My 2.8 Slaves
by Giulianna LamannaQ: What’s the difference between a government official and a convicted killer?
A: A conviction.
The night was cold, but the fire was hot. I pressed my filthy sandals against the edge of the fire pit, absorbing as much heat as I could and keeping it inside me with my zippered hoodie. Ben gave me a notebook and pen, and Jim brought me a ladder and a bright lantern, and I played secretary as everybody talked. I forget exactly what questions everyone was supposed to answer. I remember, “What can’t you not do?” The general gist of it built up to what everyone wanted from a tribe and what everyone had to offer one.
As I scribbled, (Ben, I hope you can read it well enough to transcribe it!) I thought about my answers to the questions. Like I said, I don’t remember them now. I know that I can’t not see stories everywhere. This is most likely a product of living through books rather than living through, well, life. Everything is foreshadowing or climax. Everything has a purpose; nothing is random. Not if it’s written by a good author, anyway. Maybe that’s what’s behind these so-called “rules of writing.” In the end, even the most brilliant literature is escapism, and nobody wants anything to be random or without meaning. Come to think of it, if I see the world as meaningful out of fear, how am I any different from the Christian fundamentalists that I’m writing about in my book? (And we come full circle…)
So anyway. I can’t not see stories. I can’t not tell stories, either. And at the same time I can’t tell stories, period, unless I type them up while bathed in the safe glow of my computer screen, then ship them away to be read by people I’ve never met and probably will never see. I imagined myself in a primitive tribal society without this paper and these bindings and this mass-communication system. I couldn’t imagine telling my stories orally, seeing as how I can’t even speak spontaneously in general (as many of you can attest to).
This, along with Tamarack Song’s article, kind of makes me wonder exactly what good I am in the kind of primitive society that I want.
I just got back from seeing Lord of War, which may explain my bitter, snide tone. In case you don’t like this post, blame it on Nicolas Cage. Anyway, it’s a very good movie. A nice complement to The Constant Gardener, which I also saw a while ago. They’re both really really good, really really soul-crushing movies. Both of them cast some much-needed light on some horrible problems that, as much as many people would like to deny it, are systemic to civilization itself. Both of them avoid “bad guys” and “good guys,” preferring to portray a more realistic - and complex - vision of a truly corrupted system. It’s still not as “big picture” as what we’re saying, but it’s a nice step forward. And anyway, it’s a reminder that everything in this culture is pretty much soaked in blood.
I left the theater desperate to run off into the woods, just so I wouldn’t have to live with the guilt anymore; just so I wouldn’t have to support such a murderous, barbaric system. To simply pay your taxes is to fund genocide. To simply buy food is to cause ecocide.
Recently, I took one of those online ecological footprint tests. I did much better than most Americans… the average American score is 24; I got a 12. But that still means that if everyone lived like me, we’d need 2.8 planet Earths. I don’t think many people know what that means, when someone tells them that if everyone lived like they did, we’d need two or three or four or eleven Earths. We don’t have 2.8 Earths. We only have one. Which means that, in order for me to enjoy my Western luxuries, I have roughly 2.8 slaves. (The third is a part-time slave to someone else, possibly to another American who owns even more slaves than I do.) I don’t know who they are. They live in Africa or South America or East Asia or someplace. They live like there’s barely any Earth at all so I can live like a queen, with my computer and television set and CD player.
Who are they? What are their names? How would they spend their lives if the’d been born with all the wealth and opportunity I’d been born with? Would they be anarcho-primitivists too? Would they be like the people I routinely argue with, who hold up the products of their wealth - the things they can have because so many more people have nothing - as evidence that this culture is worth keeping?
Man. Wouldn’t that be ironic?
My turn came at the very end (thank God). By this point, I was bursting with things I wanted to say. Everyone stared at me and I clammed up, as I always do. Finally, Tony managed to squeeze something out of me until I was (shakily) talking about stewardship and living in the hands of the gods. Then the conversation flew away from me and everybody left me alone. I was relieved, but also kind of sad. I still had a lot to say that I couldn’t say. So I’ll say it here, or at least as much of it as I can remember, from the safe glow of my computer screen.
