The Culture of Make Believe

by Derrick Jensen

In the companion volume to A Language Older Than Words, the author journeys into the dark heart of human civilization to understand the atrocities that frequently characterize human culture, interweaving historical, philosophical, political, and personal perspectives in a study of the genocide, environmental destruction, and other cruelties. Original. 25,000 first printing.

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy, History, Politics, Sociology, Psychology, Cultural

700 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Derrick Jensen is an American author and environmental activist living in Crescent City, California. He has published several books questioning and critiquing contemporary society and its values, including A Language Older Than Words, The Culture of Make Believe, and Endgame. He holds a B.S. in Mineral Engineering Physics from the Colorado School of Mines and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Eastern Washington University. He has also taught creative writing at Pelican Bay State Prison and Eastern Washington University.

Reviews

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

The absolute best writer at telling you how fucked up everything is, but making you feel ok about it. Not in a "well, there's no point, so why bother," kind of way, but rather in a "shit, that makes so much sense, I don't feel overwhelmed anymore, so I'm gonna go out and kick some ass in a positive way," kind of way. Everything I've read of his is brutally honest, and amazing.

[rissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

We have been trained to see the KKK as a strange fluke run by a group of uneducated lunatics, "the" Holocaust as an awful but isolated incident run by a charismatic lunatic, but to not see the many current and invisible atrocities. We have been trained to ask why certain people commit certain hateful acts, but never to ask what kind of culture forms these people, and this hate, in the first place. We definitely do not ask if the culture that our ways of life are intricately, but abstractly, based on is not just the opportunity for, but the cause of this (intricate and abstract) hate.

The mythology runs deep, and Jensen digs into it lucidly, and with a huge amount of research. The accounts of horrors are only bearable to hear as he examines the psychology of them, and shows how they're surprisingly interrelated and relevant.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, one of the more intense books I have ever read. If you're prone to depression, I recommend taking this one in very small amounts, maybe a chapter a week. I read the whole thing in about a week and spent the last few days in a very pessimistic fog about our prospect as a species.

Jensen has the strangest way with words when describing some of the most horrific historical events imagineable. He is eloquent and forceful without being too in-your-face. He does come off as a little arrogant at times, but I think anyone who is convinced that their radical (and under-represented) opinion is correct would do the same.

Ultimately, he takes thoughts and ideas that I have vaguely floating around in my head and organizes them elegantly into strong arguments. His treatment of the subject is a little diffuse: he starts out on a quest to define "hatred" and never really arrives at a concrete definition, but the journey is fascinating nonetheless.

It normally bothers me quite a bit when an author offers all critique without any sort of feasible solutions, but here it seems appropriate -- Jensen honestly doesn't think there is hope for our civilization, and for him, the faster we help destroy it, the better.

I look forward to reading the two Endgame volumes (Endgame, Vol. 1: The Problem of Civilization and Endgame, Vol. 2: Resistance -- update: see my reviews here and here), hopefully for more ideas on what I can do to help. But I'm going to take a Jensen-free sabbatical for a couple weeks at least, until I can build up enough optimism to have it once more rudely ripped away (in a good way more or less).


Not Bad Reviews

@pointblaek

[Samuel · Rating 3 out of 5]

EDIT 2023

I wrote the original review, below, twenty years ago - shortly after reading the book. Periodically people still "like" it on this site, which speaks to the staying power of this book. As the years have passed, and I have taken more time to consider the implications of Jensen's arguments, ultimately I have come down to a fundamental disagreement with his approach. The consequences of intentionally dismantling (or otherwise destroying) civilization would be catastrophic, and would result in death and misery on a massive scale for humans and other creatures. Whether I agree with Jensen's take - that a collapse is inevitable and a question of when rather than if - or not, I simply cannot find in myself the hubris I would need to enact such consequences; the possibility that I was wrong is too great.

On top of this, Jensen's ideological opposition to civilization carries too much biological determinism and essentialism. This goes beyond the work and speaks to the author's activism more broadly, but I cannot countenance the implications of his work on trans and disabled folks in our communities. I also think the simplistic reduction of complex issues in human society to simple power dynamics in the work misses essential nuances. For these reasons, I'm no longer uncertain what to think about this book - I have decided I do not agree with it.

However, I do still find it an important contribution to the discourse - reading this twenty years ago had an indelible impact on my whole worldview, and thinking through the challenging questions Jenson posed was an important and formative part of my developing my own understanding of society, culture, and nature. I'm leaving the original review untouched below.

***

This is an extremely difficult book to read. It is an academic critique of human civilization. It begins by trying to define a hate group, and moves on to show how our government would have to be included in any adequate definition. That's the beginning. The rest of the book is a litany of stories which come together to make the extremely strong case that our entire civilization is founded upon violence, hatred, and destruction. The problems with civilization, to Jensen, are not solvable through programmatic changes and reforms because the problems are a part of the fabric of civilization itself. He, therefore, argues that we should get rid of civilization. As to whether I agree or disagree with his point of view, I'm not sure. He's been called a terrorist (he advocates the blowing up of dams and the undertaking of other activities to destabilize and bring down civilization), and I wouldn't be at all surprised if he were declared an enemy combatant at some point in the future. But his arguments seem to be on sound footing. They certainly can't be dismissed out of hand. Right or wrong, I think his ideas are worth discussion.

