Two voices I heard: one of them was mine.

“Dear Earth,” I heard myself say, “in the name and on behalf of the human race, I hereby offer you our sincere apologies for the way we’ve been treating you. We’re all deeply sorry for what we’ve done to you, ever since we discovered the use of fire. Now we’re all shocked to realise the impact and consequences of our general behaviour towards other species of life and indeed to the planet itself.

We’ve restricted your rivers with dams and dikes. We’ve hacked and drilled into your rocky skin with explosives to extract everything that can provide us with the means to build roads, bridges, pipelines, tunnels and canals for easy access to everywhere on the planet. Because of all the oil and gas we took from under your skin, we could go on building all kinds of transport systems to connect all the cities, towns and villages, which are now so densely populated with our sort that just about all the other species of life have been forced out of their natural environment and threatened with extinction.

We are sorry for polluting the oceans with oil, heavy metals and nuclear waste. We sincerely wish to apologise for destroying the natural eco systems by cutting down and burning the tropical rainforest, thereby causing worldwide erosion.

We are also sorry for poisoning the atmosphere with massive doses of CO2, as a result of our insatiable and unrealistic demands for energy.”

And the Earth replied:

“Your apology has been noted. Now get out of my sight and mend your awful ways before I burst into the kind of fury that would reduce your number to a bare minimum, so you’d be forced to start all over again with your dumb ideas about civilisation. None of your behaviour has been that of a civilised being. Because although you’ve invented the word, you haven’t had the foggiest idea as to what it means to be civilised. Your gods have failed you; now it’s time to give natural intelligence a chance.”

After that, the silence in my mind returned.

This booklet contains a summing-up of what the author has thought, said and done in response to what he has seen, read and heard, while he was journeying between the various stations and events of his life.

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 To Hell with Civilisation: Download

In the nucleus of our being we are animals, with all the characteristic qualities that go with that. It is not just an image of the past, but an actuality of the present. We can all shout that we are people. But none of us can rightfully claim that we are less animal now than when we were before civilisation tethered us on a short leash. In an extreme situation that threatens our safety, the leash is not strong enough to save us from our reactions: we are like cornered animals. When we are desperate, we are worse than animals in the wild. That is why we have more reason to fear each other than other animals. We are probably the only species that can scare itself! Through the media we watch the forms of human violence everywhere in the world: day after day, hour after hour. Human violence is more extreme than the violence between wild animals.

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Listening is a hearing aid.

You have to be a little crazy to keep your sanity.

AudioBlog: What Intelligence ? by Nico Steijn.

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