Feral Philosophy

Chemical Sensitivity refers to hypersensitivity to many chemicals/pollutants. It’s something that the mainstream world generally rejects, often saying that it is psychosomatic, and that it’s a psychological disorder, not a physiological condition. Regardless, it’s something that adversely affects many people. It’s something that I experience. I’d like to make a few observations about it.

Chemical Sensitivity is just a way to talk about related experiences. There is no set of criteria that defines Chemical Sensitivity. Everyone who experiences hypersensitivity to chemicals has their own experiences, and I can’t talk about anyone else’s experiences. I can talk about my own experiences, though, which is what I will do.

There was no one pivotal point at which I started to be hypersensitive to chemicals. It has happened gradually over time. I can recall a time during which I did not feel particularly hypersensitive. There was a time, maybe ten years ago when I could walk through a department store or past a laundromat without feeling as though I just got pummeled. Over time I started to notice that there were certain things that were irritating to me that weren’t irritating to others. I started to notice that I could go into a room such as a meeting hall, and I would immediately know if someone in the room was wearing perfume even if no one else around me could tell. That was just the start, though. Over time my ability to tolerate synthetic perfumes decreased. Laundry illustrates the progression. Years and years ago I used to do laundry with synthetic detergents with synthetic perfumes. Eventually that bothered me, and I started doing laundry with non-synthetic detergents with non-synthetic perfumes (such as perfumes from plants.) That worked for a while. However, eventually I couldn’t tolerate doing my laundry in machines in which synthetically-perfumed detergent had been used just prior. I would have to run the washing machines once before washing my clothes, and then I would hang my clothes to dry. That worked for a while. However, eventually even just running the washing machine once before washing my clothes didn’t make it tolerable. I moved to places where I had my own washing machine. Then it got to a point where I couldn’t tolerate even the plant-based perfumes. I had to change to non-perfumed detergent.

That same sort of pattern has played out not only with laundry. I find that I can tolerate many places less and less. There are a few bookstores in the town where I recently lived. I couldn’t even go into one of the bookstores because there was a perfume of some sort that would make my face burn if I just walked into the store. There was one bookstore I would go into frequently, and I could tolerate it for the most part. However, it was a small store, and if anyone walked into the store wearing perfume I had to exit. You’d be surprised how often that happened.

I find that I cannot tolerate any synthetic perfumes, a lot of non-synthetic/plant-based perfumes if they are concentrated enough, propane, gasoline, kerosene, heating oil, chemical cleaning products, many “natural” cleaning products, new carpet, plywood, particle board, new laminate flooring, non-organic linens/bedding/clothing, paint, PVC, vinyl, a lot of plastic. If I have to get something new made of plastic I usually have to let it sit outside or in its own room for days or weeks before I can tolerate being around it.

What happens? It depends, though usually it consists of burning nose and eyes, difficulty breathing, and anxiety.

Could it be entirely psychosomatic? Perhaps. It’s possible. I don’t know. What I do know about it is that the experiences are real, and the results are real. I really don’t go to the perfumed bookstore. I really do avoid going near laundromats (I can smell a laundromat a quarter mile away.)

Hypersensitivity to chemicals results in a few things that you might not expect. One of the most significant results is that finding housing can be difficult. I’ve moved eight times since 2006. I lived in an apartment a few years ago that I couldn’t tolerate in part because of the shampoo belonging to the downstairs neighbor. That sounds ridiculous. Yet ridiculous or not, that was one of the things I couldn’t tolerate about that apartment. I recently lived in an apartment where despite my having done everything I could to seal everything I could find the upstairs neighbors’ cleaning product fumes would find their way into my apartment and the laundry perfumes from the basement would also find their way to my apartment.

For a lot of people with chemical sensitivities the housing issue gets increasingly difficult. There are plenty of stories of people moving from house to house, apartment to apartment, until they finally decide to move into an all-metal trailer that they pull with their car because it’s the only place they can be in for more than a few hours.

Is it psychosomatic? Maybe a better thing to ask is whether or not it is wrong to be intolerant of known toxins. Maybe rather than disregarding chemical sensitivities it would be better to see it as a warning. Maybe those who are chemically sensitive are like canaries in the mine (which is a terrible, yet very real image of exploitation.) Maybe rather than disregarding chemical sensitivity it would be better to ask how to remove the toxins. (A good start would be to stop making the toxins.)