[Randall Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

The central movement of our culture is to “deprive others of their subjectivity”. Kevin Bales writes the slavery began with the beginning of agriculture and settlements. The Code of Hammurabi, the earliest laws, states death to anyone helping a slave escape or harboring one. Rome required a half a million new slaves per year. At its end, Rome had two million slaves in Italy alone. In Britain you could be shipped off as a slave for “destroying shrubbery.” “Between 1609 and the early 1800s, as many as two-thirds of the white colonists are estimated to have been forced to come over as slaves.”

Love the bible? Then you will love this: “Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” – Psalms 2:8 No wonder why I hate civilization; it’s built on feeling somehow entitled to control others without their consent while collectively murdering the planet with glaring total lack of respect. “To deny that those to be exploited have lives that are precious to them, you will …have to live in a state of denial.” “Entitlement is key to nearly all atrocities.”
The Ku Klux Klan was federally prosecuted and driven underground by 1874 which meant no more white robes ($ saved on laundry bills could now be used to court & wed one’s sister or favored farm animal) and terrorism against blacks became chillingly by the hands of one’s neighbors dressed in common fashion. “Neither Jesus, nor the apostles, nor the early church condemned slavery.” Ladakh holds answers to what civilization does. Before total contact with the outside world their world was the here and now. Their world was the center of it all; the center was where they were. But TV and outside influence then destroyed Ladakh. Dene women in Canada told Jerry Mander how after TV showed up, people stopped visiting each other, kids won’t do anything, women didn’t sew, and the woodpiles got low. We should know not only the past history of the indigenous exactly where we live, but should know the history of every massacre that happened in our region.

Not long ago in Britain, orphans became chimney sweeps, if you near starved them, they better fit into the chimney. The boys would often get malignant tumors on their scrotum. You were beaten if you didn’t go down a hot chimney. “Forced screaming and sobbing”. Ah those Brits sure sound civilized. If you started up the chimney but got cold feet, they would put lit straw under you to send you back up again. Also charming. David Ricardo is one of the big three names in classical economics. David thought property rights were “more important than the health and safety of children.” All of these terrible stories happen when people value money and property over human beings and nature. “It takes a lot of force to ruin the lives of people who were happy not working for you.”

If the first rule of the abuser is “Don’t talk about it”, then our first rule being woke should be “tell the truth” says David Edwards. Asa Chandler, who bought the Coca Cola recipe for $1,750 and made it famous, wrote, “the most beautiful sight that we see is the child at labor; as early as he may get at labor the more beautiful.” When the needle ran completely through a young girl’s finger at the 19th century factory, she would have to bind her finger with cotton and keep working. “Sometimes a finger has to come off.” Predators know to target the most insecure. All the Native Americans had to do when the British grounded their ship the Tyger near Roanoke was just leave them alone and they would have died. In other words, to avert extermination later by “the civilized”, the natives should have let the British die. Those British didn’t come to the U.S. to meet the natives, or for tourism, or to beat The Beatles with the 1st British Invasion; they came here to “possess”, “to enslave or exterminate the inhabitants”, and “to enslave the land”. Custer’s men would shoot every Indian horse; let nothing survive. Imagine the audio sound of many horses dying within earshot of the natives hiding in the bluffs. George Washington’s written orders to General John Sullivan are clear: “to lay waste all [Iroquois] settlements around, that the country may not be merely overrun but destroyed.” Nothing is more honorable than having your old neighbors evicted at gunpoint in order to become the richest man in America, which George of course becomes. Liberal idol, Thomas Jefferson at one point suggests invading Canada. You sure can tell how much the European Enlightenment really rubbed off on these guys.

OK, maybe the British and colonists did some terrible stuff but the Spanish were cool, right? Well, deceitful warfare was brought to indigenous cultures in the Americas from abroad. We we’ve all been taught The History Channel’s slanted view of fearing Montezuma and the Aztec Empire with their many bloody human sacrifices while ignoring “civilized” Cortes. Since nowhere will the History Channel explain to you what Cortes and his men actually did, read on: Montezuma listened to Cortes profess friendship finally lets him and his men come in for a feast. Bernardino de Sahagun, 16th century historian then recounts how those profoundly Christian men of Cortes behaved towards Native Americans. The natives sang and danced in friendship and on cue, the Spanish first attacked the musicians. They chopped off their hands and heads, “then all the other Spaniards began to cutoff heads, arms, and legs, and to disembowel the Indians”. All found alive were killed. “Others dragged their entrails along until they collapsed.” To have anticipated this, would have been unthinkable by Montezuma. To the Aztecs, sacred warfare made it sacrilegious to use treachery in warfare.

Candygrams from civilization to the non-civilized: “we don’t respect anyone else’s rules”, “might makes right”, “if we shake hands, I’m taking your home and your future, and erasing your past” and the perennial favorite, “may your family enjoy 20 generations of PTSD and alcoholism if you break free”.

Know the story of Gnadenhutten, where a continental militia was lucky enough to come across a town of Indian pacifists harvesting corn. The soldiers assured the natives they just needed some food, and all was cool. The Indians just had to turn over any weapons. Once defenseless, in the name of freedom and liberty, the Indians were all bound and charged with false crimes and murdered. Pleas in excellent English did nothing to stop the slaughter. Last time I checked bullies don’t kill. What’s the name for a bully who not only taunts but kills/scalps defenseless children and women? An American patriot? Someone Trump would pardon? When the Dani fought, they used unfletched arrows to make them inaccurate, and never shot volleys at one person. People might get hurt or wounded. Taunts and insults were often exchanged and both sides might laugh if “a particularly witty line hit home.” During WWII the US demonized Japan far more than Germany. German and Italian nationals were treated fine during WWII, but if you were Japanese you were interred. Richard Drinnon says New England had to make laws against “fraternization with Indians” because so many colonists were willing to run into the woods. That’s the problem with civilization.

