Challenge to Civilization: Indigenous Wisdom and the Future is the third book in my series on Indigenous spirituality. The Knowledge Seeker addressed the nature and viability of Indigenous beliefs, and Loss of Indigenous Eden examined how Indigenous sacred knowledge became oppressed, suppressed, and discounted. This book will demonstrate that Indigenous spirituality is not only still relevant but will be critical to human survival in terms of restoring balance with both natural and supernatural worlds.
Dr A. Blair Stonechild is a Cree-Saulteaux member of the Muscowpetung First Nation, professor of Indigenous Studies at First Nations University of Canada, a residential school survivor, and the author of several books on Indigenous history and spirituality. Stonechild’s Challenge to Civilization perfectly captures humanity’s current precarious position at the brink of self-destruction and makes the dual points that there was nothing inevitable about the rise of Western civilisation — one need only look to the Australian Aborigines’ sixty-thousand years of continual culture to recognise that a life lived in spiritual harmony with the environment is stable and indefinitely sustainable, whereas our six thousand year journey of greed and expansion since the first city at Ur has brought us to the point of collapse — and that it’s not too late to embrace the original, Indigenous practices that were once common to everyone on earth. I found quite a bit of this confronting, but mostly because I’m a product of Western culture and its education system; really thinking about what Stonechild has to say, it’s hard to find fault with his conclusions. Fascinating, mind-expanding read. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quotes may not be in their final forms.)
Civilization has waged a relentless and often violent campaign to colonize Indigenous Peoples emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. Part of this campaign has been to portray Indigenous societies as proto-civilizations that would have eventually trodden the path of human self-centredness, greed, and destructiveness. As an alternative, I create the word “ecolization” — a state in which humans recognize that they are not the central purpose of creation, remain grateful for the opportunity to experience physical life, and continue to obey the Creator’s “original instructions”.
Stonechild describes his “ecolizations” as hunter-gatherer societies, in which people lived in harmony with nature, only taking what they needed from the commons, and making decisions through group consultation, meditation, and communication with the spiritual. If I had a complaint about this, it would be that he treats all communities outside of Western civilisation (including pre-colonised India and pre-Opium Wars China) as living this way — from the Aztecs, to the Celts, to anyone the Romans called “Barbarians'' — and I’m not sure that this is strictly true. On the other hand, there’s no denying that if Homo sapiens have been around for 600 000+ years, and it has only been since 1820 that “civilised” folks outnumbered the Indigenous around the world, the survival of our species did seem better guaranteed in pre-civilsed times. More than once, Stonechild takes issue with the Hobbesian “nasty, brutish, and short” denigration of a life lived in harmony with nature.
In mainstream education we are taught that archeologists, geneticists, and other scientists are convinced that life originated from some sort of biological soup. It is contended that we, as humans, are simply advanced apes — a sort of evolutionary accident. But such an account never existed among Indigenous Peoples. The theory of evolution has been around for less than 200 years, compared to Indigenous stories, such as humanity’s coming from the stars, that have existed for tens of thousands of years. So why are Indigenous stories not given more credence, or at least equal exposure to scientific accounts?
I did find this line of thought confronting — that evolution is a “theory”, no more valid as an explanation for the appearance of human consciousness than the Indigenous belief that we came from the stars (and again, is this a universal Indigenous belief?) — and while on the one hand I can feel defensive of the scientific tradition (in which I was raised and educated), on the other, I have to agree that science seems to be mostly in the service of extracting resources, expanding populations, and providing militaries with ever-deadlier weapons of mass destruction; what if we did all behave as though our purpose on earth was to learn through relationships without harm? (And speaking of science and those who thought of First Nations as “primitive” because they didn’t have Old World technology, Stonechild writes, “Indigenous Peoples, given tens of thousands of years of careful development guided by higher virtues, would have eventually discovered all of today’s sciences and technologies, and even more. However, these would have been acquired in a wisely considered way, and as such, would be safe and beneficial for future generations.” More to think on.)
The wetiko (greed-driven) cultures that are now in control of world affairs pretend to solve problems through a combination of rationalism, economic development, and military threat. Unfortunately, they lack spiritual authority and will never possess it until they reconcile with Indigenous Peoples and their ancient wisdom. Only a moral revolution can bring humanity back to its original path. What if we could redirect our intellectual, economic, and technological energies into healing Earth? This would lead us closer to a future that recognizes, celebrates, and honours the higher nature of our species.
Stonechild writes that even if we made the decision today to embrace Indigenous wisdom as a way to direct world affairs, it could take thousands of years to regain harmony and stability. He acknowledges that we’re not going to give up all of our comforts, but he’s not wrong that Western society is sick and pushing the planet to environmental ruin. Reading this book, and really taking the time to think about what he’s saying — dismissing the voice of rationality that says, “How? There’s no way. Others will always be greedy even if I’m not...” and embracing the spiritual voice that says, “You were not made to live like this...” — there’s something to Stonechild’s argument that feels satisfying and true. And yet the rational voice keeps popping up because that is what I’m steeped in. I know I’ll keep thinking on this and am enlarged for having read this.