This same criticism applies to those who are chemically sensitive too. Many people, when experiencing hypersensitivity to chemicals, do everything they can to try and get away from the chemicals in their own life. That is understandable. I entirely understand that. I already said that I have moved eight times in just a few years. When you feel as though you are being attacked it makes sense to try to get away from the attack. The issue I have with that (and I’m leveling this criticism at myself as well) is that just trying to get away from the attack doesn’t stop the attack. In fact, it just yields more ground to the attacker. Monsanto is killing us, and we’re running away. Eventually there will be nowhere to which we can run. What will happen then? Will there be enough of us, will there be enough time, will we have enough power to fight?

Yesterday I posted on this blog in the first time in months. I hadn’t read my blog in months either. After I published the post I re-read (rather, perused) a few of my earlier posts. I was rather embarrassed with a few of the things I had said in them. Since this is my blog I could go back and edit or delete previous posts if I wanted. However, that seems rather dishonest to me. It would feel as though I was re-writing history to make my historical self look the way I want rather than the way I was. Instead, I’ll keep the earlier posts as they were. However, I’d like to mention a few points about which I no longer agree with some of the things I had written months ago.

The thing that really stood out for me was that I actually referred to the United States government as “our” government, as though I actually acknowledged its legitimacy and right to rule, as if I accepted it as having legitimate power over me and the other inhabitants within the region known as the United States of America. That jumped out at me and felt painful to see that only months ago I would have said such a thing. I do not acknowledge any government’s legitimacy or right to rule, not over me and not over anyone else. I find that governments are inherently oppressive and destructive to life. Some are worse than others. Yet all are tyrannical, eventually seeking to impose their control over every aspect of the lives of those who live within their sphere of dominance. Even in a supposedly democratic republic such as the United States the government oppresses the vast majority of the humans, even those who vote. Plus there are many who cannot vote either because they are not old enough, because they have been deemed felons by the state, because they don’t want to be known/owned by the system, or because they are not acknowledged by the state as having sentience or the capacity to vote (meaning that as far as I know no governments accept the votes of white-tailed deer, black bears, cows, or turkey vultures, much less cedars, ferns, moss, or anyone else.) Governments have consistently shown that they will wield their power granted to them by the acquiescence of the majority, the votes and backing of the minority, and the relative powerlessness of the remainder, in order to destroy life. The United States government wields its power to consistently create and back policies of war of every sort. Wars against nations. Wars against humans through legal systems, economic systems, educational systems, and bureaucratic systems. Wars against wolves. Wars against forests. Wars against waterways. Wars. Wars. Wars. Wars.

That brings me to the next point, which is that I actually said that I felt that the U.S. government should wage peace, not war. While I don’t think I actually believed that was a possibility, I still feel it was naive to even have uttered such nonsense. Governments are for the purpose of waging war. That is what they do. They have no other purpose. They are running a racket. They just happen to usually have the best racket going, and everyone is too intimidated or bought off to do anything about it. Even if we don’t admit it to ourselves, or even if we cannot see it, that doesn’t mean the wars aren’t still be waged. Governments are about war.

In the same post I pointed out how in the calculations of average “carbon footprints” of people living even in the least developed countries are above sustainable levels. From that I then went on to say that we must each, and that I specifically must reduce my own “carbon footprint” to sustainable levels before I complain about anything else. I completely missed the point, though. The point is that we live in a world in which the dominant systems are forcing even those who don’t want to, to live in an unsustainable fashion. From that it should be obvious that the primary cause of unsustainability is not at an individual level. The primary cause is at a systems level. The primary cause is at the level of governments and corporations. I didn’t turn the Midwest into a poisoned, monocropped wasteland. Monsanto is much more responsible for that. That is, Monsanto, in cahoots with the federal and state governments, a few greedy agricultural corporations, and a bunch of universities (influenced by the funding they receive from Monsanto, agricultural corporations, and federal and state governments.) I can reduce my own carbon footprint to 0 and it won’t put a dent in the systems that are causing the unsustainability. While reducing my own carbon footprint might make me feel good about myself, it’s essentially a waste of time if I’m trying to improve things in the world.