Why do we today punish some kinds of violence, while rewarding others? Why bother to try to eliminate crime, with zero interest in lessening what causes crime? “Nine out of ten chemicals in pesticides haven’t been thoroughly tested for toxicity.” Per year, the U.S. has 1,400 toxic chemical accidents per year. The Pacific Northwest Indians were forced to leave their homeland because of the Lake Superior to Puget Sound railway. Northern Pacific was granted 40,000,000 acres of native land. American patriot General Philip Sheridan explained the need to build a fort on land stolen from the native population, “by holding an interior point in the heart of the Indian country we could threaten the villages and stock of the Indians.” Carlo Gambino and Carmine “the Snake” Persico could not have said it any better.

An editorial in the San Francisco Argonaut explained it well, “We do not want the Filipinos. We want the Philippines. The islands are enormously rich, but unfortunately they are infested by Filipinos. There are many millions there and it is to be feared that their extinction will be slow.” Even when the U.S. clearly has the upper hand, note the FEAR that THEIR extinction will be slow. American men are bunch of goddamn pussies. Is there ever a time in U.S. history they weren’t afraid? Afraid the victims of their crimes might take too long to die or might complain while sputtering blood, or maybe will resist having their lands and lives stolen? Chinese who came to America before Columbus came home with stories of a land with no taxes, where there was no war and weaponry, no walls to protect, and women could choose their suitors. On one night in 1871 in Los Angeles, twenty innocent Chinese men were killed by knife, gun or burned alive. The Montanian’s editor in 1873 wrote about killing Chinese, “we don’t mind hearing of a Chinaman being killed now and then, but it’s been getting thick of late. Don’t kill them unless they deserve it, but when they do, kill ‘em lots.”

Aristotle liked slavery and for him slaves where likely Slavs (Slavic people); slaves were basically indigenous people who lived in Northern Greece and beyond. Thievery = Civilization? Quelle surprise! Those harping on property rights never discuss the original theft of property by the first “legal” owners.

History of Civilization: If you can get rid of all the good examples of how to live around the world, you can make remaining crappy examples like yours look like a good example. Ask for our pamphlet: “Genocide, is it for you?” Civilization removed/removes cultures that esteem those who are peaceful and generous. WWI was fought because “by 1917 the Allies owed American bankers $1.5 billion dollars.” To bail out Morgan’s unfortunate loans the war was fought, with the idea that if Morgan went under the US economy might go under. One woman went to prison for 10 years for saying about WWI, the following comment: “I am for the people and the government is for the profiteers.” Americans were imprisoned by testimony of their house guests if they even casually spoke during dinner against the war. The woman who said “the women of the United States were nothing more than brood sows, to raise children to get into the army and be made into fertilizer” got five years in prison. Study the lynching cases of Private William Little, George Holden, Lloyd Clay, and Berry Washington. The sound of white children shouting, “mother, get me a piece of the nigger’s finger.” One black man sang “Nearer my God to Thee” as he was being burned by whites. I’m sorry, but this book should be required reading by every American along with Howard Zinn’s People’s History, and they should be tested on both if they are to vote or to have a child.

In Oak Ridge there was regular safety testing at the nuclear testing plants. One day a few men placed their badges on “a smoking chunk of uranium” and then sent it in for testing. No response. Then one guy placed “a small chunk of uranium” in his urine sample and sent it in. Again, no response. Supervisors told them to falsify records, etc… How many people bought their way out of fighting the Civil War? 73,500 Males including Jay Gould, William Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and Andrew Mellon. Are you surprised? Thomas Mellon wrote his son explaining the concept of Civil War evasion, “There are plenty of other lives less valuable.” Army contractors during the Civil War kept half the cash, according to historian Fred A. Shannon’s work. Did you know that Warren G. Harding was sworn in as a member of the Ku Klux Klan with a bible in the White House? Funny how the most interesting tidbits of U.S. History are the least flattering. My Christian friends will never post on Facebook that “by 1924, thirty thousand ministers were enrolled in the Klan.” When most Christians today buy a new bible, how long do they have before they have to rip out of it all references to the poor and to non-violence? Answer: If you never open your bible (but just use it to jam it down other people’s throats), it doesn’t matter. There’s a “vein in our culture” that wants to explode – it’s called rage – it brought us the KKK.

The U.S. hates fascism so much that “General Motors supplied the trucks for Hitler’s war machine (as did Ford), and Standard Oil (now Exxon) supplied gas and rubber” (see book, Nazi Nexus for IBM w/ Nazi death camps). Teddy Roosevelt wrote these civilized words which because so inspirational for Hitler, “Of course our whole national history has been one of expansion.” Note the many time the U.S. has violated Article 58 - which is destruction of facilities essential to human life - complete war crimes like bombing the dykes in Korea or Vietnam. Our sanctions made Vietnam ranked economically lower than Mozambique. Every generation of Americans has experienced war. Our foreign policy is depriving “governments and peoples of the independence that comes from self-sufficiency in the production of food.” The Ford assembly line and McDonald’s made their names by removing the creative element from business.

