{"id":55295,"date":"2020-10-14T06:20:52","date_gmt":"2020-10-14T11:20:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=55295"},"modified":"2020-10-14T06:20:52","modified_gmt":"2020-10-14T11:20:52","slug":"who-is-we","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=55295","title":{"rendered":"Who is \u201cwe\u201d?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Who is \u201cwe\u201d?<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Ed. note: Robert Jensen, \u201cWho is we?<\/a>\u201d\u00a0The Ecological Citizen, 4:1 (2020): 57-61. (The version below is slightly revised for a forthcoming book,\u00a0The Perennial Turn, edited by Bill Vitek.)<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Who is \u201cwe\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We<\/em>\u00a0humans have made a mess of things, which is readily evident if\u00a0we<\/em>\u00a0face the avalanche of studies and statistics describing the contemporary ecological crises\u00a0we<\/em>\u00a0face. But even with the mounting evidence of the consequences for people and planet,\u00a0we<\/em>\u00a0have not committed to a serious project to slow the damage that\u00a0we<\/em>\u00a0do.<\/p>\n

One reasonable response to those statements is, \u201cWho is \u2018we\u2019?\u201d That is, exactly who has made a mess of things and who has failed to take action? Who\u2019s to blame for the problems and who\u2019s responsible for the costs? Put more bluntly, borrowing from the often-quoted exchange between the Lone Ranger and Tonto, \u201cWhat do you mean,\u00a0we<\/em>, white man?\u201d<\/p>\n

The global North\u2014which is to say, fossil-fuel powered capitalism as it developed in Europe\u2014bears primary responsibility for the contemporary crises, and those societies have failed to meet their obligations, or in some cases to even acknowledge obligations, to change course. And within those societies, it is the wealthy and powerful who bear the greatest responsibility for destructive policies.<\/p>\n

Today, \u201cwe\u201d is not everyone, equally culpable. But if there is to be a decent human future\u2014indeed, if there is to be any human future\u2014we have to realize that human-carbon nature is at the core of the problem, a reality that exempts no one.<\/p>\n

Because this sounds harsh in a world with so much human suffering, so unequally distributed, let me be clear: My argument does not minimize or trivialize that suffering, or ignore the profound moral and political failures that exacerbate it.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/article>\n

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Who is \u201cwe\u201d? Ed. note: Robert Jensen, \u201cWho is we?\u201d\u00a0The Ecological Citizen, 4:1 (2020): 57-61. (The version below is slightly revised for a forthcoming book,\u00a0The Perennial Turn, edited by Bill Vitek.) \u00a0Who is \u201cwe\u201d? We\u00a0humans have made a mess of things, which is readily evident if\u00a0we\u00a0face the avalanche of studies and statistics describing the contemporary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,4],"tags":[22732,30415,6665,9701,769,30416],"class_list":["post-55295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy-2","category-environment","tag-ecological-crises","tag-global-north","tag-resilience-org","tag-robert-jensen","tag-sustainability","tag-we"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55295"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55296,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55295\/revisions\/55296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}