RE: The Fundamental Question [was RE: The Chemistry of Farming - Book Review]

["Craven, Jim" <jcraven@xxxxxxxxx>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Paddy Apling [mailto:e.c.apling@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2001 2:02 PM
To: marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: The Fundamental Question [was RE: The Chemistry of Farming -
Book Review]


The REAL fundamental question for Marxism today - and inded for the whole of
humankind - is whether our priority is the welfare of MAN or WILDLIFE and
"the ENVIRONMENT".

Response (Jim C): In the Blackfoot language, and indeed in the languages of
most Indigenous nations, there is no word for "nature" that would lead to or
imply a duality or separateness of "human beings" from/and [surrounding]
"nature"; all life forms, including human beings, are part of and help to
form and integrated and interrelated totality--creation. Also, it is noted
in Indigenous thought/paradigms that all life forms rely on/utilize other
life forms for survival and therefore use in the present implies/demands
"wise use" (excuse the reference to the concept appropriated/co-opted by the
right-wing and racist anti-Indian/anti-Treaty "wise use" movement) in order
to preserve the totality and future parts of that totality necessary for
future survival.

Among Blackfoot, and indeed all Indigenous Peoples, prayers are said for
life forms sacrificed for the preservation and survival of others; this was
a popular/spiritual and metaphorical way of driving home the point of
necessity of conservation of/respect for all interdependent life forms of
the totality of creation.  This view is inherently anti-reductionistic and
instinctively anti-commodification and can lead to Marxists and Indigenous
Peoples on the same side of many of these so-called "environmental"
issues--that is, if some of the Marxists would get over their own forms of
RCP-like reductionism, arrogance and myopia that some of these supposed
eco-minded/petit-bourgeois/petit-terrorist types also manifest in their own
myopia.

I believe that some experimentation on animals is necessary to produce new
medicines to save lives; on the other hand, a whole lot of animal
experimentation is simply to add notches to the CVs of careerist academics
with very little prospect of yielding anything useful anyone or anything.
Again, a truly socialist perspective--and a truly socialist system--is what
is needed.

Jim C