Lower class words today in English betray Anglo-Saxon roots. Anglo-Saxons were conquered by Normans in 1066 and even now, Latinate words (defecated, urinated, intercourse) are still considered civilized and while the Anglo-Saxon words (shit, piss, fuck) are considered vulgar. Japan killed 35 million Chinese during WWII; do you ever hear about that? 27.5 million Russians were killed in WWII, do you ever hear about that? The Holocaust has a capital H in front of it to suggest its uniqueness. But if you study the human price tag of Civilization since the birth of agriculture, you see many genocides forced to be kept written with lower cases suggesting no uniqueness. Butt such large-scale violence is unique only to Civilization. Hitler’s solution was that of Cortes and Custer, only writ large. German companies improved the mobile Nazi killing vans by helping with better drainage and making them easier to clean. One German company gave its recipe for soap: “12 pounds of human fat, 10 quarts

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book left me sad and hopeful and rethinking everything I thought I knew about Western culture.
And I consider myself a tremendous skeptic, especially about this country we call America.
But Jensen interweaves economics, religion, history, media (just to name a few) and shows why the way we live now - as "civilized" Americans, or Westerners - is, not to put too fine a point on it, destructive.
Destructive to our humanity. Destructive to other cultures and races and people. Destructive to the planet.
I think the main thing Jensen, whose research is amazing and who writes movingly and absorbingly, has accomplished here is not simply to point out destructive periods in American (and/or Western) history but to convincingly show that this destructiveness extends from a system - a rational, though manifestly stupid and immoral - system ruled by people who value economics and efficiency and power and utilitarian goals and objects and consumption - who value "civilization" as we know it and have experienced it thus far - above the natural world and the animals and plants and trees in it, above human beings, above subjectiveness, above the particular.
This system and its rulers (not to mention some of its subjects who, though they are slaves to the system, also benefit just enough from it not to go around questioning it) value these things at all costs. They're not giving it up. They're not giving it a second thought. In fact, they'll kill to defend it.
The first thing Jensen suggests we who are willing do is to speak out about it. If, as he writes, the first rule of the dysfunctional family is "Don't talk about it," then the first rule of stopping the destruction is "Do." Do talk about it. Don't let assumptions go unquestioned. Then, once you've started talking, start acting.
I will speak and act and think and perceive differently because of this book. Unforgettable.

[Bobby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting and eye opening. Imperialism isn't dead it just goes by a different name. This book may have made me an anarchist

[Mary Slowik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Down with the patriarchy! Down with the matriarchy! Down with... well, whaddya got?

So much of this is brilliantly written, and there's so much that I agree with that I was certain I would end up rating it five stars, end of story. It begins as a study of hatred, as it relates to slavery, lynching, holocausts, extinctions and other atrocities. Eventually the core thesis emerges: our acquisitive, consumptive-destructive civilization is the problem, along with our refusal to even acknowledge the crimes that it leads to. There's a biblical allusion he revisits repeatedly, that of Noah cursing his son Ham for looking upon Noah's nakedness, when his other two sons shuffled backwards, didn't look, and covered their drunken father up. Nothing to see here! Many of the chapters revolve around conversations he had with other intellectuals, which reminded me, in a positive way, of Richard Linklater's movie Waking Life.

So, what's my problem? Well my interest was stretched a little thin during some of the later chapters, like the one devoted to the Bhopal disaster. It seemed as though he'd already made his point but had to pile on more evidence. There's only so much preaching to the choir I can take. This relates to the other unfortunate, inevitable aspect which isn't Derrick Jensen's fault at all: most of the people who read this will already be on his side. The people who need to read it probably won't, and those who do will likely hold to their misplaced faith in civilization, due to something tragic known as "sticky theory": when confronted with evidence to the contrary, humans tend to cling even more tightly to whatever bullshit they believed in the first place.

My other reaction has more to do with the conclusion Jensen reaches, and the necessary balancing act it requires through the whole book. Despite all the cited examples of human atrocities, he still exhibits a desire to 'save' the human race, mostly by a return to anarchy, by the destruction of modern science and technology, by the cessation of international trade, et cetera. He also reflects a deep consideration for non-human persons: meaning animals, and even trees. Other life-forms. The problem is, he doesn't seem to realize, let alone consider, the moral dimension inherent in the choice to continue as a species. Forget about the curse that is consciousness ("parent of all horrors," to borrow Thomas Ligotti's phrase), if we looked at it from a purely environmentalist perspective, nothing could be better for the global ecosystem than our voluntary extinction. This speaks to the double-think, also known as hypocrisy, which I find in most animal-rights vegans or environmentalists. They want to reduce their carbon footprint, want to reduce or eliminate the suffering of other animals, and yet most think it's perfectly alright to produce a descendant or several, who'll likely produce still more descendants-- the tip of a carbon iceberg. How do you know your grandchildren won't be raging carnivores, hunters, slaughterhouse workers? Why not prevent all that consumption and destruction altogether, as well as the useless suffering and inevitable deaths those human beings will have to anticipate and endure? Think about it.

In other news, how much of an asshole is Madeleine Albright? "There's a special place in hell for women who don't help other women." Quoted in this book, paraphrased: "500,000 Iraqi children killed by our sanctions? We think the price is worth it..." Paraphrased: "Yes, I killed a Serbian drifter in 1992, but so what? He had it coming." Okay, one of those might not be true, but I'm not saying which.

