Slavery was a central concern of governance form the time of the first nation-state. The Code of Hammurabi, … - Derrick Jensen

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It's America's classical music. . . this becomes our tradition. . . the bottom line of any country in the world is what did we contribute to the world?. . . we contributed Louis Armstrong

Derrick Jensen

Slavery was a central concern of governance form the time of the first nation-state. The Code of Hammurabi, the earliest know set of laws for governing an empire, prescribed death for anyone who harbored a fugitive or otherwise helped a slave to escape. The relationship between the law and bondage goes back even farther: Indeed, the oldest extant legal documents don't concern the sale of land, houses, or even animals, but slaves.

Animal, Farther, Governance, Land, Law, Oldest

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Civilization is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted yet often unarticulated hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized. Violence done by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher is unthinkable, and when it does occur is regarded with shock, horror, and the fetishization of the victims.

Civilization, Doe, Done, Fetishization, Unnoticed

We must learn how to think like the planet.

Learn, Like, Planet, Planets, Think, Thinking

It's no wonder we don't defend the land where we live. We don't live here. We live in television programs and movies and books and with celebrities and in heaven and by rules and laws and abstractions created by people far away and we live anywhere and everywhere except in our particular bodies on this particular land at this particular moment in these particular circumstances.

Book, Except, Land, Law, Laws

Question four: What book would you give to every child? Answer: I wouldn't give them a book. Books are part of the problem: this strange belief that a tree has nothing to say until it is murdered, its flesh pulped, and then (human) people stain this flesh with words. I would take children outside and put them face to face with chipmunks, dragonflies, tadpoles, hummingbirds, stones, rivers, trees, crawdads. That said, if you're going to force me to give them a book, it would be The Wind In The Willows, which I hope would remind them to go outside.

Book, Children, Four, Rivers, Stones, Willows

To be clear, civilization is not the same as society. Civilization is a specific, hierarchical organization based on 'power over. ' Dismantling civilization, taking down that power structure, does not mean the end of all social order. It should ultimately mean more justice, more local control, more democracy, and more human rights, not less.

Based, Justice, Mean, Order, Rights