A voice in the wilderness - writer Gary Snyder

Progressive, The, Nov, 1995 by Bob Blanchard

In every country he's visited, Snyder has talked to people who are very much aware that the emerging "global environmental crisis is real and ongoing. But I can understand why other people can't see the problems. Understanding the biological condition of the planet isn't necessarily easy. The truth is we don't know at what speed the Earth's ecological infrastructure is unraveling," says Snyder. "But we do know that it is not doing well; it's coming apart. Michael McClure once said, 'The planet is burning or exploding but at a very, very slow speed so you'd have to be in outer space with a speed-up movie of it to see what's actually happening. If you could speed it up, you'd see forests crumbling, species disappearing, water being fouled, air being fouled - you'd see it.'"

But the human time-scale is short. "That's why some people don't understand the environmental crisis taking place," says Snyder. "And, unfortunately, we do our politics in two-year, four-year cycles, that's nothing. Clearly, it's in humanity's long-range self-interest to solve our very serious ecological problems, but trusting government to lead us is highly problematic."

Snyder believes that Western civilization is living in delusion. The idea that humanity is building a sustainable future for coming generations patently conflicts with our culture's behavior as we drain the natural world of raw materials to fuel the engines of capitalist development. Twenty years ago in Turtle Island, Snyder described this shared delusion in a sentence that still resonates today: "Mankind has become a locust-like blight on the planet that will leave a bare cupboard for its own children - all the while in a kind of addict's dream of affluence, comfort, eternal progress."

The hubris that tempts us to try to dominate nature - rather than live in harmony with nature - blinds us to the consequences of our actions. According to Snyder, we are at the beginning of a critical era; our challenge for the near future is that "we have to deal with what becomes of an unchecked capitalist mentality. With the failure of state socialism, there is no credible political or ethical argument to check unrestrained capitalist enterprise."

In this vacuum, fundamentalism has reasserted itself, he says. "We should understand the resurgence of fundamentalist Islam or Christianity as a kind of cultural ghost dance; for some people it seems that making their religion their fortress is the only way to protect their traditions, themselves, and their children from the burning fires of a morally lawless world. The materialism, greed, and over-hyped sexuality they fear is but a small corner of the fabric of international corporate capitalism, an institution which proceeds purely by profit and loss, and is dependent on continuous growth. We need a critique of the world's economic direction that is larger-spirited and better informed than mere fundamentalism."

To Snyder, our culture must change or we will self-destruct. But there is reason for genuine hope. "The green movement, which is truly an amazing worldwide grassroots phenomenon, calls for modern economies to learn environmental self-restraint and social compassion - I mean, without a little cool, a little detachment, an ear for the beat, you got no class."