So much of our global culture is based on a radical denial of place.
–––
“This is a crisis that is, by its nature, slow moving and intensely place based. In its early stages, and in between the wrenching disasters, climate change is about an early blooming of a particular flower, an unusually thin layer of ice on a lake, the late arrival of a migratory bird—noticing these small changes requires the kind of communion that comes from knowing a place deeply . . . .”—Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate (2014)
Place matters. Now more than ever. We live in a globalized world where every thing and every one and every place is supposedly expendable, unimportant, and interchangeable. The company your dad works for moves the factory to China to save a few bucks and kills a small town in Idaho. The New York movie you’re watching was shot in Toronto, and the DC show you watched last night was shot in Montreal. The malls in Missouri look just like the malls in Ontario. And—though you’ll never admit it—you went to McDonald’s when you were in Italy because—goddammit!—you know what you’re gonna get!
Place matters. Now more than ever. We live in a globalized world where every thing and every one and every place is supposedly expendable, unimportant, and interchangeable.
|
So much of our global culture—the very same way of life that’s systematically destroying the living systems upon which we depend—is based upon a radical denial of place. As such, one small way to struggle against this global culture is to stubbornly insist upon the placeness of place. It may seem odd at first, but it’s really no different than saying “I don’t love humanity in general, I love you. And I don’t love cities in general or rivers in general or mountains in general. I love my city, my river, and my mountain.”
The “lady’s man” or “player” who says he loves “women,” probably doesn’t love any one “woman” well. Likewise, the man who says he loves “Nature” or “the environment,” but doesn’t seem to know the first thing about the flora and fauna around him, probably doesn’t love life the way Thoreau loved it. Truth be told, the guy who loves “Nature” in the abstract is, in this day and age, a big part of the problem.
—John Faithful Hamer, From Here (2015)
–––
Photo: John Faithful Hamer