has proved necessary to quote from the work Lawrence, edited by Vivian de Sola Pinto and F. Warren Roberts. © 1964,
of authorities in many different fields. While I have made an effort to stay 1971 by Angelo Ravagli and C.M. Weekley, Executors of the Estate of
within the usual guidelines on word limits for scholarly works, occasion- Frieda Lawrence Ravagli. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of
ally, in order to clarify a complex matter, I have had to quote at greater Viking Penguin, Inc.; “Pan in America” and “The Flying Fish,” by D.H.
length than that normally allotted for scholarly works. Where I have Lawrence. From Phoenix: The Posthumous Papers of D. H Lawrence,
exceeded such limits, I list the permissions below. edited by Edward D. McDonald. Copyright © 1936 by Frieda Lawrence,
I gratefully acknowledge permission to include quotations and/or renewed © 1964 by the Estate of Frieda Lawrence Ravagli. All rights
poems from the following works: “Origins of Agriculture: Discussion and reserved. Reprinted by permission of Viking Penguin, Inc. (Lawrence
Some Conclusions,” by Charles A. Reed. In Origins of Agriculture, ed. by Pollinger, Ltd., English publisher); From Taoism: The Road to Immortality
Charles A. Reed, Copyright © 1977 Mouton de Gruyter, A Division of by John Blofeld. © 1978. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala
Walter DeGruyter and Co. by permission of the publisher; four poems by Publications, Inc., 300 Massachusetts Ave., Boston, MA 02115; Apalache,
Saigyo from Saigyo, Mirror for the Moon, Copyright © 1977, 1978 by by Paul Metcalf. © 1976. Permission by Turtle Island Foundation; “Now,
William R. LaFleur. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publish- Farewell and Hail,” by P.L. Travers. Parabola 10:2. By permission
ing Corporation; “The Temporal and Atemporal Dimensions of Reality in (continued on p. 383)
Confucian Metaphysics,” by Toshihiko Izutsu, Eranos Jahrbruch v. 43
CONTENTS
Beginning Stories 2.0... 0. ee eee en eee eee eee eee eens 6
|) GC cc 8
Introduction ......... 0.0... ccc ee eee eee eee ee beeen eben eb bbe bene eben nnas 10
PART ONE: UPROOTING
The Greek Language Problem and Plato... ....... 0... eee eee ee eens 22
Agriculture. 2... een en ene eee eee teens 28
Addiction, Capitalism and the New World Ripoff ........... 0.0... ccceee eens 36
PART Two: OuR ROOTS IN THE “SOLD Ways’”’
Ethology: The Roots of Human Nature ........... 0... ccc teen en eee ees 54
Nn N Relationships between Animal and Human .....0.... cc.c. ...eee. e.ee .e eee ees 64
N Archetypes: ““The Roots of Consciousness” ........ 0.0.0.0. n teen eens 72
n Lessons from Primitive Cultures ......... 0.0. nee ee eee e teen nes 80
O
0 EC) 50 88
oC Seeing Nature... 0... eee nn eee een eee e een ene eens 102
PART THREE: FOLLOWING THE “‘ROOT-IRACES’’: THE RETURN
10 The “Sacred” 2.0... ee ee eee eee eee nee eee eee eee e eee e ee eens 116
I] Childhood Play and Adult Ritual ..... 2.0.0.0... ene eee eee e ees 131
12 An Overview of Ritual 2.0.0.0... 0. en eee eee eee eee eee e eee eenee 147
13 Sacred Land ..... 0... ee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee eee e nes 166
14 Bringing the Sky into Your Life .......... 0.0... ccc eee e eens cee eens 216
I5 Sacred Sex... ee eee ee eee ee eee ee ee ence eee tebe eee tenes 250
16 Seven “Ways” toward Human/Earth Bonding: Boundary Crossing between Wilderness and Civilization .268
Appendix: Skillful Strategies 2.0.0... kceee eee ee e e eee e nee e eens 303
RESOUICES 6. ER EE Rene Renee eee e nee ees 306
Back-of-the-Book 2.0.0.0... een eee e nee n eee eee e ees 310
Seven essays on “wilderness” and “deep ecology”’
Reference Notes ..... 0... nn een een eee tenn e ee nee eee ees 330
Selected Bibliography . 1.6.0.0... 0. ccc ene ene e een ene eens 368
Useful Definitions .....0..00 0 eee eee e eee ne teen eet e ene neeee 372
006 Cc 378
Permissions and Acknowledgments ............0 0... c ccc eee een eee eee eee nnn 383
BEGINNING
Now FAREWELL AND HAIL
P. L. Travers
(the wisest of women)
All things were possible in this world of Now. Near and
far were alike to it. Huge, spherical and all-containing, it yet
If anyone, in those early years, had asked me where I lived, was so local and neighborly that it seemed as though I could
| ‘
f I would not have been able to answer. For me, my homeland put out my arms and take it to my breast.