Everybody loves these gatherings - IshCon and Anthropikon - and talks about how free they feel, how they can abandon their civilized fears and get a little taste of what it might be like to have an actual tribe. I’m pretty sure I don’t get as much out of them as most of you do. Throughout each weekend, I’m still shackled by my fears and insecurities. They lighten up a bit, towards the end, but ultimately they remain there. Which makes me even more fearful and insecure, because it means I’ve internalized so much of civilization that I can barely even enjoy what I intellectually know I should enjoy. It’s almost worse, because at least in civilization, I’m not the only one with a stick lodged up my ass. But at these gatherings, everyone’s so free and exhuberant and I’m left standing there, still frightened and alone. So that’s one thing I want from a tribe: to be truly, genuinely able to be myself and not be scared. To be able to really communicate with others.
The other thing I want is actually something I don’t want. I don’t want any more guilt. I don’t want to be part of this culture. I don’t want to be enveloped in its evil. I don’t want my slaves. If they can’t be freed, then at least they won’t be working for me anymore. I guess maybe that’s the best I can do.
Q: What’s the difference between the average American and a convicted killer?
Hey –
If it helps any…. I was you, only worse, when I was your age… even now I still find it very hard. Why do y’all think I stick to ‘the facts’ so much
But it really does keep getting just a tiny bit easier.
Janene
Comment by Janene — 24 September 2005 @ 1:59 PM
A: A conviction.
Comment by Brendan Hyde — 25 September 2005 @ 11:02 AM
Don’t be too hard on yourself, Giuli - the things available at these gatherings are all new and wild, open and honest - for discovery, learning, experimentation and sharing. Plus, there is YOU - learning and experiencing YOURself - much of it for the first time, and then, over longer and more substantial periods of time, more and more situations and levels of emotion, more and more data points, more and more people…. Get ready! Because it never ceases….
You’re already finding it, identifying it, and that’s the first step. Peeling away your defenses and distractions, and directly observing that which you love, but paradoxically, that which you are fearful to really do. Facing the fear, and trying to understand it, why you feel it. Like sharing stories, or singing and dancing, or being open and honest, or being able to ask for what we need - why do we fear this? It’s not like we’re jumping out of a plane…. (Well, not yet…. but this is the practice round…)
Finding a supportive, non-judgmental, fear free space - it is an important part of these gatherings. (Damn, I sure know it when I find it!) I think the younger and less acculturated you are, the less obvious this component is. The younger you are, the less experience and insight you’ve accumulated to recognize, and then utilize, such special opportunities. The younger you are, the more it feels as if your whole life is in front of you, and such opportunities, like last weekend, may appear less urgent or special. For most folks your age, the immediate need is to get out from under the roof of parents, and actually begin to live our own lives. At least to throw off the immediate, physical shackles of the prison - before necessarily becoming aware of the more persistent, and insipid cultural restraints.
Of course, I’m not goin’ off the deep end here, this that I perceive as a taste of a tribal way. It is extra sweet - 1) for we are so unfamiliar with it, and 2) it is a taste without the hard work to gather and prepare and sustain it, without stress or conflict of any sort. Not even a rainstorm or a cold front or growling stomach. It’s practically all upside, just one half of nature’s cycle…
But it helps orient our compass from when we are far away from such a place, from each other. And the more you grow to realize the special situation we are able to come together and spontaneously create - the more you come to make it a priority, and utilize the opportunity to safely explore yourself and your fears; to fully communicate, to get what you need, to challenge yourself to do what you can’t-not do…
-Jim
Comment by JCamasto — 25 September 2005 @ 3:13 PM
Giuli,
I think I can identify with you in some ways. I probably seem pretty outgoing at these gatherings, but the truth is that I am very much an introvert, and I tend to internalize a lot, much more than I can usually handle. It manifests itself in my insomnia, in my chronic muscle tension, in my poems and stories that I show almost no one. (in this respect I’m even more clammed up than you are. There’s a reason why I’ve never performed that song I wrote after our first gathering.) The only reason I was able to discuss my tribal plans at all around that fire was because I had talked to Jim about them first (which was terrifying), had kind of felt him out to see his reaction, and then heard him talking to others about them in a positive way. Even then, talking about them at the circle felt like I was making myself throw up, and everyone was sitting there watching. So many things I say have been rehearsed and rehashed in my head before I ever get around to saying them out loud. They might only seem spontaneous. I’m far, far better at parroting other people’s songs or ideas or opinions than I’ve ever been at revealing my own.
