Government & Politics
The word "politics" comes to us from the Greek "politikos," meaning "of a citizen." As such, politics is simply the affairs of the common man/ woman, the ways in which we determine the affairs of our kind. But at its root we discover "polis," the city. With this we're reminded how politics is first and foremost the province of the ruling cities, and with few exceptions does great harm to the disenfranchised: the conquered and exploited, the women and youth, the yeomen and farmers of the countryside...and the entire natural world existing just outside the town's limits and castle's walls.So the question of our time becomes: how do we manage our collective selves in ways that are personally empowering and Earth honoring? How do we enjoin the politics of interrelationship, without certifying historic systems known for destruction and lies? Certainly the option to participate is voluntary, and should be conditional as well. We should decide when to involve ourselves and when not to, weighing each situation, the possible effect we might have on a situation, and effect that this involvement will have on us.
Government is the institution of politics. To govern means not only to exercise political authority, but also "to direct and restrain; to control the actions or behavior of." We look to our political and judicial leaders to keep polluters from poisoning American estuaries or to punish the multinational logging companies driving hundreds of plant and animal species to extinction. Some of the most impressive environmental gains over the past few decades have been political, our victories mostly legislative or litigious.
But by appealing to the central authorities we validate the power of the same institutions that support profit-making logging companies driving one species after another into irretrievable extinction, that colonize the labor force of undeveloped third world countries, and codify the "right" to concrete over nearly every inch of living soil in the name of "progress." And every environmental judgment or legislation can be just as easily be reversed or repealed according to the whims of an ever expanding population. Increasingly, one of the fundamental choices for all political participants will be between setting aside space for the evolving natural world, and its appropriation for human habitation and use.
Kudos to every activist and group who have been able to turn the system against itself, Aikido fashion, and won for even a single generation or single decade a reprieve for the threatened forests and retreating wildlife. But any long term remedy--any lasting return to balance--will require more than the always temporary support of the judicial and political process.
The Problem With Systems, & The Appeal of Anarchy
There was an expression in the 1960s, that rather than opposing the dominant paradigm we had only to build healthy alternative infrastructures (communities, schools, food co-ops, spiritual traditions) and then watch Babylon crumble all around us. Only problem is, Babylon is flourishing, and may continue to do so long after the killing off of a large percentage of "higher" life forms, the draining of the last oil reserves, the soiling of the air and sea. Humanity will likely have the technological ingenuity and political will to out-survive almost everything except for microbes and cockroaches...at the expense of every other living thing.Fortunately, the alternative structures we built have survived as well, if only as the rekindled dreams and manifest expressions of an Earth loving, peace loving minority. And at the same time there continues to exist a counter current of thoughtful outcasts, serving as a kind of antidote to the system's suffocating order...calling themselves anarchists, calling themselves free.
In its extreme, anarchy makes for an indulgent personal credo, and a dysfunctional and uncooperative society. But it's no wonder that kids find the anarchic emphasis on individual expression, motivation, and responsibility preferable to the systemologies that have so long governed our kind. When one is in touch with their personal needs, or connected to the needs and will of the living Earth, they can no longer condone the monotony of colorless communism, the hierarchical absolutism of even the most noble kingdoms, or even that consumerist dictatorship of the masses we call "democracy." All better organized systems known to "man" commodify, trivialize, or totally eliminate individual liberty. They demonstrate the kind of artless rigidity that turns outlaws into mythical heroes, civil disobedience into a rite of passage, and nonconformity into a meaningful life quest. They insult our true human nature, at the same time as they manage and implement the destruction of the natural world.
It seems that no governing system has ever been immune. Even tribalism has a history of formalizing some less than spirit-honoring practices, from the sanctioned wife beating of certain Native American societies, to the institutionalized human sacrifices of my own tribalized Celtic ancestors. Tribal unity and survival are dependent on change-resistant traditions. These traditions are unwritten laws, alternately supported and believed in, resented and subverted, or blindly obeyed. And like all practice and law throughout our history, some have contributed to the health and diversity of natural ecosystems, while others have led to their destruction. In every tribe, as in every political system, it is the outcasts that seem fated to recognize the harm in tradition and law, the Bards who must then communicate it, and the outlaws who must resist it.
A Third Way
It's crucial that we continue to imagine and work towards a more organic system of human interaction: one that exceeds the most positive examples of our primal forebears, while reviving those spiritual sensibilities once common to us all.There is what I call the Third Way, a model neither anarchic nor hierarchic: the lowly clan. It's likely untenable for the majority of our burgeoning kind, especially in the face of technologically advanced world governments. And yet for some of us, the clan is also our best chance to survive the pressures of those very same societies. And our best opportunity to recover the most meaningful aspects of human purpose and human relationship.
A clan is first of all smaller than other societies, with people naturally breaking off and going their own way when the group starts to get much over thirty members. Rather than having a formal system for selecting leaders and decision-makers, each decision falls naturally on whoever is most obviously informed or gifted in each different circumstance. Often this will be an elder or crone, but on occasion it may be a child instead, who's shown the understanding necessary in the particular area of consideration. But in every case, it falls on the shoulders of the one most able and willing to give and to serve, motivated by love, empowered by their connection to the All.
Nobody is disadvantaged or suppressed, when the group is so small that everyone can agree! In a healthy world (a world of vast wilderness), to disagree or diverge one has only to leave, crossing over the mountains to join another clan, or to start one's own. Thus a clan was always held together not only by need and necessity, but by true affection and demonstrable loyalty. To this day, the voluntary members of any clan share not only common beliefs, but an overriding allegiance to their mutual good. They haven't had to learn to be a "more tolerant" society, because they care about each other.
For twenty-one years I've been assigned the job of tending to the needs of a particular piece of inspirited land. Ownership of the property has proved to be a useful tool, but its ultimate engagement and guardianship has been more the result of the devotion of clan.
From the time I got here I sensed the clanhood of the Mogollon pit-house dwellers that took care of this river canyon thousands of years before us, and how we can best further this legacy of protection and sacrament with our own focused grouping. Folks that came and left each contributed in some way to the preservation of place. And those that have stayed contribute to the strength of our efforts, and the promise of a lineage: Wonder-filled Loba, singing prayers to the sacred cliffs, stroking the grass, kissing every rock and skull. The man Scot, faithful apprentice open to all there is to learn, gladly shouldering the Kokopellic burdens, giving his all in the most heroic and artful ways...and in time, whatever woman who comes to live with him. Plus our nonresident extensions, like the woman Lee Sonne, aiding this place and project while remaking her life in the image of her dreams. John Drake, the guardian angel. Glenn, giving every spare minute to helping get the word out to a humanity in need. We are united by the commitment to give everything we can, and to pay any price, for that which matters most.
In such a clan, common priorities and aims substitute for governance, and the mechanics of control are replaced by the politics of devotion and love.
Jesse Wolf Hardin is an author and spiritual teacher living in one of the most enchanted river canyons in the wildlands of New Mexico. To host a presentation by Wolf, or for information on his books, retreats, internships, and counsel, contact: The Earthen Spirituality Project, Box 516, Reserve, NM 87830, www.concentric.net/~earthway
©2000* Talking Leaves
Summer/Fall 2000
Volume 10, Number 2
Politics, Change, and Ecology