| 1 was Here and Now—not a place, not a time, a condition rather,
or domain, enormous and yet intimate, close to the stars and THE LESSON OF THE WHITE MIsT (TAOIST)
the grasses. By night you went about cautiously lest the Pleiades as retold by John Blofeld
catch in your hair; and by day lest you trod on a passing beetle
that might well be a prince in disguise. In the reign of the Emperor Shen Tsung (1573-1620), a
All was present and immediate, everything whole and scholar surnamed Fan, who was a native of I Ping, so
complete, not a thing was missing. No road ever went on and distinguished himself in the public examinations that he
on; it returned to its beginnings. The rainbow was not a mere received a succession of high appointments in various parts
semi-circle—it continued its course underneath the world, the of the Empire. No matter where he went, his duties brought
two ends joined at the horizon. And there the pot of gold would him into contact with the evils of society—greed, avarice, lust,
be if you had the luck to find it. vanity, cruelty and oppression. Having taken leave of absence
The Sleeping Beauty awaited her moment within our in order to spend the period of mourning for his deceased father
crowding forest; the Argonauts sallied forth in their long-oared in his native town, he decided not to return to official life but
ships in search of the Golden Fleece, and the waves of the to retire to the solitude of the mountains and cultivate the Way.
sea, if not seen by the eye, resounded when you put a shell In the vicinity of Mount Omei he acquired a small hut where,
to your ear. Tilly Saville, carrying the daily pail of milk, during inclement weather, he shut himself up with his books
scattered the farmyard cockerels that forever crowed three times and devoted hours a day to meditation. A nearby stream
for Peter who somewhere, behind a shed, would be weeping; trickling amidst moss-encrusted rocks and clumps of fern
angels squatted on the roof top, ready to take your soul if you provided him with clear, sweet water; for food he had brought
died; if there was an oak tree anywhere Bonnie Prince Charlie a few sacks of rice and one or two jars of oil, to which slender
would be sitting in it; the Three Grey sisters, from whom resources he added the bounty of the forest—silver tree fungus,
Perseus had to steal an eye and a tooth, were in reality my bamboo shoots and all sorts of delicious, nourishing plants.
two great-aunts and one of their aged friends; Lord Nelson, In fine weather, he rose early to enjoy the panorama of floating
behind my bedroom door, nightly scraped the wall with a pencil clouds richly tinged with coral, pink or crimson and edged
in spite of the grown-up assurances that the sound was merely with gold, then wandered amidst peaks and valleys searching
the creaking of wood as the house stretched itself luxuriously for medicinal herbs and titbits for his table, often sleeping out
after the heat of the day; there were serpents, any one of whom beneath the stars. Within three years, his heart had become
slithering by would be coming direct from the Garden of Eden; attuned to the more ordinary mysteries of nature; yet the Tao
the sound of a shot would tell us that Nimrod was away hunting eluded him. ‘I see it is there. I behold its transformations, its
on the thither side of our mountain; tigers burned brightly in giving and its taking; but, shadowy and elusive, how it is to
the nearby bush and God ubiquitously worked among us, be grasped?’ Though known to his few neighbours as a skillful
forever unespied—playing the organ in church on Sundays, healer and accomplished immortal, to himself he was a
his feet bare on the pedals; unfolding the flower buds at the wanderer who had left the world of dust in vain.
dead of night; peering through windows, listening at One day he had a visitor who, though dressed coarsely
keyholes—how else could He know everything?—giving like a peasant, had the sage yet youthful aspect of a true
Halley’s comet a push to speed it on its way to the stars; immortal. Broaching a jar of good wine he had left untouched
gossiping with the gossiping trees that no matter how hard since the day of his arrival, Fan listened to his guest with
you listened for it could never be caught in the act. Once He veneration. Said the visitor: ‘I have the honour to be your
looked at me through the gap in a fence with the face of a golden nearest neighbour, being the genie of the stream running behind
sunflower, awesome, quizzical, resolute. J put up my hand and your distinguished dwelling. May I venture to inquire how it
picked Him. This deed was reported to my parents who happens that a scholar of such high attainment as your good
mildly—after all, it was only a flower! —expostulated with me. self has failed to find the starting-point of the Way, especially
But when, in extenuation, I expained to them Who it was, they as it lies right in front of your nose?’ Then, pitying Fan’s
rose up on their high horses. No one, they said, could pick confusion and wishing to put him at his ease, the genie added:
God and if they could, they would not. It was socially, if not’
ethically, unacceptable and not the kind of thing people did.

