Articles by Robert Jensen
Occupy demands: Let’s radicalize our analysis of empire, economics, ecology
Al Jazeera English, November 3, 2011 ·
The crisis we face is caused by failed systems – replacing leaders while keeping the old system intact will not help.
Ignoring the lessons of 9/11
Houston Chronicle; and Philadelphia Inquirer ·
Ten years ago, critics of America’s mad rush to war were right, but it didn’t matter.
Within hours after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, it was clear that political leaders were going to use the attacks to justify war in Central Asia and the Middle East. And within hours, those of us critical of that policy began to offer principled and practical arguments against aggressive war as a response to the crimes.
9/11 Lessons: Combating Ignorance, Avoiding Arrogance
Jadaliyya ·
Ten years ago, within hours after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, it was clear that the architects of US foreign policy were going to use the events to justify war in Central Asia and the Middle East. And within hours, those of us critical of those policies began to articulate principled and practical arguments against the mad rush to war.
Nature Bats Last: Notes on Revolution and Resistance, Revelation and Redemption
Truthout ·
My title is ambitious and ambiguous: revolution and resistance (which tend to be associated with left politics), revelation and redemption (typically associated with right-wing religion), all framed by a warning about ecological collapse. My goal is to connect these concepts to support an argument for a radical political theology — let me add to the ambiguity here — that can help us claim our power at the moment when we are more powerless than ever, and identify the sources of hope when there is no hope.
First, I realize that the term “radical political theology” may be annoying. Some people will dislike “radical” and prefer a more pragmatic approach. Others will argue that theology shouldn’t be political. Still others will want nothing to do with theology of any kind. At various times in my life, I would have offered all of those objections. Today, I think a politics without a theology is dangerous, a theology without a politics is irrelevant, and radical is realistic.
Green is the new red: environmental activists under attack
Grist ·
For centuries, the arbitrary use of power by the state against dissidents has been a key threat to freedom. More recently, the concentrated wealth of corporations has emerged as a major impediment to democracy. When those two centers of power decide to come after people, not only do the individuals suffer, but freedom and democracy take a beating.
In his debut book, Green Is the New Red: An Insider’s Account of a Social Movement under Siege, independent journalist Will Potter details one such assault on freedom and democracy: the targeting of environmental and animal rights activists.
The Power – and Limits – of Social Movements
Common Dreams ·
Dissidents not only have to be willing to tell the truth about the delusions of the dominant culture, but make sure we don’t fall into delusions of our own.
The Jemima Code: Toni Tipton-Martin Explores the Politics of the Kitchen, Past and Present.
Texas Observer online ·
In the cafeteria-turned-classroom at UT Elementary School, Toni Tipton-Martin struggles to keep six restless boys focused on hot cocoa, the day’s nutrition lesson. She starts with a store-bought cocoa mix, guiding the students through the list of “all those crazy ingredients”—the tongue-twisting list of scary-sounding additives and preservatives—before explaining how they will use four simple ingredients to make their own.
Delivering Educational Products: The Job Formerly Known as Teaching
Texas Observer online ·
Hi, I’m Robert Jensen, a provider of educational products to consumers at the University of Texas at Austin.
I used to introduce myself as a UT professor, but that was before I attended a Texas Public Policy Foundation session last week offering more exciting “breakthrough solutions” to the problems of higher education.
Journalism And Democracy In A Dead Culture: An interview with Robert Jensen
Countercurrents ·
Greek journalist CJ Polychroniou interviewed Robert Jensen about recent trends in media and politics. The interview appeared in Epsilon, the Sunday magazine of Eleftherotypia, Greece’s premier progressive newspaper.
Listening to Life, before it’s too late: An interview with Ellen LaConte
Resilience, originally published by Energy Bulletin ·
People of conscience face two crucial challenges today: (1) Telling the truth about the dire state of the ecosphere that makes our lives possible, no matter how grim that reality, and (2) remaining committed to collective action to create a more just and sustainable world, no matter how daunting that task. It’s not an easy balancing act, as we struggle to understand the scope of the crisis without giving into a sense of hopelessness.