[Curtis · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is somewhat ironic that I finished reading this book a couple days ago in a title company waiting room - waiting patiently to be called back to a more professional looking office where my wife and I would then proceed to sign and initial a stack of paperwork so thick that the title company's custom manilla folder could barely contain it. Through this exercise of initials and signatures I further ensnared myself into the intricate web of money, credit, mortgages, property ownership, etc. that hangs thick and heavy over every aspect of being a worthwhile human being and a contributing member of society. It was smiles and handshakes all around after the closing process was complete and I received the keys to my new home. My mind was elsewhere though - still conversing internally with the words on the pages of this book. I don't even really know where to begin with why I loved this book so much, but I feel as if it is a part of me now, and in a world where I continue to feel more and more alienated by my concerns, ideas, and philosophies about life and what ought to be in this world, it is comforting to know that I am not alone, and that there are other sane human beings out there that are genuinely trying to be more than tiny cogs in the profit generating machine that will eventually disfigure this planet into a place that is no longer capable of sustaining any sort of beautiful life.

[Libby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Someone suggested I read this book about three years ago, but I have to say I probably wasn't ready for it until this year. It was amazing, well-written, seriously challenged my view of the status quo and my "place" in it and reopened my curiosity about "truth" and how we come by that. I would suggest reading "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn first, because if the average person ran right into this book I don't think they'd be prepared to accept it. An overview of US and general human abuses of other humans and the land we "share" is a must first. I am going to read the rest of Derrick Jensen's books now.

[Ushan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Derrick Jensen teaches creative writing in a maximum-security prison, and supplements his income by writing 700-page tomes filled with rants about the evils of industrial capitalism, which breeds hatred, oppression, materialism and environmental destruction. Of course it was the capitalists who built Kombinat Mayak, and it was the capitalists who set up a factory producing handbags and gloves from the skin of the Yangtze River dolphin during the Great Leap Forward. I don't want to believe that all environmentalists are ignorant ideologues, which is why I checked out this book from the library, yet I also don't want to read a book if I only have an entomologist's interest in its author, which is why I didn't finish it.

[Jesse Carr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although Jensen's stream-of-consciousness writing is sometimes hard to follow, his indictment of cultures of violence and domination are extremely compelling. His writing is refreshingly non-academic, yet clearly thoroughly researched and very thoughtful. I still think that "A Language Older Than Words" is his best, but this is a good second.

[jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

a language older than words, part deux.

[Pippypippy Madden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Derrick Jensen finds the furthest, darkest reaches of the human death culture called civilization. He is plain spoken, even as he explores the history, causes, and largely unspoken, unacknowledged- or hidden in plain sight- rules which perpetuate violence against human beings and the land that we live on. Jensen's ideas can seriously rattle one's cage- even if they are not entirely unfamiliar- and yet reassure at the same time. For me, the reassurance comes in hearing these ideas spoken out loud and unapologetically. Human beings are systematically destroying the earth through violence, which is often rooted in racial and other forms of prejudice- violence against all living things which are seen as expendable in the name of economic or technological progress.
While Jensen may not see much hope for humanity, he sees the collapse of human civilization as necessary and not even a bad thing- after we are gone there will be hope for other living things- on which everything depends but humans can't see for the dollar signs in our eyes- and for the land to repair itself.
Impeccably and exhaustively researched.
Reading this book also compelled me to find out more about my particular corner of the earth- for example, could I name 5 edible plant species that grew wild where I live? Did I know the names of the indigenous people whose land I now occupy?
In addition, there are moments of sheer beauty, as when Jensen talks about the giant redwood trees in the forest whose tangled roots hold them together underground, and when he asks a stream what it is like to be it.
There are also moments of humor, for example when he tells a story about a bear breaking into his house and making off with a bag of dog food, politely carrying it outside before tearing into it and making a mess.
This book is huge and I'm sure I can do it no justice wiht this review. It is definitely life-changing, as is much of Jensen's other work I have read.
"Protect your landbase, you can't have sex without it."-Derrick Jensen.

[zogador · Rating 5 out of 5]

The number topics covered in this book are vast. Derrick Jensen has wounded my soul with his words. But no, that's not really correct. He has only informed me of the sinister forces at work behind the scenes in modern society and the sinister psychology which fuels it.

No one in particular is responsible for the direction we have taken and yet the very few benefit while the vast majority suffer. It's remarkable how I have had an intuitive sense about many of these issues ever since I was a child, participating in something mainstream often didn't "feel" quite right, but I didn't know why. Well, now I know why. Derrick Jensen has removed the scales and shown me what lies behind the curtain of our willful blindness.

Fear and Greed are the two most destructive forces on this planet. Corporate profit is at the root. The damage done to the environment, animal species, plant species, climate, and countless human victims, especially indigenous peoples, is really unfathomable. The holocaust never really ended. Seemingly, all accumulation of wealth is based on exhausting nonrenewable resources and the exploitation or complete annihilation of ethnic groups which are far out of sight. This is done under the guise of free-trade, globalization, and world banking.

Can humans really be so short-sighted, poisoning the whole world just to keep the economy expanding infinitely? As individuals, do we mentally block out those things which are too ugly or too hurtful to contemplate?

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jensen catalogs atrocities. Done by corporations, nations and individuals. Though divided into chapters, the substance of the book meanders through the same general theme. We are destroying what sustains us and that is madness. Mixing personal anecdotes and impressive research, Jensen’s book is part call-to- action and part self-discovery. He analyzes himself, and others, in the hope of seeing the deeply rooted “transparent bonds” which cause us to act in self-destructive ways.