There’s a myth of personal purity as salvation that too many of us have fallen into believing. I have. I still fall into believing it far too often. It’s not true, though. The idea is that if I personally reduce my carbon footprint or live my life in accordance with what I believe to be right and good then that is the only thing that is necessary. It’s not true. I can go live in the woods with nothing but my bare hands, creating no pollution personally, and the world will still be killed by the same systems that are killing it today. I might be able to feel better about myself. I might feel as though I’m personally pure. I might be able to feel that I’m better than everyone else. I can feel as though I have the answers. If everyone else just did as I did then everything would be okay. The point, though, is that everyone else won’t be doing as I did. Even if they did, it wouldn’t solve anything because individuals aren’t doing the killing. At least not individuals like you and me. The killing is being done by the individuals who perpetuate and run the governments and corporations that are killing. Personal purity isn’t going to solve anything. In fact, it’s probably just going to cause the personally pure to lose their friends because the personally pure are too smug and self-righteous. We don’t need smug and self-righteous. We need an end to the killing. To end the killing we must end the systems, not be more personally pure.

Another point is that there’s an irony in striving for personal purity while the systems still stand. Personal purity is actually impossible in such a scenario. The whole point of the systems is to turn everyone (every form of life) into a product, a commodity, a dead thing. Everyone wants to be personally pure by not driving or by shopping with canvas bags or whatever the case. What is it that is supporting everything necessary for us to live in a world where we have choices such as driving or taking public transportation, walking or biking, paper or plastic, plastic or canvas, urban or suburban? There are systems required for those choices. Things don’t just magically appear in stores. They are grown or manufactured and transported at a minimum. Even on the level of personal health it’s not possible to be personally pure while the systems still stand. I used to live in southern California. Consider what it means to be health conscious in southern California. It’s absurd. If you can’t see the absurdity in that then either you’ve never been to southern California or you’re a southern Californian. The point is that the entire situation in which we are living is unhealthy. We’re breathing toxic air and the water is toxic. We can’t reach personal purity while the systems still stand.

There’s a reason we believe in the myth of personal purity, though. There are at least two reasons, actually. One reason is the feeling of powerlessness. The second reason is propaganda. These two reasons are actually two side of the same reason. We feel powerless to stop the killing and the unhealthy situations. Instead, we turn to where we feel we do have power, which is the personal. Those feelings of powerlessness and the decision to focus on personal purity are encouraged by propaganda. The governments and corporations are motivated to encourage us to focus on personal purity because it takes focus away from that which is actually doing the killing. It shouldn’t be a surprise then that green is the new black. Governments and corporations want “environmental awareness” from the personal purity angle to be in vogue because it distracts us. They point in one direction and say “look.” We look in that direction while they go in the other direction to continue killing. Personal purity won’t solve anything.

As usual, I may well make a complete fool of myself in this post. I may make opinionated statements that serve only to demonstrate my ignorance. I may be offensive, though I certainly do not intend any offense. If what I say is offensive and ignorant I would gladly accept comments about that.

I’m an American-born, suburban-raised, middle-class, caucasian of European descent, and I will gladly fight to return North America to the indigenous inhabitants. By indigenous inhabitants I’m referring to the indigenous humans as well as the elk, caribou, woodchucks, elm trees, cedars, mycelia, bacteria, and every other living being indigenous to this region.

What does it mean to be indigenous? Some would argue that indigenous is a meaningless term since it every form of life moves from place to place, however quickly or slowly. According to those who would argue such things there are no indigenous humans in North America, for example, since they say that humans are native to the Middle East. However, I have a definition of indigenous that means something or someone who belongs to the place where they live (instead of seeing the place where they live as belonging to them,) someone who knows every detail of the place where they live and where the place that they live knows every detail about them, someone who is literally composed of the place where they live because every breath is of the place where they live, because they walk on the ground every day, and because their parents ate of the place and died in that place. Most importantly, though, to be indigenous, as far as I’m concerned, one must leave the place where one lives better when one dies. I’ll also add that as far as I’m concerned, indigenous beings also live extremely locally and their lives promote diversity (i.e. indigenous is the opposite of globalization.)

That’s just my opinion. That’s just my definition. You don’t have to agree with it. It’s just the basis of what I have to say in the blog post.

