A Language Over the age of Words Response Paper Inside the novel A Language Older Than Words, Derrick Jensen includes many different themes in the many chapters that he has divided his book in. The two chapters that really interested me had been Breaking Out and Economics. The two designs that Jensen discusses is the relationship together with the self and also other as well as the monetary symbol in our society correspondingly.
I was in a position to relate to both these topics in several ways. Inside the chapter Breaking Out Jensen focuses on the image of the home and the marriage we have with each other.
Jensen produces about how were constricted to the own concentration camp within our society. It is far from an actual focus camp however it is a concentration camp inside our way of thinking and constructing the image of yourself and us as individuals. “In a concentration camp, it is advisable (in terms of preserving physical existence, spiritual a lot more an entirely distinct question) to be the killer than the killed, far better to be a collaborator than a resister, a guard when compared to a collaborator, a supervisor when compared to a guard, and better still as the boss (125). He claims that having everyone action in his or perhaps her personal best interest might not be the best fascination for culture in general. “Part of the cause we’ve been capable to convince themselves that simply by exploiting other folks we’re operating in our own best interest is that we’ve accepted a severely constricted definition of self (125). Jensen speaks about how exactly the image of the self is definitely not the that we should certainly accept. We must break out of that concentration camp that world has created and make our own watch of which kind of individual we wish to be without the help of society or the anxiety about society judging ones self.
The quotation that Jensen wrote regarding the concentration camp really strokes a chord in my head. My analysis of the is that were stuck being a society by simply always wishing to be the very best and not taking care of others. The mentality of all men on their own has spread in our society. I had been thinking our company is always contending in life. Whether it is for a job or a location in a category, we are usually competing. This kind of competition makes this mentality that it is far better to be the killer compared to the killed.
The constricted definition of the personal that Jensen speaks regarding relates to the workbook from class. Because it speaks about sexuality and just how there isn’t only male or female when ever there are many different colours of the rainbow. As a society we shouldn’t have to be constricted to what they need us to recognize with. We need to break out of the ‘concentration camp’ and make our own id without the accompanied by a society judging us. In the chapter Economics, Jensen produces about the simple fact that funds rules all.
He talks about how everything in life can become a funds exchange. “I’d like three books, two packages of chicken McNuggets, and a blow to visit, please. What it is possible to minimize to a commodity and sell, is definitely. That which can’t, is either (by definition) devalued, ignored, or simply just destroyed (139). Jensen is attempting to show someone that everything has a regards to money. We need money in in an attempt to do the lots of things in life such as travel however there are things that we no longer need cash for. Below is the problem: with this tidy associated with economic types, there’s no space for appreciate, joy, unknown, for the sometimes mixed up and complicated, sometimes obvious and clarifying, sometimes beautiful, sometimes marvelous suction of body in body, skin on epidermis soul upon soul (139). How I realize this estimate is that Jensen is saying we are so used in getting more income that we have no time for the things that really matter in our life just like love and happiness. I could see where Jensen is definitely coming from. I do think our society is stuck into convinced that money is known as a priority.
I believe it is important because we do need money to outlive yet we all shouldn’t allow money work our lives. The first quote shows the way we see money as a limitation to pleasure, love, and mystery. This kind of reminds me in the discussion we had in class on how you want to travel the earth when we graduate student yet we could not able to as a result of constraint involving and getting forgotten in this ‘rat race’. Most of us have these commitments one following another that individuals are not able to go after the things we really want to.
Jensen provides a lot of good questions to mind while browsing his new. He is not afraid to say what this individual believes is occurring to our world even though it may seem like our contemporary society is tainted. His thought on relationships opens up my personal window to knowing how very easily people can ‘stab’ one another in the last order to become the fantastic not the killed. His topic involving in our contemporary society shows the way we are truly materialistic. We must give everything a money value of course, if it doesn’t possess a buck value then it is certainly not valued. How much is happiness?