Theld my peace, knowing that this was not the case. Acceptable
or not, somebody had done it. And, given the chance, would
certainly do it again.
(eRe
COT at
enw Aes Se
oA RS
—/
16
Gsb
STORIES
BaTESON’S “DOG IN THE LaB” STORY Ni
a conversation between Gregory Bateson 2)
and Stewart Brand on the theme of oy
a
‘It is a sign, sir, of your lofty intelligence. There are recluses
“The Madness of the Laboratory”’ A
in plenty who persuade themselves they have found the Way,
as narrated by Stewart Brand
but who would be hard put to it to substantiate that claim. Look
.
for it not in the radiant clouds of dawn and sunset, nor in the
‘No experimenter links up, say, the phenomena of schizo- }
brilliance pouring down from cloudless skies during early
phrenia with the phenomena of humor...The two of them are |
autumn. Seek it in the mists that shroud the valleys at which,
closely related, and closely related, both of them, to arts and
hitherto, you have scarcely condescended to glance.’ With these
poetry and religion. So you’ve got a whole spectrum of
words, the genie made him a handsome bow and departed.
phenomena the investigation of none of which is very
Thenceforward our scholar spent his mornings seated upon
susceptible to the experimental method.”
a knoll gazing down at the white mist swirling in the lower
‘Because of non-isolatability?”’ I think ’'m ahead of him this
valleys. No spiritual illumination followed, but he persevered.
time.
Another three years went by. The woodsmen round about,
‘“Because the experiment always puts a label on the context
seeing him sit for hours as still as the rock beneath him, blessed
in which you are. You can’t really experiment with people,
heaven’s benignity in sending an immortal to dwell among
not in the lab you can’t. It’s doubtful you can do it with dogs.
them. Timely weather was attributed to his virtue; untimely
You cannot induce a Pavlovian nervous breakdown—what do
weather was presumed to have been at least mitigated thereby;
they call it, ‘experimental neurosis—in an animal out in the
Fan himself knew otherwise. Then came a day when he
field.”
hastened joyfully to where the stream bubbled out from an
‘*T didn’t know that!” ’'m gleeful.
underground cavern and called upon the genie, who straightway
More of the Bateson chortle. ‘““You’ve got to have a lab.”
appeared clad in a summer robe of brocaded gauze worn over
“Why?”
garments of fine silk.
““Because the smell of the lab, the feel of the harness in which
‘No need to tell me!’ boomed the genie in a voice like
the animal stands, and all that, are context markers which say
muted thunder. “You have found the Way! May I venture to
what sort of thing is going on in this situation; that you’re
inqure how you did so?’
supposed to be right or wrong, for example.
‘Ha-ha-ha!’ laughed Fan. “Why did you not tell me sooner?
What you do to induce these neuroses is, you train the
I did not find but suddenly realized that I had never lost the
animal to believe that the smell of the lab and similar things
Way. Those crimson dawn clouds, that shining noonday light,
is a message which tells him he’s got to discriminate between
the procession of the seasons, the waxing and waning of the
an ellipse and a circle, say. Right. He learns to discriminate.
moon—these are not majestic functions or auspicious symbols
Then you make the discrimination a little more difficult, and
of what lies behind. They are the Tao. To be born, to breathe,
he learns again, and you have underlined the message. Then
to eat, to drink, to walk, to sit, to wake, to sleep, to live, to
you make the discrimination impossible.
die—to do this is to tread the Way. When you know how to
At this point discrimination is not the appropriate form
take what comes along, not bothering with thoughts of joy and
of behavior. Guesswork is. But the animal cannot stop feeling
sorrow, wearing a quilted or unlined robe not because it is
that he ought to discriminate, and then you get the symp-
the fashion but because nature prompts the change, gathering
tomatology coming on. The one whose discrimination broke
pine seeds or mushrooms not for the taste but because hunger
down was the experimenter, who failed to discriminate between
must be stayed, never stirring hand or foot to do more than
a context for discrimination and a context for gambling.”
passing need requires, letting yourself be borne along without
“So,” says I, “‘it’s the experimenter’s neurosis that...”
a thought of wishing something to be other than it is—then
*,..Has now become the experimental neurosis of the animal.”
you are one with the valley mists, the floating clouds. You have
“In the field what happens?”
attained the Way, taking birth as an immortal. Wasting years
“None of this happens. For one thing, the stimuli don’t count.
on seeking what was never lost really is a joke.’
