Land acknowledgments and sustainability
A major point of my book Sustainability Simplified is that a culture being unsustainable means it is running out of something so must
- Revert to sustainability,
- Trade something it has in surplus with another culture that has a surplus of what it is running out of (in which case I consider them jointly a larger sustainable culture), or
- Take what it’s running out of from another culture.
There is a name for taking from another culture. It’s imperialism. Taking their land is colonialism.
You can oppose imperialism and colonialism all you want, if you live unsustainably, you’re driving them both. You can blame governments or rulers for driving them, but they do it because the home market makes it profitable. If you live unsustainably, beyond driving imperialism and colonialism, you’re part of the main force driving them.
When people acknowledge land in so-called “land acknowledgments,” I think they’re trying to imply taking people’s land is wrong. I’m sympathetic, but if the person acknowledging the land is living unsustainably, they are driving the process of displacing other people from their land.
Living unsustainably is the opposite of a land acknowledgment: it forces people from their land. If you acknowledge land and live unsustainably, you are violating your own values. You can change to living sustainably, which would help stop the problem you are highlighting. I think you’d also sleep better since I suspect you recognize you are violating your own values. That inner conflict must eat you up inside.
You can live sustainably. Yes, you can.
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