Consciousness Rising, World Fading
Common Dreams. An edited version was posted as “Not a knight in shining armor,” on MS Magazine blog. ·
Our stories of awakenings — whether moral, intellectual, religious, artistic, or sexual — are tricky. Honest self-reflection doesn’t come easy, and self-satisfied accounts are the norm; we love to be the heroes of our own epics.
Technological fundamentalism: Why bad things happen when humans play God
Counterpunch ·
If humans were smart, we would bet on our ignorance.
That advice comes early in the Hebrew Bible. Adam and Eve’s banishment in chapters two and three of Genesis can be read as a warning that hubris is our tragic flaw. In the garden, God told them they could eat freely of every tree but the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This need not be understood as a command that people must stay stupid, but only that we resist the temptation to believe that we are godlike and can competently manipulate the complexity of the world.
‘Greatest Nation’ Rhetoric Roars Back
Common Dreams ·
My greatness as a writer is simply a fact.
You don’t agree? Well, then obviously you are churlish or malevolent.
If I were serious about such a claim of superiority, now would be the time to stop reading — on the reasonable assumption that I’m a dull-witted bore with no capacity for critical self-reflection. What applies to individual declarations is also true of nations, yet in the United States such statements about our greatness are common.
“All That We Share” Isn’t Enough
Texas Observer online ·
Robert Jensen wrote a review of a new book on “the commons” that sparked an exchange with the book’s editor, Jay Walljasper. Jensen’s previously unpublished review of All That We Share: A Field Guide to the Commons/How to Save the Economy, the Environment, the Internet, Democracy, Our Communities, and Everything Else That Belongs to All of Us (The New Press, 288 pages, $18.95) is below, followed by comments.
The United States has long supported brutal regimes around the world: Interview with Robert Jensen
Baltimore Chronicle and Sentinel ·
Robert Jensen joins Kourosh Ziabari in an exclusive interview to discuss the latest developments in the Middle East, the prospect of Iran-U.S. relations, the ongoing military campaign of the Israeli regime in Palestine, the biased coverage of the Middle East affairs by the mainstream media and the failure of President Obama in repairing the damaged picture of the United States in the global stage.
Projecting Power or Promoting Peace: The Prophetic Call for Justice, Kindness, Humility
Texas Observer online ·
I want to speak tonight in the language of spirit, but about subjects that transcend religion. I want to discuss politics, but in a way that transcends parties. I want to struggle with crises we have created out of ignorance and inattention; face up to problems that have no simple solutions; deal with the depths of human destructiveness and despair.
This will lead us, of course, to George W. Bush and his administration’s contribution to this mess.
Elections: The day after
UT News ·
Because crucial questions are not on the agenda for the two dominant parties battling on Nov. 2, we have to commit to a radical citizens’ agenda on Nov. 3.
Soils and Souls: The Promise of the Land
Texas Observer online ·
In the search for alternatives to our dead-end industrial agriculture system, Land Institute researchers are pursuing plant breeding programs that just may be the key to post-oil farming. But beyond the science, “The Land” — that’s how everyone there refers to the Institute in conversation — provides a fertile space for mixing the ideas of people as well as the genes of plants. In both cases, the hybrid vigor — the superior qualities that result from crossbreeding — is exciting.
Political Wish List: Honest Talk About Economics, Empire, And Energy
Countercurrents ·
There’s no shortage of political blather in this year’s mid-term election campaigns, but most of us yearn for substantive discussion of the serious problems we face. What should the politicians be discussing? The University of Texas at Austin asked faculty members who teach about politics “to analyze, examine and provide their perspectives” on key political issues for the university’s web site. Below are my contributions, three short essays that raise critical questions about economics, empire, and energy that are routinely ignored by most politicians.
Pornography undermines our humanity: interview with True Feminism
True Feminism ·
Prof. Jensen talks to True Feminism about the pornographic war on women.
