The Plowboy Interview
(Page 7 of 18)
It's all part of the rise of the centralized state. Without
even knowing quite why they must, except out of a spirit of
sheer survival, small cultures like the Cornish, like the
Bretons, like the Welsh, like the Irish, like the Scotsjust
to give a few examples in Western Europe-have tried to hang
on through the centuries by the skin of their teeth, tried
to maintain some of their own identity.
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These peoples are not only arguing for cultural
authenticity and the right to existwhich is certainly a
right-but also for the maintenance of the skills and
practices that belong with local economies and that enable
them to operate in a sustainable manner, via their own
specialized, local knowledges, over the centuries.
From one angle, then, bioregionalism stands for the
decentralization of, the critique of, the state. In part,
it draws on the history of anarchist thought: the line of
thought that argues that we do not need a state, and that
the state or government is not necessarily synonymous with
the social order and organization inherent in society. By
anarchism I mean a nonviolent political philosophy that
finds order in the possibilities of a free society, and not
in the imposed order of a state structure operating with a
monopoly on violence from above. That's what I mean by
anarchism, not the work of wild-eyed bomb throwers (to
clear up that misapprehension). So North American
bioregionalism is an extension of anarchist thought,
combined with much appreciation of American Indian culture
areas, the recognition of the virtues of decentralization,
and the insights of "field ecology."
With that in mind, we look at the web of political
boundaries thrown on this continent by the rapid history of
American expansion. Bioregionalists see them as poorly
drawn, as inappropriate. Environmental concerns then begin
to enter the bioregional perspective, saying, in effect,
that if we had political boundaries more appropriate to the
regions in which we live-followin'g watersheds or mountain
ranges, following plant zones and soil types-that would be
a step in the right direction, both socially and
ecologically, in that it would enable us to tune our local
societies more precisely to the natural resources that are
already in place, and to form our human communities and
associations more appropriately to the natural communities.
It's a step toward actually asserting the unity of the tree
and bird communities with the human. We all share the same
natural boundaries, you see.
PLOWBOY: And that demands our taking
responsibility for our km n area.
SNYDER: And that means all species taking
responsibility together.
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