Those electric shocks they use are about as powerful as what
The cavern before which they were standing now echoed
the animal would get if he pricked his leg on a bramble,
and re-echoed with their laughter. Then the genie composed
his features. The skirts of his brocaded robe and the ribbons pushing through.
Suppose you’ve got an animal whose job in life is to turn
of his silk gauze hat streaming in the breeze, he bowed his
head to the earth nine times, as to an emperor, crying joyfully: over stones and eat the beetles under them. All right, one stone
‘At last, at last, I have met my master!’ in ten is going to have a beetle under it. He cannot go into
a nervous breakdown because the other nine stones don’t have
beetles under them. But the lab can make him do that you see.”
‘Do you think we’re all in a lab of our own making, in which
we drive each other crazy?”
‘““You said it, not I, brother,’ chuckling. ‘‘Of course.’
PREFACE
To change ideas about what the land is for, 1s to change ideas about we are informed of the manner by which they were gained, so that
what anything is for. we can comprehend, we can follow the process towards
Aldo Leopold cognition ourselves.
This work is a manual on deep ecology in the fullest sense;
That’s why this book doesn’t fit into any of the usual
therefore I feel that you, the reader, should be given as much
categories: it’s neither psychology nor philosophy, neither
information as possible on how my understanding came about
history nor anthropology—not even social anthropology. It’s
so you can discern the path I took in my long search. This
most certainly not “‘eco-feminist,” “‘new age” or “futurist.”
might help you in your own search for how to live validly on
Yet, it takes all this in and much more. At the end of his last
this earth of ours.
book, Mind and Nature, Gregory Bateson said his next book
The origins of this book go back over forty years to when
would have to be called Where Angels Fear to Tread because
I was in the eighth grade. That’s when J began trying to find
he was “‘making the same question bigger.’ While working
“the answers,” because at that time I happened to check out
on the manuscript for this work, I was shocked when I
from my Catholic grade school library, a book titled Sergeant
discovered that what Bateson was referring to, is what J am
Lamb's America. In those days no authority figure ever bothered
trying to do in this work. Obviously, the task is too much for
to censor the books given to a grade school library and stuffed
one person, but at least it’s a beginning and others can carry
away on the dusty shelves. The book was the diary of a British
on from here.
soldier, fighting for England in the American revolutionary
How did I get into something so difficult and deep? Why
war. What I discovered changed my life because, from then
me? The answer to the latter question is easy, because I don’t
on, I never believed anything they told me in school. For
have to worry about tenure, or about being fired or about get-
example, instead of being the traitor they told us he was,
ting popular recognition. I live and work in the mountains that
Benedict Arnold was undoubtedly the best leader we had at
I love; therefore, many of the usual considerations don’t even
that time. But he had to flee to Canada to escape his enemies
enter into it. But the first question remains, how did I get myself
in the American ruling class.
into this? I knew the writing of this book would be perilous,
Hence began my search to find out what really caused
full of technical problems and that I would be trespassing on
the mess we are in. Every movement that begins by taking
‘entrenched positions of professional prejudice.” I didn’t fully
real human nature into consideration is almost immediately
realize, however, just how scary it would be to “‘revalue all
co-opted into something anti-human and anti-nature. Why?
values’’; but that’s precisely, what I found myself trying to do
These thoughts were going through my head just before the
as I got into the nature of “sacred land.’
Second World War began, but even then I knew something
In previous books I’ve tried to keep my personal self out
was very, very wrong. It never bothered me personally because
of it as much as possible, but I’ve found that at the lectures
I was able to lead a totally split life with no effort. I was a
I give at colleges and the workshops I give at Centers throughout
docile, top of the class student as long as they let me read all
the west, that many of the questions have to do with how did
the books I wanted to during class to keep from being bored;
I find all this out. To answer those questions I'll have to start
yet I never took anything I heard in school seriously.
with some personal history.
