Derrick Jensen on Identifying with the System (via thinksquad)

N: This guy, Derrick Jensen is an interesting man with my favorite kind of sociological perspective, something I like to call Positive Deviance. In most perspectives society as a whole is taken into consideration, including origins of strong and subtle influences and how they create personal identification with these influences.  (Think about the influence of commercials, rhetoric, nationalism, fear, and creating a sense of belonging…)

Derrick’s position is aligned with the perspective of an outside observer in which he is not participating in the system as he is meant to.  This allows him to disassociate himself from the things he is told to be associated with to gain knowledge of how the societal structures were designed to work.  When you don’t participate, you receive backlash and frustration from those who do participate and sometimes from those who run the system (depending on how much you deviate from the expected norm).  

While his deviation is personal, I’m sure it has heavy influence on his books (which I’m now adding to my list to read) and with the people and organizations he decided to associate himself with.  With public attention to positive deviance comes governmental surveillance.  If you speak out too much, they’re watching you.  

I wonder if he’s on the “airport security watch list” like Naomi Wolf.  

(via liberationfrequency)