One of the theses of A Language Older Than Words is that we have an entire culture suffering from complex post-traumatic stress disorder. We're incap… - Derrick Jensen

From the perspective of those who are entitled, the problems begin when those they despise do not go along with--and have the power and wherewithal to not go along with--the perceived entitlement.

A primary purpose of Judeo-Christianity has not been to move us toward a community where the teachings of someone like Jesus - simple and necessary suggestions for how to get along with eachother - are made manifest in all aspects of life, but instead provide a theological framework for a system of exploitation.[...] It is more convenient for exploiter and exploited alike to pretend their parasitic relationship is Natural, ordained by God. It is easier to believe in a logic that leads directly from original sin to totalitarianism.

So many indigenous people have said to me that the fundamental difference between Western and indigenous ways of being is that even the most open-minded westerners generally view listening to the natural world as a metaphor, as opposed to the way the world really is. Trees and rocks and rivers really do have things to say to us.