But I’ve gotten a little better as I’ve gotten a little older. And attending these gatherings, and especially communicating with these same people outside of the gatherings (because let’s face it, the majority of our relationships in this group have been forged at a distance, if only out of sheer necessity.), I’ve started to develop some trust, some confidence that if I say something, anything, I won’t be automatically judged or laughed out of the room or cut down or ignored. It’s still scary. There is still so much we don’t know about each other. We’re all coming from wildly different places and backgrounds and experiences, and we process and interact in vastly different ways. In addition, our communal need for community puts added pressure on the relationship, wishing at times to conjure something out of nothing, or increasing the despair if for some reason it doesn’t work out. It’s a difficult path.
I can also understand your feelings of guilt and desire to no longer be part of this destructive culture. That is one of the biggest reasons why I’m so interested in forming this new language, new lifestyle, new calendar, new culture that we’ve been playing around with. I want to be part of a culture that I can believe in, that fits and supports my worldview and that doesn’t create all of this inner conflict at every turn. I want customs that I can truly celebrate, and that hold some meaning for me, instead of empty days that signify little more than a bit of time off from the pyramid-building. I want out of the damn pyramid-building altogether. I’m tired of belonging to a culture that I don’t agree with, that I am embarrassed by. I’m tired of supporting it, even if it is only because I have no alternative.
I hope we haven’t been neglecting to give you the support you need. Jim is constantly reminding me, us, of how unused we are to feeling out group dynamics, to noticing when a member of our group is in need. Civilization has trained us so well to depend on the system and not on each other; Relearning this vital skill is going to be very difficult, and not just for the introverts. Maybe that’s something we want to work on, at future gatherings: paying more attention to our surroundings, and everything in them, including us. Learning how to become a part of a group and stay true to ourselves at the same time. I think in a lot of ways that’s a scary idea for all of us, not just for you or me.
Roxy
PS - and just so you know, I almost deleted this entire reply several times before I posted it.
Comment by Raku — 25 September 2005 @ 6:09 PM
I don’t have a lot to add except that, Roxy and Jim, I really appreciate what you’ve both said here. Appreciate isn’t the right verb. I’m not sure what is. Reading what the two of you have written here sets a little glowing in my heart. Thanks.
Comment by Steve Thomas — 26 September 2005 @ 4:52 PM
I agree with Steve. Interestingly enough, probably nothing made me feel so good as this comment from Roxy:
Probably because I very nearly didn’t post this article, for fear that it was too personal. Seeing that you had the same doubts about your comment - which was so refreshing to read - kind of makes me feel vindicated in having posted my own feelings.
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 26 September 2005 @ 7:29 PM
It’s not quite that bad!
While the footprint comparison is a good wakeup call, the number of footprint-scaled planets doesn’t directly translate to forcing others to live on less than they otherwise would or, even worse, less than they NEED to survive.
Your conclusion implies that 1 planet = exactly enough for everyone alive to live appropriately. While we currently exceed that capacity, for better or worse, choices in material technology and culture alter the mechanics of that zero-sum game.
If everyone were to live as a forager, you’d need upwards of 100 acres person. As subsistence farmer, more like 4 or 5. We used to live like that, and the land limitations kept population down.
If your civilization and its material technologies are the problem, restricting others to a footprint that only supports subsistence lifestyles + a few meaningful electronic technologies (e.g. Indian farmers with mobile phones and decent healthcare) is the real outcome, and it may be a very admirable one. It took your family somewhere between 3 and 10 generations to figure out that this lifestyle doesn’t work, although its call remains quite seductive. Why allow others to unwittingly make the same mistake themselves, rather than be limited (by your consumption) to the same soft-landing lifestyle to which you’re moving?
Comment by MC Footprint — 29 September 2005 @ 11:37 AM
You’re right, this doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. It just is the case, under the system we currently live. The First World lifestyle is subsidized by the existence of the Third World. The Third World is “the Third World” because they’re the ones that get stuck bearing all of our externalized costs. To put it another way, they’re our “slaves,” and while ecological footprint isn’t always exactly accurate in rendering how many “slaves” the average American has, I think it certainly makes sense as a starting point.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 29 September 2005 @ 11:50 AM
Would they be like the people I routinely argue with, who hold up the products of their wealth - the things they can have because so many more people have nothing - as evidence that this culture is worth keeping?
Of course they would. What makes you think they wouldn’t? Recall how fond the Inka were of the gold jewelry they wore.
I recently decided not to waste my breathe arguing with people who believe things such as “civilization is our only hope”. That would be about as useful an endeavor as arguing with someone who believes “crack addiction is our only hope”. They’re not going to hear you in a million years and you’ll just be going round and round and round with them repeatedly in the same fallacious circles.
Comment by Thomas Rondy — 5 September 2006 @ 12:21 AM