I can remember in the fifth grade, when bored I would
Let me begin with a quote from Dreamtime: Concerning
try to memorize all the 14,000 ft. peaks in the state of Colo-
the Boundary Between Wilderness and Civilization, one of the
rado. Yet [had no idea I would ever be allowed to climb—only
books which helped me as I was completing the manuscript
the wealthy did that long ago in Colorado. So, although very
for this work:
good at the academic game, my real life was always with the
[K]nowledge represents results. These results only have meaning if mountains. I could see the peaks of the Front Range from the
9

trees I climbed in front of my house in north Denver. While Technology and Culture: The International Quarterly of the
still in high school, I saw a little notice in the Denver Post Society of the History of Technology and an article by Barrington
about a Mountain Club trip with a phone number, I called Nevitt: “Pipeline or Grapevine: The Changing Communica-
it and my life was saved and given direction. tions Environment,’ which finally gave me the answer I was
Six years ago I gave a workshop at Notre Dame Continu- searching for. Nevitt labels it the ““Greek language problem,”
ing Education for a Jungian group and then went on up to the which set it up for Plato to “create intellectuals” and thus begin
University of Wisconsin at Green Bay for a series of lectures the long “‘substance”’ road to disaster, culminating in the pres-
that Jack Frisch had arranged for me. I was gone a total of ent massive environmental destruction. (See chapter one for
two weeks. As my plane flew into Denver, tears inadvertently more on this.)
came to my eyes when I saw the peaks of the Front Range Since I had been hunting for this answer for so long I
and suddenly I realized that’s the longest in my life I had ever immediately wrote Nevitt, sending him a copy of my Earth
been out of sight of mountains! I’ve lived, briefly, in Europe Wisdom. In his reply he enclosed his resume. His career in
and in Japan and in Washington state, but always in mountains communications began in 1920 as a Canadian bush pilot,
or within sight of mountains. The mountains not only saved working with radio transmitters and receivers. He went on
me from Eurocentric delusions; they taught me things that our to be a communications consultant for every major country
dominant culture lost long ago. in the world including Russia. He was connected with
Back to my search for answers. In college, I majored in Marshall McLuhan because of their joint interest in the
history but found none of them. I graduated Phi Beta Kappa pre-Socratics. Nevitt’s most recent book, The Communication
and continued reading avidly in history of all kinds. Took me Ecology, 1982 contains still more information on the
a long time to find out that history was the beginning of the Plato/Greek language problem.
problem not the answer. During all my research I kept coming Meanwhile my WAY OF THE MOUNTAIN CENTER
up against a major point. Heidegger and many other authorities held our first conference: ‘‘Heidegger in the Mountains,” with
admitted that the pre-Socratics of Greece were on the right George Sessions, Michael Zimmerman and Bill Devall among
track, but that ended with Plato. No one seemed to have an others. Excited by my new find, I showed it to the group.
answer for what happened just at that time to change it all. Michael, with his Heidegger background, recognized the
I knew that no one man, alone, could have been responsible importance and said, “This is dynamite.”
for such a major change. I’ve provided all the personal history, above, just to explain
Out of college I went to Aspen to teach school so I could how this book began. At workshops and lectures I’m often
live in mountains. This was so long ago that I was the first asked questions which would take days to answer. As I started
public school teacher who skied. It was a marvelous culture working on this manuscript, I tried to answer those questions
then, before skiing became something for the masses; thus and it got deeper and deeper as it went along.
a way to make money. That long ago you could leave your skis Although I can’t possibly list all the people here who have
on top of the car forever, anywhere in this state and no one contributed to my understanding through the years I’ve worked
took them. They were of no use except to other skiers and on these problems, I do want particularly to thank the students
no skier would steal skis. After I was married I moved away at the various universities who asked the necessary questions.
from Aspen but still lived in mountains. Also I want to thank the numerous people on my mailing list
I continued reading avidly. Then, in 1956 I found volume for the Way of the Mountain annual newsletter. Not only have
two of Joseph Needham’s Science and Civilization in China. their orders for books and essays helped me remain financially
In that book, I saw a brief reference to a modern Chinese able to do this kind of ‘‘independent scholar” research, their
philosopher, who said: letters and comments continually keep me aware of events in
this rapidly expanding field of deep ecology.