I’m not sure what I really walked with after reading The Culture of Make Believe. More evidence of society’s failings. More examples of human selfishness. More stories of bigotry and oppression. Maybe for those enamored with the American ideal, this book would serve as an eye-opening read. But we all live in a cynical age. I’m not sure if such sieges on white picket houses are really the productive radical writings needed. There’s always value in reassessing why we think what we do, but isn’t the real goal to inspire change?

Tearing down the world isn’t that difficult. Many already believe in the current and historical destructiveness of greed, production and waste. Shouldn’t the real discussion be on how we change, and persuade others to do the same, before we destroy ourselves?

[Splashconception · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh man, what can I not say about this book. First checked out from the Portland Library in 2006, the winter of the year I moved, sat around after work in my big empty room in the dead of winter, wet and rainy, getting stoned and reading it, or sometimes walking to the coffee shop in the Rose garden after work and reading it. Reread in 2010, rereading it again now 2015. One of the best analysis of euro-american culture ever written in terms of being honest and truthful about the shitty, brutal ugliness of some aspects of global colonist background many of us come from and how deeply entrenched in unconscious and conscious hatred segments of our economic-social system is. A book that does not take our callous attempts at pretending to be ignorant or justifying the murder inherent in the very construction of our some of our privileges lightly. This has probably been one of the most influential books in terms of the way I see the world, in my entire life. Definitely one his best books in terms of the way facts and arguments are presented and weaved together, he isn't much for presenting solutions, maybe because presenting the facts undiluted is in its own way, like any form of self discovery a partial solution.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Derrick Jensen has a knack for compiling some of the most horrible atrocities ever committed and piecing them together within a compelling and provocative thread. This book is more "socially" focused than A Language Older Than Words (which was more ecological), so in that sense I got more out of it, but it's probably not as well written as that earlier book.

The best parts here are about the KKK, IWW, J.P. Morgan and the turn of the century big capitalists and war profiteers, the Nazis, and slave labor in the US and around the world. as usual though, he covers about 100 topics in this 600+ page book.

The thing I struggle with when reading Jensen and other 'anti-civ' writers is that I agree 99% with their diagnosis of the problem (class society is inherently built on violence and must be dismantled - the industrial 'economy' is a machine designed to turn the living into the dead), but their solutions, or lack thereof, are difficult to accept. Instead of organizing for social change or revolution, Jensen advocates that we basically weep for the world we've lost, and perhaps engage in property damage...

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

I dog-eared many pages to reference for this review, but I am not going to use any of them. Jensen explains and reiterates often throughout the book that we have progressed through various genocides and holocausts until we are now at a point in history with the most efficient and rational systems of killing and destruction (based on how capital and production work to take, consume and discard--on to the next resource to exploit, whether that be oil, trees, people, etc). The way our current system is set up is Hitler and Goebbels dream, more efficient and better organized to use you and keep you quiet and distracted about it. He does not offer a lot of advice, outside of theory and admonition. Still, a great book to spark ideas, dialogue, with hopes to start a fire under not one, but everyone.

[Jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh Christ the things we do to each other, and the excuses we tell ourselves to make each and every atrocity seem ok! I honestly didn't know about the Bhopal disaster in India in the early 80's; look it up on Google images and ruin your day.

Derrick Jensen uses a LOT of words with himself and through interviews with others about our human condition and how we're all jerks with sick violent tendencies.

If you are looking for an uplifting ending where an author takes the beginning of the book with all it's horror and spins it into "but we're all good now; look no there's no more lynchings!" please be prepared for disappointment.

In summary, it was an interesting book with some real truths about ourselves (although I found it to be circular in logic and with an overabundance of self ruminations); we as humans are not pretty.

[Georgiana]

43 (I believe it was upton Sinclair who stated, "it's difficult to get man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it")

62 the citizens of Mohenjo-Daro obeyed not because they were inferior but because they would starve if they did not.

63 The difficulty comes--and here is the real beauty of the story of Noah and his sons--when, like Ham (or at least my vision of Ham), you find your way through these shifts in perception and see the patriarch naked and vulnerable. What do you do then? Do you, like Ham, talk about what you have seen? As the story makes clear, there are grave strictures against doing so, with severe consequences.
Or do you follow the lead of Ham's brothers, and reap the privilege that comes from averting your eyes?

[Adele · Rating 5 out of 5]

This books is amazing.

It *is* very hard to read, and I reached a point where I couldn't handle some of the more graphic depictions of atrocities, but I'm planning to finish it...

Jensen does an amazing job of describing many of the world's evils (war, child abuse, rape,racism, cruelty to animals, the destruction of the environment, etc.) and illustrating how they spring from a common root at the base of our civilization. And while some of the depictions are very disturbing, I've found that this book leaves one, not with a feeling of defeat or despair, but with the sense that these evils, once understood, can be fought.

[Jim Leckband]

I'm abandoning this book not because of its writing style or that I disagree with his major points (with some minor points though.) It is just that after November 8th 2016 I feel everyone who has eyes has already got a master class on what Jensen is critiquing. In an alternate reality, I would rather have had a wry shake of my head as I read the chapters, knowing that I was still safe and above all the crap. But the crap is here, has always been here and it's our own crap blinders that prevented us from seeing it. Which is Jensen's point. I may finish this if optimism warrants it...

[Ryan Mishap · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jensen wants to understand what hate is and he starts with a look at racial hatred by examining slavery. Along the way, he wonders at why crimes against women aren't considered hate crimes, wonders if our civilization's assault on nature is about hate, and general delves into a hundred different interesting. provocative things. Hell, read the book I don't got all day to tell ya.

