Don’t you think that civilization is a confusing word? It seems that it always implies Western civilization and certain kinds of behavior and ways of being in the world that are in conflict with the environment...

That particular one needs to be rethought, especially if you look over the history of the European knowledge system and mind. One of the things I’m most interested in is talking about indigenous traditions and looking at the differences between the two.

If you take a system of agriculture that was in place on this continent at the time of first contact and how well it was working, and then you compare it with the agriculture of Europe at that time, there’s simply no comparison. Something happened in Europe, in Western civilization, that created a breakdown of a healthy knowledge system and a healthy relationship with the rest of the world. I spend all of my time reading, writing, thinking about what it is that created people who thought they were civilized but really were the harshest and cruelest people in any time and any place from the beginning.