There Are No Heroes in Illegal and Immoral Wars
Common Dreams ·
When the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division rolled out of Iraq last week, the colonel commanding the brigade told a reporter that his soldiers were “leaving as heroes.”
While we can understand the pride of professional soldiers and the emotion behind that statement, it’s time for Americans — military and civilian — to face a difficult reality: In seven years of the deceptively named “Operation Iraqi Freedom” and nine years of “Operation Enduring Freedom” in Afghanistan, no member of the U.S. has been a hero.
Beyond Race, Gender, and Class: Reclaiming the Radical Roots of Social Justice Movements
Global Dialogue ·
To make significant progress in the struggle for social justice in the United States, we have to get beyond race, gender, and class.
At first glance, that may seem an odd claim to anyone who has studied political and economic realities in the United States and the larger world: injustice in contemporary society is clearly connected to the categories of race, gender, and class. In fact, virtually all the systematic injustices that humans impose on one another in our society are related to these categories, and the resulting injuries are serious and demand attention.
Why am I here? Our struggle for meaning, in the world and church
OpEdNews.com ·
Let’s approach the question “Why am I here?” at two different levels.
The first is the question of the ages, which we all have asked at some point: Why is any one of us here? Why are we humans here, with this vexing consciousness and frustrating capacity for self-reflection? Are we the product of some larger plan beyond our understanding? Do humans have a purpose? Are we special?
The answer to that is easy: No. We are not special. We are an organism like all others, the product of an evolutionary process in a very big universe in which we are, as individuals, insignificant. But don’t fret about that; we are also insignificant as a species, and the collection of entities on Earth that we call “life” is insignificant, as is the planetary ecosystem in which we live and our solar system and our galaxy. We are, in the big picture, insignificant beings floating in insignificance in a universe that is vast beyond human comprehension.
Struggling to be ‘Fully Alive’: Reports on Coping with Anguish for a World in Collapse
Common Dreams ·
“I don’t have anything to say that hasn’t been said many times over the centuries.”
That may have been the most insightful response to my essay asking people to report on how they cope with the anguish of living in a world in collapse.
The Anguish of the Age: Emotional Reactions to Collapse
Common Dreams ·
We live amidst multiple crises — economic and political, cultural and ecological — that pose a significant threat to human life as we understand it.
There is no way to be awake to the depth of these crises without an emotional reaction. There is no way to be aware of the pain caused by these systemic failures without some experience of dread, depression, distress.
The Soul Seeker: A neuroscientist’s search for the human essence
Texas Observer; Counter Currents ·
Diversity Dead-End: Inclusiveness Without Accountability
Common Dreams ·
After a recent talk on racism and other illegitimate hierarchies at a diversity conference in Dallas, I received a letter from one of the people who had attended that asked “why you feel it necessary to perpetuate and even exacerbate the divisiveness of language when addressing a group of people assembled to learn how to live better together and be more accepting of differences?” He suggested that by being so sharply critical, I was part of the problem not the solution.
The Collapse of Journalism/The Journalism of Collapse: New Storytelling and a New Story
Resilience.org ·
There is considerable attention paid in the United States to the collapse of journalism — both in terms of the demise of the business model for corporate commercial news media, and the evermore superficial, shallow, and senseless content that is inadequate for citizens concerned with self-governance. This collapse is part of larger crises in the political and economic spheres, crises rooted in the incompatibility of democracy and capitalism. New journalistic vehicles for storytelling are desperately needed.
There has been far less discussion of the need for a journalism of collapse — the challenge to tell the story of a world facing multiple crises in the realms of social justice and sustainability. This collapse of the basic political and economic systems of the modern world, with dramatic consequences on the human and ecological fronts, demands not only new storytelling vehicles but a new story.
What White People Fear
YES! magazine ·
In the struggle for racial justice, it’s time to pay more attention to the fears of white people.
In a white-dominated world, that may seem counterintuitive. In the racial arena, what do we white people have to be afraid of?