While European philosophy tended to find reality in
substance, Chinese philosophy tended to find it in relation. Last of all, I especially want to thank Flo Krall of the
Educational Studies Department at the University of Utah,
That was the beginning of my answers. The next impor-
who, through the years that she has had me speak to her classes,
tant step—the one that solved the Plato problem for me did
has been a never-ending source of encouragement. Our annual
not come until 1981. That year I was in the Toronto Canada
meetings have become a true “‘feast of knowledge.” All the
area for a short time and thus had access to a good library
others that I am indebted to for particular learnings, are men-
for the first time in my life. No university in Colorado has
tioned during the course of this work.
a good library because the legislature doesn’t fund libraries—
just buildings. Having just read Heidegger’s The Question Con-
Dolores LaChapelle,
cerning Technology I was very interested in the subject of
WAY OF THE MOUNTAIN CENTER
technology. So, browsing in technology periodicals, I found
Silverton, in the San Juan Mountains
INTRODUCTION
PART A: DEEP ECOLOGY
...Does it serve the people for seven generations?
...Is it for the children yet to come?...
This entire book is about deep ecology and yet it manages
(The basic criterion of native peoples)
to give only some of the facets of the relationships between
nature, deep within us, humans and the rest of nature in the
The end of this “temporary anomaly,” the present Industrial
natural world, outside of us. Although the Norwegian
Growth Society, with its pursuit of “‘substance”’ (in this case,
philosopher, Arne Naess was the first one who said the words,
money) does not mean the end of human life. Rather it means
deep ecology; once he articulated it, response welled up out
the return to real living—living in responsible ‘‘relationship”’
of the depths of countless people around the world.
to all the beings of your place—both human and non-human
and this includes a responsible “relationship” to those yet to
What I will attempt to do here is give as briefly as possi-
come.
ble an account of the beginnings and early growth in this country
of what is called deep ecology. This is difficult for me, because
Twenty years ago, only a few of us clearly saw that the
I know most of the people concerned. However, since I am
exploitation of the entire earth to feed the ever-growing
the only one who knows the story of how both books in this
industrial system could not last once the World Bank, con-
country titled, Deep Ecology, began, I feel I should do it.
trolled by our ‘“‘developed” world, began lending money to
Furthermore, since I have been trained as an historian, I fully
third world countries for “‘development’’; but actually, to suck
understand how important it is for someone to make this
them into the system. It’s now obvious this money can never
attempt early on in the history of any movement. Needless
be repaid; hence those third world countries pay interest forever
to say I’m not going to do it in the usual narrowly academic
and in their efforts to keep up the payments, destroy the rain
manner; instead I will also include some insight into the rela-
forests and increase the deserts throughout the world. But is
tionships involved. My precedent for this is the best piece of
it possible for our children, seven generations from now, to
modern historical writing I’ve ever seen: “* ‘For God’s Sake,
live with no oxygen to breathe and no food to eat?
Margaret’: Conversation with Gregory Bateson and Margaret
Mead,” about the “‘famous Macy Conferences (1947-53) that
Today, however, it’s becoming obvious to everyone that
invented cybernetics.”
this industrial growth system cannot continue, but the way out
is not more of the same kind of tactics. The only way out of I want to begin by saying what deep ecology is not—it
this spiral of destruction is to relearn or sometimes, just to is not a philosophy in the narrow Greek sense. Philosophy,
remember those techniques, which made us human in the first meaning, “‘love of wisdom,’ has the connotation of wisdom
place and which successfully governed humankind in its rela- out of the human head alone. It is not a political movement—
tions with the earth for at least the past 50,000 years. If these politics also being a rather late development in the long span
techniques hadn’t been successful we wouldn’t be here! It’s of humanity and fairly unworkable from the beginning. The
that simple. word comes from the Greek, of course—politika. The first
of the dictionary definitions for it is: ‘‘the art or science of
In the main part of this book I’ve tried to provide some government: a science dealing with the regulation and control
insight into these ‘‘old ways” so that you can begin gradually of men living in society.” Another definition: “‘competition
incorporating them into your life. It’s easier to do it now than between competing interest groups or individuals for power
later, when the entire industrial system collapses. and leadership, etc.” Writing this in 1987, with all the media
propaganda about the U.S. Constitution, I want to point out
This introduction consists of two parts: the first concerns that although our founding fathers borrowed some of the
deep ecology; the second is a general introduction to this work. Iroquois structures for the Constitution, they forgot to include