Wild Mind, Wild Earth: Our Place in the Sixth Extinction

In this stimulating outing, Hinton (China Root), winner of the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation, investigates the philosophical and spiritual assumptions about the “Sixth Extinction.” The Western belief that humans are separate from and more valuable than the earth is a “wound,” Hinton contends, that can be healed by adopting the view of Paleolithic humans, who believed that people are integral to and kindred with nature. Tracing the halting attempts to articulate this sensibility by such Western figures as the American transcendentalists and Robinson Jeffers, Hinton posits that the Paleolithic sensibility is best preserved in the Chinese traditions of Taoism and Ch’an Buddhism. These philosophies, he explains, challenge adherents to empty the self and “integrate consciousness” with the universe through meditation. Most controversially, Hinton argues that readers should see the sixth extinction as “perfectly fine” because humans and other creatures facing annihilation are cosmic specks whose disappearance will make way for new possibilities. Hinton’s extensive discussion of the Western tradition’s crypto-Paleolithic sensibilities makes his examination of Taoism and Ch’an feel undercooked by comparison, though the blend of Western and Eastern philosophies is refreshing and his willingness to view the sixth extinction as an opportunity to learn and reflect is sure to inspire debate. Provocative and original, this one’s worth tracking down. (Nov.)