The Radicals
On rejecting the radical life for one of harmony.
In Richard Powers' beautiful novel The Overstory we are introduced to a group of very different people whose lives are magnetically and mysteriously pulled together in the service of vulnerable forests. After the spectacular loss of a particularly magnificent stand of old growth to a logging corporation, the group turns to more extreme measures to protest the destruction of so many trees. During a break from their illicit work, one man, Adam, reflects on the potential consequences of their tactics. "Destroying federal property. Serious stuff." Others in the group chime in to agree about the gravity of the path they've taken but one woman, the youngest and the moral center of their little community, is silent. "Maidenhair is far away, in another country. At last she says, 'This isn't radical. I've seen radical.' Then Adam sees it again, too. A living, breathing mountainside, stripped bare."
The others in her group had come to believe that their desperate times called for increasingly radical measures. Only Maidenhair could see that they weren't the true radicals. Their acts of protest and resistance, however outside the mainstream, were the very definition of sanity when compared with the wholesale destruction of trees which easily predated this nation's origins.
Who are the radicals of our day? Those of you who purposefully work for justice likely know what it's like to be labeled a radical. Sometimes the word is used as a compliment. There are people who hold up the radicals as examples for the rest of us to follow. Or they are treated as saints, impressive figures who live out of step with the unjust status quo in ways the rest of us can't be expected to. Other times radical is a slur meant to diminish and discredit. A radical is out of touch and unable to deal with the cold hard dollars and sense of reality. A radical is too pessimistic, too focused on the wrong, too slow to talk about hope.
Whether used as an insult or as praise, people view the radical as notably different than the rest of us. Their lives diverge dramatically from our socially acceptable habits and culturally approved practices. They are the strange ones. It's the rest of us who are normal. But Maidenhair's memory of the exploited mountainside exposes just how backward this is. The small group of people resisting the total destruction of an ancient ecosystem are anything but radical. What they're after is harmony, cooperation, alignment with life. It's a very confused society which views such people as extremists while chalking up wholesale destruction as the acceptable cost of doing our collective business.
There's nothing radical about agitating for racial justice. Radical is cooperating with a way of life built on oppression.
There's nothing radical about resisting climate change. Radical is accepting that fracking and mountaintop removal and watershed pollution are necessary for the unlimited growth of our retirement accounts.
There's nothing radical about defending the honor of everybody's life. Radical is assuming that one's partisan association will determine which sort of people deserve to live.
Within cultures of destruction and exploitation, the way of harmony usually seems radical. But, for the sake of our own clarity and wisdom, we ought to be clear: there's nothing radical about siding with life in each of its magnificent expressions.
(Photo credit.)