saving the world: a response to Derrick Jensen

I recently read an article for a class called "Forget Shorter Showers" by Derrick Jensen, which I will link here if you want to catch up before jumping into what I'm about to respond to it with:

https://orionmagazine.org/article/forget-shorter-showers/

First off, I thought this essay was incredibly interesting; the introduction is clever in that it calls your attention, almost begging you to get offended and disagree, but pulls you in by the end. It's the mark of someone who knows how to grab an audience and is ready to argue. I commend Derrick Jensen for his bravery in beginning an essay about climate change with a question about Hitler; it's like daring a Neo-Nazi to have enough self control not to comment.

Overall, I thought Jensen made a lot of good points. His article is pointing out the inherent uselessness of the tiny actions a select group of people are participating in in order to stop the rapid destruction of the planet which I think is a fair criticism to make on the surface. However, the message Jensen is asking readers to understand is what I take issue with- though I didn't at first. The first time I read it, I quickly skimmed the article, taking annotations because I had to (sorry Robinson!) and thought that Jensen was right- that we are doing absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things and just doing it to clean away the guilt we feel. Our class discussion didn't really take us in the direction of the article; I could've let the article slip out of mind after that, never to be thought about again. But for some reason, it has been on my mind in the quiet moments when I'm not stuffing my brain with formulas for my upcoming math test.

One quote in particular was gnawing at me, refusing to go away until I acknowledged it:

"Personal change does not equal social change."

I guess I take issue with this quote because of the message that squeezes in between the lines- one person can't change the world.

That's where you're wrong, Derrick Jensen. HuffPost published an article tackling this exact subject (which I loved reading and will be linking below), which focuses on how one person's desire to change something sparked others' desires to want to change that thing which eventually set a fire that couldn't be put out.

Jensen's message is confusing- he wants to blame the major companies who are contributing to the destruction of the world as we know it, and he also wants to blame consumers for turning a blind eye to those companies and changing little things, claiming it's only to make ourselves feel better.

If he wants to blame the companies, he should blame the companies and tell us how to fix it. If he wants to blame us, he should blame us and tell us how to fix it. But instead, he exits his article with a half-hearted call to action:

"We can follow the example of those who remembered that the role of an activist is not to navigate systems of oppressive power with as much integrity as possible, but rather to confront and take down those systems."

I call this statement half-hearted because just a few paragraphs before, Jensen claims that personal change is not social change. Personal change is the stepping stone to social change. If enough people make a personal change, because others made a personal change, social change will begin and "confront and take down those systems." Social change cannot exist without personal change. By telling readers it's not enough, he is making them feel more discouraged, small, and useless than they already do.

I know that he's trying to say that we have to do more, but I think that he's being unrealistic in a way that makes him impersonal and shows a lack of awareness. Human beings are not just going to decide one day that's it's suddenly time to start saving the planet. It hasn't happened yet, and the U.S. now has a climate change denier as the head of the EPA, so I have a pretty strong feeling it will not be happening anytime soon. Jensen needs to understand that personal change that will slowly morph into social change is all we can do right now and chastising those participating in "living simple" doesn't help the planet anymore than taking shorter showers.

- Katie

Here's the Huff Post article I mentioned:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/maren-johnson/post_3364_b_1507096.html