Because of the situation into which I was born, because I am of European descent in the Americas, because I was born into a middle-class suburban family, I will never be indigenous. It’s impossible. I can try as much as I want. It just wasn’t in the cards. I am not and cannot be indigenous. It’s a sad fact of modern life that most of us will never be indigenous. We can steal the names of the indigenous. We can go to sweat lodges. We can hang dream catchers in our cars. We can walk barefoot. We can live in yurts. We can do whatever we want. We’ll never be indigenous. We ought to stop trying. Instead, we ought to work to return North America (and everywhere else too, I’m just talking about North America since it’s where I live) to the indigenous inhabitants.

I have worked to try to get rid of the romantic and idealistic notions I have had about the indigenous inhabitants of North America, human or not. I understand that no one and especially no group will fit my idealized notions of how we should live. The point, though, is that my idealized notions of how we should live are of no value. What is of value is the actual living in such a way that leaves the world better for having lived. I understand that the indigenous human inhabitants of North America are a diverse group, and that some have histories of war, oppression, domestic violence, and other things which may not fit into my idealized notion of how we should live. Or maybe they don’t have such histories. I don’t know. It depends who you listen to and which way the trends in history happen to be moving when you’re listening. I don’t know, and I cannot know what the Lakota people did or did not do a thousand years ago.

What I can know, and what actually matters to those of us living today, is that the indigenous inhabitants of North America lived for tens of thousands of years (in case of human inhabitants) or much longer in this place, and their lives left the place in a condition such that more inhabitants could live here in the future. Their lives promoted diversity and health. Their lives gave life to the soil and to the waters.

When the Europeans invaded North America the continent was covered with a diversity of life. Only a few hundred years later North America has been pillaged, and the diversity has been reduced to uniformity across an entire continent. Today you can go to nearly any town or city or suburb or anywhere else in North America and find similar houses, apartment buildings, office parks, retailers, and schools. Monocrops replaced functioning eco-systems. Hundreds or thousands of human languages and cultures have been effectively replaced by just a few languages and one culture. Animals (other than humans) are allowable only if they are considered of value as a commodity or for production (or for entertainment or companionship.) Buffalo are replaced by cows. Waterways are put into “production” and sometimes rerouted entirely when deemed more suitable. The entire way of living of the culture into which I was born requires the killing of the place where we live. We, the non-indigenous, have no right to the place where we live. We kill with our every breath.

That is the reason I say that I will fight to return North America to the indigenous inhabitants. I will gladly dedicate myself to that which will leave me without a home, without a place to live. I will do that because it is right. I will do that because I am not indigenous, and the non-indigenous cannot stake a rightful claim to anything. The best the non-indigenous can do is fight on the side of the indigenous. We, the non-indigenous, are an invasive. It doesn’t matter how many generations have gone by. The reason it doesn’t matter is that even if hundreds of generations had gone by the actual result that we see today is that those of us who are non-indigenous are killing the place where we live. If hundreds of generations had gone by and we were no killing the place where we live then it might be different.

Some might argue that I’m not to blame for my parents’ and their parents’ and their parents’ crimes. In fact, as far as I can tell, my family didn’t directly invade North America. My mother’s family arrived from Germany just a few generations ago. My father’s family, as best anyone can tell, were poor rural people for many generations back. Before that, it would seem, my father’s family lived among the Cherokee, as Cherokee, for many generations. They were sent west on the Trail of Tears. Make no mistake, though, that does not make me indigenous. My father’s family is of European descent. Even had they not been of European descent, they renounced their Cherokee identities when the persecution was too great.

My family may not have directly invaded North America and stolen it from the indigenous inhabitants (killing many of the indigenous inhabitants.) However, I have indirectly gained much through the invasion. Everything that I have ever gotten in this modern world has been because of the invasion. I owe my life to those who have been oppressed and killed. That is reason enough for me to fight to return North America to the indigenous inhabitants.

Regardless, though, the point remains that when I walk, breath, or even when I merely sit in a house, my life is killing the place where I live. In tens of thousands of years or even hundreds of thousands of years the indigenous inhabitants of North America didn’t pave over an entire continent. They didn’t reroute waterways. They didn’t kill off nearly every other living being on the continent. They didn’t turn everything into a commodity. They didn’t build nuclear weapons.

Their lives made North America better. Their lives made the place in which they lived healthier.

I will fight to return North America to the indigenous inhabitants.