Rediscovering, valuing, and embracing Indigenous spirituality and wisdom is critical for humanity to survive in the future.
Civilization is a western, Eurocentric construct borne from a distrust of nature, a desire to endlessly exploit it and profit from it. Despite being a relatively recent development, civilization’s inherent logic has resulted in over-population, inequality, poverty, misery, war, and climate change and now threatens humanity’s very survival. How can humanity expect to survive if it continues to look for solutions from the very structures and ideologies that have brought it to the brink of extinction?
In this final book of his trilogy, Dr. Blair Stonechild deftly illustrates how Indigenous spirituality, wisdom, and land-based knowledge is critical to human survival in the face of environmental destruction and human-induced climate change. Reinterpreting world history from an Indigenous perspective, Stonechild’s solution to this unfolding catastrophe is “ecolization,” a state in which humans recognize they are not the central purpose of creation and a way of existing harmoniously with the natural and spiritual worlds.
Beautifully written, urgent, and critical, Challenge to Civilization reminds us that it is not Earth that is in danger of extinction, but ourselves, and Indigenous spiritual wisdom can be the guiding light through what will otherwise be humanity’s final, ever-darkening days.
Civilization is a western, Eurocentric construct borne from a distrust of nature, a desire to endlessly exploit it and profit from it. Despite being a relatively recent development, civilization’s inherent logic has resulted in over-population, inequality, poverty, misery, war, and climate change and now threatens humanity’s very survival. How can humanity expect to survive if it continues to look for solutions from the very structures and ideologies that have brought it to the brink of extinction?
In this final book of his trilogy, Dr. Blair Stonechild deftly illustrates how Indigenous spirituality, wisdom, and land-based knowledge is critical to human survival in the face of environmental destruction and human-induced climate change. Reinterpreting world history from an Indigenous perspective, Stonechild’s solution to this unfolding catastrophe is “ecolization,” a state in which humans recognize they are not the central purpose of creation and a way of existing harmoniously with the natural and spiritual worlds.
Beautifully written, urgent, and critical, Challenge to Civilization reminds us that it is not Earth that is in danger of extinction, but ourselves, and Indigenous spiritual wisdom can be the guiding light through what will otherwise be humanity’s final, ever-darkening days.
Authors
- Pages
- 184
- Published in
- Canada
Table of Contents
- CONTENTS 7
- PREFACE 9
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 17
- O N E 21
- RECALLING OUR HERITAGE 21
- T W O 41
- BREAKING THE BOND 41
- T H R E E 61
- INDIGENOUS APOCALYPSE 61
- F O U R 79
- KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM 79
- F I V E 95
- NATURAL VERSUS ARTIFICIAL 95
- S I X 115
- DANGEROUS MINDS 115
- S E V E N 137
- CULTURE AS LIFESTYLE 137
- E I G H T 149
- RETURNING TO STEWARDSHIP 149
- N I N E 161
- NEEDING ALLIES 161
- T E N 179
- THE ONLY VIABLE PATH 179
- A P P E N D I X 197
- SEVEN FIRES PROPHECY 197
- GLOSSARY 201
- BIBLIOGRAPHY 205
- NOTES 211
- INDEx 221
