Protecting the Rights of

People & Nature From

the Local Up

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Hello again! It’s been a while since my first essay in the CRUS Newsletter. We’ve had so many updates recently, and of course we’ve been so grateful to hear all of your brilliant responses to our recent surveys! We’re still very eager to hear more of your thoughts – check out Survey 1: Ideas and Issues, and Survey 2: Tools and Tactics.

We’ve been thinking hard, digging deep into big-picture strategy discussions, and we’ve got lots of transformative visions emerging from the new CRUS team (we look forward to sharing some of our fresh new ideas soon!). This follow-up essay is all about transforming how we see the world and our place in it. I look forward to hearing your thoughts about these ideas, and how they are relevant to your local work.

– tyler.

Tyler Norman, CRUS Director

Not Culture War, But Class War… or better yet, Anti-War

Today, we find ourselves mired in a so-called “Culture War,” a post-modern pissing contest with no winners, only bruised egos sinking further into a swamp of resentment. But as discussed in my previous essay, it’s actually inappropriate to regard “liberal” and “conservative” as personal identities. These concepts are of a category similar to “sad,” “happy,” “aggressive,” “defensive.” Attitudes and emotions are notoriously malleable, not a complete culture or lifestyle. A statement like “I am a Conservative” is equivalent to “I am a Grumpy.”

When we pigeonhole ourselves into a single narrow attitude, we limit our critical thinking and disable our deliberative judgment and imagination. In an argument where humiliating one’s opponent is the only objective, conflicts that could provide opportunities for learning instead devolve into irrational insult competitions. Today, our two toxic electoral options could be summed up as the “Don’t be Such a Dick” Party and the “Don’t be Such a Pussy” Party.

The gendered nature of this Culture War further emphasizes that on both sides the opposition has been essentialized into a singular mythic identity. The exaggerated and wholly negative nature of much social media banter and YouTube punditry (“all Republicans are privileged white supremacist transphobes” or “all Democrats are shills for Silicon Valley techno-fascists”) makes it so much easier to label the “other” as “enemy,” then immediately dismiss this “enemy” as a raving mob of soulless monsters deserving no empathy or political voice.

As the population becomes more and more polarized into memetic tribes battling for territory of the mind, our lives come to resemble a tit-for-tat family feud… getting hotter every day, spiraling dangerously downward into rage and desperation that just might spark real warfare. If we don’t change our direction soon, the United States could look like Yugoslavia or Syria by the end of the decade.

I am a part of the Community Rights movement because I believe that our work can be an antidote to this very frightening path. The Community Rights and Rights of Nature movements assert our dignity and integrity, but beginning from a worldview that defines our communities by place, not by identity or social role. Within the Community Rights paradigm, divisions like “Left vs. Right” are obsolete labels. Our work emerges from genuine relationships with the land that we live on, consistent and intentional connections with our neighbors, and the loving cultivation of a robust sense of “We the People” through conversation, organizing, and true grassroots democracy…

Read Tyler’s full essay HERE.

 

Essential CR News from the Web

Blogpost–My Turn: The bigger (local) picture

Press Release: Tribal Court Rules that Rights of Nature Case Can Move Forward

‘Rights of nature’ lawsuits hit a sweet spot

Pipeline opponents launch lawsuit against Line 3 — and the lead plaintiff is wild rice

 

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Photo credits:“hands on soil” by Poughkeepsie Day School is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 ; “Gardening in p-patch, 1990” by Seattle Municipal Archives is licensed under CC BY 2.0 ; “Peony” by bill barber is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0 ; “Banyan Tree Roots” by moonjazz.