Excerpt from What We Leave Behind

Are You a Magical Thinker? (p. 224)

From chapter "Magical Thinking"

Are you a magical thinker? I know that too often I am.
With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy, let’s play a little game.
If you put a bumper sticker on your hybrid Prius that reads Visualize

World Peace in the hope this will bring about world peace, you might just be a magical thinker.

If you buy a hybrid Prius in the hope this will slow global warming, you might just be a magical thinker.

If you think you personally not owning a car will significantly slow global warming, you might just be a magical thinker.

If you think buying compact fluorescent light bulbs will slow global warming, you might just be a magical thinker.

If you vote in the hope this will change anything—never forget Emma Goldman’s line: “If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal”—you might just be a magical thinker.

If you think the government has your best interests at heart, you might just be delusional—or maybe you’re just incredibly stupid, incredibly rich, or both—and if you act upon this belief you might just be a magical thinker.

If you think those in power care about you or what you think, you might just be delusional (or stupid, or rich), and if you act upon this belief, you might just be a magical thinker.

If you think sending money to the Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, Audubon, World Wildlife Fund, the Environmental Defense Fund, or other big environmental corporations will significantly help the natural world, you might just be a magical thinker.

If you think Weyerhaeuser will stop deforesting because you ask nicely, you might just be a magical thinker.

If you think Monsanto will stop Monsantoing because you hold signs or sign petitions, you might just be a magical thinker.

If you think this culture will stop killing the planet without being forcefully stopped, you might just be delusional, and if you don’t act to stop this culture, then you will be failing in your responsibility as a living being. Although working within the system is extremely important—we need to do whatever we can to protect life on this planet—if you believe that working within the system is sufficient to stop this omnicidal culture from killing the planet, you might just be a magical thinker.

If you think recycling will stop this culture from killing the planet, you might just be a magical thinker.

If you think hanging banners (or writing books) will stop this culture from killing the planet, you might just be a magical thinker.

If you think giving land to state or federal governments will lead to that land’s protection, you might just be a magical thinker.

If you think giving land to the Nature Conservancy or many other land trusts will lead to that land’s protection, you might just be a magical thinker.

If you think convincing Congress to designate an area as wilderness will protect that area from oil and gas extraction, you might just be a magical thinker.

If you think pointing out to “developers” and to government representatives (who are, as you know, in actuality representing the “developers”) that a piece of land is especially sacred to American Indians will stop the land from being “developed” (in other words, killed), you might just be a magical thinker.

If you think buying fair-trade products will save the earth, or will save indigenous humans (or nonhumans), you might just be a magical thinker.

If you think scads of cash and a nice house will protect you from the current collapse we are only now beginning to perceive, and that only dimly, you might just be a magical thinker.

If you think numbing yourself through alcohol, drugs, television, sex, socializing, computer games, sports fanaticism, political fanaticism, or other means will protect you from the current collapse, you might just be a magical thinker.

If you think those in power will scruple at torturing and/or killing anyone who significantly opposes them—and many others as well—you might just be delusional, and if you think your acquiescence to their plans will protect you, you might just be a magical thinker.

If you think not talking about the horrors of this culture will somehow protect you and your loved ones from these horrors, you might just be a magical thinker (How many of those you love have already died of cancer?).

If you think taking some sort of “enlightened” stance on the murder of the planet, where damage to the earth is not really damage because, for example, heaven is God’s throne and the earth is merely his footstool (which I guess, now that I think about it, means that the earth is where God rests his feet, and heaven is where he rests his, well, we need take that Christian image no further), or because the earth is a place of suffering and Nirvana is where the real action takes place (or doesn’t, depending on your definition of Nirvana), or because the sun will someday eat up the earth, or because the “planet turns itself over and some biota is lost but new life begins/grows/reconstitutes itself,” or because the Earth is too powerful to be destroyed, and so on, will somehow protect you from the current collapse, you might just be a magical thinker.

If you don’t care about the collapse or otherwise don’t fight to protect the planet from this culture’s rapacity because you’re benefiting from the economic and social system that is killing the planet, you are beneath contempt.

If you don’t care about the collapse or otherwise don’t fight to protect the planet from this culture’s rapacity because you’re benefiting from the economic and social system that is killing the planet, the world would be better off had you never been born, or having been born, if you were now to die. This is not a threat, but a simple statement of fact, a syllogism so obvious it’s almost tautological.

If you think using so-called alternative energies will stop this culture from killing the planet, you might just be a magical thinker.

If you think the proper course of action through the collapse is merely to protect yourself and your own human family, then you leave me shaking my head at your self-centeredness and lack of gratitude toward this planet that (or rather, who) gave and continues to give you and your family life.

If you think not acknowledging that war is being—and has long-since been—waged against the natural world will stop this culture from waging that war—“Oh, you shouldn’t use that language because it’s too violent and divisive”—then you might just be a magical thinker.

If you think you can fight evil with good thoughts (or, as Peace Pilgrim put it, “When there is no attack but instead good influences are brought to bear upon the situation, not only does the evil tend to fade away, but the evil-doer tends to be transformed”), you are most definitely delusional and a magical thinker. Worse, you are acting in direct support of the evil-doer— acting as an ally to the evil-doer—because you are telling the evil-doer’s victims to do precisely what the evil-doer wants them to do: not resist, and to provide “good influences” to the evil-doer. That would have worked great with Hitler, would it not? And Ted Bundy? Forget imprisoning or killing him, just bring your good influence to him—love him enough—and he will be transformed! Hallelujah! Now, back to reality. This whole line of thinking that Peace Pilgrim was promoting is insupportable, codependent, emotionally unhealthy, ridiculous, and just plain inaccurate. It is typical of the absurd, inaccurate clichés so often thrown out by pacifists (and which should then be thrown out by the rest of us). It is, frankly, the worst advice one can give to one who is threatened by an evil-doer. It is a recipe for further victimization. It is precisely the advice that any abuser, any narcissist, any sociopath, would want potential victims to follow.

If you think you need not stop abusers or exploiters because “karma will get them in the end,” then you might just be a magical thinker.

If you think visualizing salmon rushing up a stream—while assiduously avoiding blowing the f*** out of dams, halting industrial logging, halting industrial fishing, halting industrial agriculture, halting the murder of the oceans, halting global warming, and so on—will save salmon, you might just be a magical thinker.

If you think global warming, which is caused by the actions of the industrial economy, can be halted without halting the industrial economy, you might just be a magical thinker, and it’s possible you‘re either a member of the eco-intelligentsia or a policy-maker.

If you think global warming, which is caused by burning oil and gas, can be halted without halting the burning of oil and gas, you might just be a magical thinker.

If you think participating in carbon offset schemes, using “clean coal^TM” technologies, acting on “free-market environmentalism^TM,” “natural capitalism^TM,” or whatever other scams are put forward to give us the illusion of making change while perpetuating the same mindset and same system that are killing the planet, will somehow stop this culture from killing the planet, you might just be a magical thinker, and, as above, might even be a member of the eco-intelligentsia or a policy-maker.

If you think the hundredth monkey story—where, once a certain numerical threshold of people have heard of some idea or learned some new ability, that idea or ability suddenly and magically spreads to the entire population—is anything other than new age bulls***, designed, once again (as so much in this culture is), to give us the illusion of making change while giving us an excuse not to make change, not to act decisively to protect the earth, will somehow stop this culture from killing the planet, you might just be a magical thinker.