By Hannah Besson
The value of Indigenous perspectives in climate action is becoming increasingly clear. Indigenous territories comprise 22% of the world’s land surface but 80% of the planet’s biodiversity (FAOUN). This makes the integration of Indigenous knowledge invaluable in corporate ESG strategies. For instance, the Taskforce on Nature-Related Financial Disclosures announced in May of 2022 that it is expanding its consultation process with Indigenous Peoples to develop the framework (TNFD).
The Anthropocene Epoch is an unofficial unit of geologic time that describes Earth’s recent history during which human activity is having a consequential impact on the planet’s climate and ecosystems (National Geographic). It has ultimately culminated in the climate crisis that we face today.
A phenomenon that most of our generation will have experienced is a disconnect between the alarming conclusions drawn, for instance, from the IPCC’s assessment reports and the relative lack of united, radical, and material response on the part of individuals, global authorities, and firms alike. How can cognitive dissonance occur on such a large scale?
We find part of the answer in the cultural biases that influence our beliefs about humans, the environment, and the relationship between the two. Putting the novel Ishmael in dialogue with Indigenous thought-work may help to unearth some of the biases at play in the emergence and escalation of the Anthropocene.
Ishmael is a 1992 philosophical novel by Daniel Quinn that explores the topics of ethics, sustainability, and global catastrophe. It is comprised of conversations between a wise, humanized gorilla, Ishmael, and a man who becomes his student. It is necessary first to note the distinction the novel makes between human ‘Takers’ and ‘Leavers.’ The distinction is that “the premise of the Taker story is ‘the world belongs to man’. … The premise of the Leaver story is ‘man belongs to the world’.” (Ishmael, Quinn, 239). Ishmael explains that the Takers are essentially at odds with Leavers, who stand between them and total exploitation. Indigenous societies are cited as an example of such Leaver communities.
Ishmael expounds that Takers have constructed a ubiquitous narrative that the Earth is our property and therefore is rightfully ours to exploit. Because this narrative has been reified since childhood, no amount of ‘reason’ or ‘science’ can make humans change behaviours that will lead to human extinction. The novel points to cultural biases taught in religions, philosophy, and science that distinguish humans from all other living things as the root of these biases. We are taught implicitly or explicitly from our childhoods that the creation of the universe came to an end with the emergence of man. Borne of this belief are subsequent biases that compel us to destroy the world to live in it in the name of a divine assignment to progress with no limits — to optimize the world for ourselves while eliminating it. According to Ishmael, these ‘stories’ that we have been told since childhood put us at odds with the world and give us the impression that we are the “lords of the world.” As a result, we enact a story in which the world is our foe — something to be conquered. The Anthropocene is the embodiment of this conquest which has resulted in the Earth metaphorically “bleeding to death at [our feet]” (Ishmael, Quinn, 84). This view that humans are the exception to the law of limited competition and the attempt to make all the life in the world our own inherently contradicts the laws of nature that the author references.
In regard to Leavers, the author points to Indigenous societies and states that “every time the Takers stamp out a Leaver culture, a wisdom ultimately tested since the birth of mankind disappears from the world beyond recall.” (Ishmael, Quinn, 206). Indigenous societies differ significantly worldwide, and Ishmael’s reference may be an oversimplification. Nonetheless, in Canada, Indigenous thought-work and knowledge have proven invaluable to climate response efforts, despite often being disregarded as fictitious.
Traditional ecological knowledge has stood the test of time, passed down through generations of Indigenous communities, with experiential learning facilitating Indigenous interactions with continuously evolving ecosystems. A key difference between Taker and Leaver relationships with the environment is exemplified in the Indigenous understanding of the environment as a set of non-hierarchical, communicative relations between various human and non-human beings. This is what Métis scholar Zoe Todd refers to as Indigenous attunement, creating a discursive relationship with nature formed through protocols of attention, listening, and noticing at many interconnected scales. In this dynamic, humans do not have divine primacy. Unlike Takers, Indigenous societies understand that the law of limited competition applies to them like all other living things and that, thus, not everything in the world that is not their food is an enemy to be exterminated. According to Mohawk scholar Sandra Styres, for Indigenous communities, the land is a sentient protagonist (Sandra Styres).
Reflecting on Ishmael’s distinction between Takers and Leavers, alongside Indigenous thought-work on the environment and our relationship to it provides insight into why we are facing the current climate crisis and why, despite understanding its severity, we struggle to enact real change. So, is it possible that radical change can only be achieved by interrogating and rejecting the foundational cultural biases that contemporary society is based upon? Will Indigenous knowledge be an integral element of the reframing process as we seek to survive and undo the Anthropocene?