A Language Older Than Words

published	2004 by Chelsea Green Publishing Company
binding	Paperback
isbn	1931498555 (isbn13: 9781931498555)
pages	412
description	At once a beautifully poetic memoir and an exploration of the various ways we live in the world, A Language Older Than Words explains violence ...more [close] At once a beautifully poetic memoir and an exploration of the various ways we live in the world, A Language Older Than Words explains violence as a pathology that touches every aspect of our lives and indeed affects all aspects of life on Earth. This chronicle of a young man's drive to transcend domestic abuse offers a challenging look at our worldwide sense of community and how we can make things better. [close]
date added	02-03-07 edit book

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Keith rated it:

03/17/08

Read in March, 2008

recommended to Keith by: Sarah Kate
recommends it for: those who want to change the world

What to say?
If you've read Daniel Quinn's Ishmael, or just been paying attention to what's been going on in the world for... well, your whole life, you know things are pretty screwed and human activities are pretty well the thing screwing them up... mass extinction, climate change, pollution of... everything, violence between nations and within families... and the list goes on and goes deeper. This 400 or so page book could have been filled with a bullit-pointed list of all the atrocit...more What to say?
If you've read Daniel Quinn's Ishmael, or just been paying attention to what's been going on in the world for... well, your whole life, you know things are pretty screwed and human activities are pretty well the thing screwing them up... mass extinction, climate change, pollution of... everything, violence between nations and within families... and the list goes on and goes deeper. This 400 or so page book could have been filled with a bullit-pointed list of all the atrocities of human-(un)kind with a sequel ready to hit the presses the next day. It is chock full of distressing stories and statistics, but Jensen's focus is more on the psychology behind such events, and the cultural values that make them, not mearly acceptable, but a normal part of "the price of doing business".

Jensen takes as his starting point abuse he himself suffered in his own family, which point he returns to often (perhaps a little too often, as it can seem as though the reader is being beaten over the head (no pun, in however poor a taste, intended) with those facts, maybe in a play for sympathy or a statement of the author's credentials in describing horror). This starting point quickly expands, however, to connect all the violence and destruction that's all too easy to see if we choose to look, bringing it all under the gaze of Jensen's stream-of-consciousness (conscience) narrative. While he jumps from point to point, and back to previous points again to expand and re-think and question himself, Jensen's almost-at-the-brink-of-incohesion book manages to hold together quite well actually. The confusion, the turmoil, the self-questioning, is something we all have to face when examining our place in this strange world... the recurring questions haunt us: "do I write today, or do I blow up a dam?"; "do I have any right to be upset at Shell Oil and ADM and the Forest Service et al. when I myself drive a car and may not remember to turn off lights when I leave the house, and so on?"; "what can I really do that will actually make a difference?" Jensen doesn't really offer up answers... any answer he could offer would probably be too pat, too idealistic. What he offers is a suggestion: listen. Through personal anectdotes, and others, gathered from around the world, and even a bit of scientific data, Jensen declares that the whole world is speaking to us, if we just open our ears, eyes, minds, to the "language older than words" of the title. The idea of talking to coyotes and ducks, to say nothing of trees and bees and rocks and stars, is pretty thoroughly poo-pooed by the conventional wisdom, but Jensen makes a valid case that the conventional wisdom, what with its penchant for driving people out of their homes to make way for big business an so on, is not really a great role model... so... go take a walk, take a look around, see what the world is saying.

I don't know that this book will convince anyone who's mind is not already chugging along these, or adjacent pathways. I wonder if Ishmael or any other book can truly change a mind that's seeminly locked in to an essentially opposing value system. It would be nice to think so... if only more people read books... maybe we could make a movie... or a cell-phone ring tone containing the essence of the point "either we change our ways now or we're all dead, and we won't be alone". Everyone hears cell phones ring, whether they want to or not. Anyway, it's a good songbook for the choir at least, though I can wish that it was perhaps written in collaboration with someone like Michael Pollan, whose beauty and lucidity of prose and sense of structure is fully equal to his dedication and grasp of the ideas presented....less

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Anne rated it:

05/30/08

bookshelves: non-fiction

Read in April, 2008

recommended to Anne by: Cai
recommends it for: environmentalists

This is one of the few books I have consciously decided not to finish in recent years. I agree wholeheartedly with Jensen's basic premise-- that we are rendering the world uninhabitable and committing atrocities against its human and nonhuman residents, and that our ability to do this depends on our denial of reality and our disconnecting from the people around us. I cannot, however, support the belief structure he builds up around this premise. Jensen equates studying science with raping chi...more This is one of the few books I have consciously decided not to finish in recent years. I agree wholeheartedly with Jensen's basic premise-- that we are rendering the world uninhabitable and committing atrocities against its human and nonhuman residents, and that our ability to do this depends on our denial of reality and our disconnecting from the people around us. I cannot, however, support the belief structure he builds up around this premise. Jensen equates studying science with raping children, and treats public schools as analogous with genocide. He condemns all modern western social structures and sources of knowledge, and offers only eco-terrorism and unverified personal gnosis as alternatives. I was reading this book hoping for solutions I could apply in my own life, and I found only contempt for my not having found them already.

In my opinion, A Language Older that Words leaves the most important questions unanswered. If medical animal research can never be justified, should all the advances of modern medicine be reversed? If factory faming is never acceptable, must every person (including the entire continent of Africa and most of Asia) who does not have access to sustainable farmed staple foods starve? Does Jensen actually believe that every human whose children, pets, or livestock have been killed by a wild animal simply failed to communicate with the predator?

And if he believes that we participate in structures of oppression by participating in society, just how far has he dropped out? He owns a car-- how does he justify driving it? Does he wear clothing whose fibers were cultivated on industrial farmland or synthesized in a third world factory, whose threads were spun by children in China and whose pieces were assembled in a sweatshop? Or does he go naked? Does he use only products (silverware, cleaning products, furniture?) whose origins are ethical and verifiable? He turns such a condemning eye to everything he sees in our society, and yet never presents a viable alternative, or turns his scathing contempt on himself. Jensen's own fatalism, hatred and hypocrisy are as sickening to me as is the abuse he experienced as a child. Two wrongs don't make a right-- hatred and rage in the name of the environment is no less damaging than hatred and rage in the name of the ego.

In the end, one absolutist ideology is much like another. Jensen is an environmental fundamentalist-- he believes that there is no room for compromise or even discussion with conflicting viewpoints. As such, I see no reason to continue reading his opinions; he would have no interest in mine.

I give this book two stars because I think it has something to teach. I'll leave it at my local coffeehouse because I hope its ideas may be valuable to some people who can use them constructively. I, alas, wasn't able to find anything constructive here....less

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