My men troubles.

I have been reading the first volume of Endgame: The Problem of Civilization, by Derrick Jensen, and I keep finding myself wanting to quote it at length to people. I think that is a sign I really like the book. In this book as well as in others, Jensen makes comparisons between our abusive culture and abusive personal relationships. It is funny how pieces of wisdom or clarity will sometimes present themselves to people at the most opportune times, when we are most able to hear them. At least this is how I feel about a passage from the "Love Does Not Imply Pacifism" chapter.

Jensen quotes R. D. Laing:

"If Jack succeeds in forgetting something [such as the fact that we have the responsibility - the obligation - to stop the horrors of civilization, and the ability to do so, if we choose to], this is of little use if Jill continues to remind him of it. He must induce her not to do so. The safest way would be not just to make her keep quiet about it, but to induce her to forget it also.

"Jack may act upon Jill in many ways. He may make her feel guilty for keeping on 'bringing it up.' He may invalidate her experience. This can be done more or less radically. He can indicate merely that it is unimportant or trivial, whereas it is important and significant to her. Going further, he can shift the modality of her experience from memory to imagination: 'It's all in your imagination.' Further still, he can invalidate the content: 'It never happened that way.' Finally, he can invalidate not only the significance, modality, and content, but her very capacity to remember at all, and make her feel guilty for doing so in the bargain.

"This is not unusual. People are doing such things to each other all the time. In order for such transpersonal invalidation to work, however, it is advisable to overlay it with a thick patina of mystification. For instance, by denying that this is what one is doing, and further invalidating any perception that it is being done by ascriptions of 'How can you think such a thing?' 'You must be paranoid.' And so on"

For me, this brings up memories of feeling very confused in my romantic relationships. It also reminds me of statements men have said to me such as "You must be really insecure," and "That never happened," or "I never said that." I've often felt like I've been in relationships where one of us must be insane simply because our stated realities were so different. I could not understand how someone could either lie that blatantly or perceive the world that differently.

Jensen goes on to write about how some people perceive the desire to stop offenses or cruelties (such as the poisoning of our planet) as a manifestation of a need for control:

I used to have this fear, too, that to affect another's behavior - even when that other is hurting me directly - is to be 'controlling.' But to believe this is to internalize the rhetoric and worldview of the abuser.

Years ago, if you recall, I was in a couple of emotionally abusive relationships, where the women would call me names, harangue me for days, and so on. When I'd ask them to stop they'd say I was trying to censor or control them.

Finally, a friend asked me, "What will it take for you to say 'Fuck you' to this woman and walk away?"

"I can't do that."

"Why not?"

"That would be rude."

"She's not being rude to you?"

"I don't want to put myself on the same level. I don't want to cross some sort of middle line between us. I can talk about things on my half..."

"Ah, you've been to counseling! You can say, 'When you call me names, it makes me feel bad,' but you can't say, 'Cut this shit out!' then hang up the phone..."

"Hanging up on someone is unacceptable."

"So it's okay for her to perpetrate unacceptable behavior on you, but you aren't allowed to call her on it, nor even to absent yourself? That's crazy."

I opened my mouth to say something, then shut it, then opened it again, then clamped it shut.

That very night the woman called and began haranguing me. I said "Fuck you!" and hung up the phone. (Unfortunately, and this reveals how stupid denial makes us, it took me quite a while longer to figure out that after hanging up on her I didn't have to answer when she called back! It didn't take much longer than that, though, for me to realize that not only did I not need to answer the phone, I could simply not allow anyone to harangue me. If the do, I kick them out of my life. What a concept!)

When reading these passages, as well as many others in this book, I felt like Jensen was writing directly to me. Or maybe even about me. Is this really a common experience as Laing suggests? Often times in relationships when I would experience this I felt like I was just not expressing myself well enough, that if I could better explain how some action made me feel then the person could acknowledge it and make amends, or, I would hope, that they would stop doing what was making me feel bad. I didn't understand why that never worked. Actually removing myself from the situation or relationship (most times) never occurred to me.

This also causes me to look at the relationship people have with civilization and how it is tied to our personal relationships. Maybe this type of dysfunction and unhappiness in personal relationships is so common because we have never addressed our overbearing relationship with our civilization. I think a critical awareness of these experiences and relationships can help me to not get stuck in the familiar routine of confusion and unhappiness.