[Tracy Tarbutton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely one of the best.

[Clea Milner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Life-changing book.

[amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Warning: This isn't so much a review as a list of random things I'd like to remember about the book. Goodreads just doesn't give enough characters in the "Private Notes" section! Why, Goodreads, why?

This book was long, too long and winding... but there was much that i want to remember:

1. comparing 19th-century rationales for slavery to modern-day arguments for world trade/free markets

2. the chapter on native american removal, genocide

3. western civilization as "conquest abroad and repression at home"

4. the role of "stories" for socialization and the fact that our modern socialization stories have been concocted by marketing conglomerates

5. western civilization as a wave of dissatisfaction spreading from a core; living with the land, having a sense of place as an antidote for this dissatisfaction

6. chapters about Bhopal, JP Morgan, and the second rise of the KKK in the 1920's

7. Ritzer's "cathedrals of consumption"

8. Iraq had a functional, centralized, free health care system prior to the first gulf war

quotes:

"Before we can deforest the planet, we have to change the way we perceive it. Up until five hundred years ago, the people in what we now call North America lived in basic equilibrium with the forests, as part of a complex web of relationships. Then another culture and the beginnings of the industrial system were brought in from "outside." Before the trees could be cut, they had to be redefined as private or public property. But even before that, they had to be redefined as property at all. If I see a woman on the street, and I perceive her as another being with wants and desires all her own, I will treat her differently than if I perceive her as a worker or as property or as an object for my personal enjoyment. It is the same with trees, mountains, the hours of my own life. Are they alive, or are they mere objects for my consumption?"

"Our power (both individually and socially) derives from our steadfast refusal to enter into meaningful and mutual relationships."

"If you believe that the fundamental organizing principle of the world is competition.. you will perceive the world as full of ruthless competitors, all of whom will victimize you if they get the chance. The world as you perceive it will begin to devolve into consisting entirely or almost entirely of victims and perpetrators: those who do, and those who get done to; the fuckers, and the fucked. Your society will devolve -- not in perception but in all truth -- into these roles you have projected onto the world at large. You will begin to believe that everyone is out to get you. And why not? After all, you are certainly out to get them."

Howard Zinn: "Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience.. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem."

"The inevitable result of our social and economic system is monopoly: centralized ownership, unified control, monolithic power. The last six thousand years have seen a grinding away at diversity: biological, cultural, theological, economic. One crop, one culture, one god, one owner -- these are manifestations of a cultural urge to simplify complexity and thus increase control."

Ruth Benedict, anthropologist: "In what she termed good or synergistic cultures, selfishness and altruism are merged by granting esteem to those who are generous. Cultures that reward behavior benefiting the group as a whole while not allowing behavior that harms the group as a whole are peaceful, respectful of women and children and cooperative. Individual members are secure. If, on the other hand, your culture grants esteem to those who are acquisitive, that is, if your culture rewards behavior that benefits the individual at the expense of the whole, your culture will be warlike, abusive toward women and children, and competitive. Individuals will be insecure. She also found that members of the cultures with the former characteristics are, unsurprisingly, for the most part, happy. Members of the cultures with the latter characteristics are, just as unsurprisingly, not. Valium anyone?"

"As with the Klan of the nineteenth century, the Klan of the early twentieth century was a true grassroots organization, with numbers and influence that can only be the envy of those of us who don't support, but oppose, the injustices on which our system is based. The KKK tapped, and taps, a vein in our culture, a vein of rage that waits always to explode. Our culture's deep foundation of competition creates waves of rage and hatred. Not only does this anger get misdirected because it's easier to express it against the powerless, and not only because we are routinely pitted against others of the powerless, but, most especially, because, if we were to focus on the real sources of that rage and hatred, we would soon find ourselves questioning our very identities... Truly, if we identify with the culture, to hate the thing causing us pain -- the culture -- would be to hate ourselves. This is too much."

George Ritzer defines "McDonaldization: "It's the process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant -- efficiency, predictability, calculability, and control through nonhuman technology -- are coming to affect more and more sectors of society in more and more parts of the world... Efficiency leaves no room for the enchanted... I thought again of life, which has no obvious end, except the process of enjoying this particular moment in this particular place, and the joy of meandering. I'm in no hurry to reach the end point of my life, nor wish away any of the time in between. I don't want to live efficiently, nor cause others to. I want to live broadly, deeply, richly, with resonance, in full enjoyment of my own particular life." (pg 536)

By pretending that the Holocaust is Unique we get to isolate it, pretend it was an aberration, a single incomprehensible act of unparalleled evil committed by a nation inexplicably in the thrall of a monstrously and, somehow, charismatically insane individual. We get to pretend that it was not an inevitable consequence of a way of perceiving others and of being in the world.

Mussolini Quote: "Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power."

Hitler Quote: " Neither Spain nor Britain should be models of German expansion, but the Nordics of North America, who had ruthlessly pushed aside an inferior race to win for themselves soil and territory for the future."

[Andrew Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Derrick Jensen has forever changed my life. He has helped, more than any other writer or person, start the arduous process of unlearning necessary to see with truly clear eyes. I understand what it takes now to be a human who lives each moment with real, inherent, particular, meaning. If you find any material from Jensen offensive or disagreeable, then you are reading him from within the system, plain and simple. This book states truths, time and again. I promise to never forget.

Do yourself a favor and tackle this book, and tackle others like it. Stand with a firm foundation face to face with some of the best ammunition on paper one could ever equip themselves with.

[Cailin Deery · Rating 4 out of 5]

Generally, The Culture of Make Believe is a meticulously researched and compelling historical, cultural expose. It’s an overwhelming and heavy read, but I never felt bogged down. It unburies historical and recent atrocities, takes our structures of power to task, considers the economics at play behind so many actions of hatred, and explores the reasons that we have been blind to so many of these tragedies. It also patiently explains how we might change our way of thinking to not miss the warning signs again. For example, we often stereotype groups like the KKK as buffoons, but Jensen argues this is not only false, but dangerous. This stereotype then allows us to acknowledge the existence of racism, but pretend it’s the same as stupidity and unsophistication. If you look at how far spread the Klan was across the South, as well as its grassroots organization, it’s really clear that it was not a splinter group. Presidents, Supreme Court Justices, Senators, etc were all members of the Klan.

I might not have picked this up if I’d noticed it was filed as a philosophy book, but I’m so glad I got deep into it first. At times the more philosophical chapters were a little difficult for me to follow, but mostly for their language. For example, throwing a phrase like ‘the theory of rationalization’ makes my mind go blank, but Jensen practices this theory throughout without ever referring to Weber. The way he applies this approach is actually very easy to grasp. Jensen will take a real, historical scenario, then put you in the position of the victim (of the Bhopal Disaster; of a racially-motivated lynching; of the a massacre of a particular Native American tribe), or – more controversially – the perpetrator, and force you to understand the historical events from new angles, through a more specific and personal understanding. He then sometimes flips the event to try out a hypothetical scenario. The theory argues that sociology and history are interdependent, and the application takes history and sociology into inquiry with the aim of making sense of the complexity by breaking it down into parts. These parts then hopefully lead to theories of concrete phenomena (‘nomothetic’ or general laws, as opposed to complex laws of behavior that are influenced by actions or events). I could be totally off base here, but I have a few Sociology PhDs on my friends list here, so feel free to chime in and totally straighten me out.

Jensen explains that 'hatred in economics' is made possible using exploitation and conquest abroad, then repression at home. The reporting of these events is either obstructed, re-imagined or even rationalized with propaganda. The power of propaganda is that it leaves its assumptions unstated, then goes immediately to the argument itself until that argument seems rational. The hope is that we might question the internal logic of the stories we’re told before we buy into insane premises, conclusions or actions. I’m also conscious that all of this might sound a little over the top, but it’s because even these arguments have come to sound like rhetoric, right? That’s just the problem of the general over the particular. Once you have a view into the stories on a personal scale, it makes much more sense.

This book is also packed full of figures and facts which I just want to hold onto. So here’s a bit of my repository: DeBeers supplies nearly all diamonds to the US commercial market and also were behind the drafting of the rules of apartheid (explicitly to serve themselves and other mining companies); 1/3 of all young, black American males have been held at some point in the judicial system; 33% of the landmass of the US is held without treaty – therefore not ceded and held illegally; Colin Powell was found guilty of crimes against humanity by an international tribunal; the same PR firm, Burston-Marsteller, was behind Nigeria during the Biafran War, Romania during the rein of Nicolae Ceausescu, the 1970 Argentinian Military Junta, Babcock and Wilcox after 3 Mile Island, A.H. Robbins (during the Dalcon Shield/UD controversy), Exxon, Hydro-Quebec, and Union Carbide.

[Miriam · Rating 2 out of 5]

I held out a long time before I read any Derrick Jensen. In my mind Derrick Jensen was to primitivists what Crimethinc was to young train hopping punks. I heard dogmatic and judgmental opinions from people who repeatedly sited Derrick Jensen.
However, I decided to give "The Culture of Make Believe" a chance when my friend Juli, told me she was reading it and it actually contained highly researched and indepth analysis about the interconnectedness of oppressions.
"The Culture of Make Believe" is a book that I'd like to discuss eventually in some sort of reading group because it is so complex and emotionally charged and has so many ideas that I want to try to decipher possibilities of personal interpretations.
This is my first Derrick Jensen book, and now I think I'm going to try to read some of his other books. The thesis of this book is that slavery is the basis of civilization and industrialized society. He states that slavery is what seperates civilization from "primitive" or native societies which value lifestyles making minimal impact on the earth.
He expressed a non-heierachial view of value placed on living creatures, equally human life and red woods and seals and birds, etc as all being interconnected in an easily disrupted web of life.
Jensen explores ideas about western civilization and continuing to function in a deeply ingrained cultural denial, which is parallel to how an abusive family structure operates in that we don't acknowlege abuse, we don't see it and we don't talk about it so it doesn't exist.
He delves deeply into the history of genocide in the United States in which native people are slaughtered and a campaign to assimilate young native people by seperating them from their families and punishing them for expressing or practicing their native language and traditions.
He writes about the ways that power continue to be held and enfoced in this country through exploiting others. He writes about misogyny so deeply ingrained in our society that beating some one because of the color of their skin or because of their sexual orientation are considered "hate crimes" but rape is not considered a hate crime, and male rape victims are considered to be almost non-existance.
He writes about how the values of the KKK continue to be enforced by the right wing in the united states in a modified way, using different language. He writes about racism, and racist violence. He writes about how hate plays into power and control.
I'm almost done with this one, I'd love to talk about it with others who have read it. I'm curious how he ends it, if he can tie it all together.