Kirkpatrick Sale
Encyclopedia
Kirkpatrick Sale is an independent scholar
Independent scholar
An independent scholar is anyone who conducts scholarly research outside universities and traditional academia. Independent scholars play an especially important role in areas such as art history and other humanities fields...

 and author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 who has written prolifically about political decentralism, environmentalism
Environmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...

, luddism and technology. He has been described as having a "philosophy unified by decentralism" and as being "a leader of the Neo-Luddites,", an "anti-globalization
Globalization
Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...

 leftist
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...

," and "the theoretician for a new secession
Secession
Secession is the act of withdrawing from an organization, union, or especially a political entity. Threats of secession also can be a strategy for achieving more limited goals.-Secession theory:...

ist movement."

Life and work

Sale grew up in Cayuga Heights, Ithaca, New York
Ithaca, New York
The city of Ithaca, is a city in upstate New York and the county seat of Tompkins County, as well as the largest community in the Ithaca-Tompkins County metropolitan area...

, and would later say of the village that he "spent most of my first twenty years there, and that has made an imprint on me–on my philosophy, social attitudes, certainly on my politics–that has lasted powerfully for the rest of my life." He graduated from Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

, majoring in history, in 1958. He served as editor of the student-owned and managed newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun. Sale was one of the leaders of the May 23, 1958 protest against university policies forbidding male and female students fraternizing and its "in loco parentis
In loco parentis
The term in loco parentis, Latin for "in the place of a parent"" refers to the legal responsibility of a person or organization to take on some of the functions and responsibilities of a parent...

" policy. Sale and his friend and roommate Richard Farina
Richard Fariña
Richard George Fariña was an American writer and folksinger.-Early years and education:Richard Fariña was born in Brooklyn, New York, of Cuban and Irish descent. He grew up in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn and attended Brooklyn Technical High School...

, and three others, were charged by Cornell. The protest was described in Farina's 1966 novel, Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me
Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me
Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me is a novel by Richard Fariña. First published in the United States during 1966 the novel, based largely on Fariña's college experiences and travels, is a comic picaresque story that is set in the American West, in Cuba during the Cuban Revolution, and at an...

.
In 1958 he collaborated with Thomas Pynchon
Thomas Pynchon
Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr. is an American novelist. For his most praised novel, Gravity's Rainbow, Pynchon received the National Book Award, and is regularly cited as a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature...

 on an unproduced futuristic musical called "Minstrel Island."

Upon graduating in 1958, Sale married Faith Apfelbaum, who later worked as an editor with Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was a 20th century American writer. His works such as Cat's Cradle , Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions blend satire, gallows humor and science fiction. He was known for his humanist beliefs and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association.-Early...

, Joseph Heller
Joseph Heller
Joseph Heller was a US satirical novelist, short story writer, and playwright. His best known work is Catch-22, a novel about US servicemen during World War II...

 and Amy Tan
Amy Tan
Amy Tan is an American writer whose works explore mother-daughter relationships. Her most well-known work is The Joy Luck Club, which has been translated into 35 languages...

. Faith died in 1999.

Sale worked initially in journalism
Journalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...

 for the leftist journal New Leader, "a magazine founded in 1924 in part by socialists
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...

 Norman Thomas
Norman Thomas
Norman Mattoon Thomas was a leading American socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.-Early years:...

 and Eugene Debs," and the New York Times Magazine, before becoming a freelance journalist. He spent time in Ghana
Ghana
Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...

 and wrote his first book about it. His second book, SDS, was about the radical 1960s group Students for a Democratic Society
Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)
Students for a Democratic Society was a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main iconic representations of the country's New Left. The organization developed and expanded rapidly in the mid-1960s before dissolving at its last convention in 1969...

, of which he was a founder. The book "is still considered one of the best sources on the youth activist organization that helped define 1960s radicalism." In 1968, he signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

. Subsequent books explored radical decentralism, bioregionalism
Bioregionalism
Bioregionalism is a political, cultural, and environmental system or set of views based on naturally defined areas called bioregions, similar to ecoregions. Bioregions are defined through physical and environmental features, including watershed boundaries and soil and terrain characteristics...

, environmentalism
Environmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...

, the Luddites and similar themes. He "has been a regular contributor to progressive magazines like Mother Jones
Mother Jones (magazine)
Mother Jones is an American independent news organization, featuring investigative and breaking news reporting on politics, the environment, human rights, and culture. Mother Jones has been nominated for 23 National Magazine Awards and has won six times, including for General Excellence in 2001,...

and The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...

for the better part of his writing career," and has continued to write for those publications, as well as for The American Conservative
The American Conservative
The American Conservative is a monthly U.S. opinion magazine published by Ron Unz. Its first editor was Scott McConnell, his successors being Kara Hopkins and the present incumbent, Daniel McCarthy....

, CounterPunch
Counterpunch
Counterpunch can refer to:* Counterpunch , a punch in boxing* CounterPunch, a bi-weekly political newsletter* Counterpunch , a type of punch used in traditional typography* Punch-Counterpunch, a Transformers character...

, The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...

, and the Utne Reader
Utne Reader
Utne Reader is an American bimonthly magazine. The magazine collects and reprints articles on politics, culture, and the environment from generally alternative media sources, including journals, newsletters, weeklies, zines, music and DVDs...

. Sale presented public affairs programming for WBAI
WBAI
WBAI, a part of the Pacifica Radio Network, is a non-commercial, listener-supported radio station, broadcasting at 99.5 FM in New York City.Its programming is leftist/progressive, and a mixture of political news and opinion from a leftist perspective, tinged with aspects of its complex and varied...

 in the early 1980s and has made appearances on alternative radio over the years.

History

In his 1990 book, The Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy, Sale argued that Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...

 was an imperialist bent on conquest from his first voyage. In a New York Times book review, historian and member of the Christopher Columbus Quincentenary Jubilee Committee William H. McNeill
William H. McNeill
William Hardy McNeill is an American world historian and author and is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Chicago, where he has taught since 1947.-Biography:...

 wrote about Sale: "he has set out to destroy the heroic image that earlier writers have transmitted to us. Mr. Sale makes Columbus out to be cruel, greedy and incompetent (even as a sailor), and a man who was perversely intent on abusing the natural paradise on which he intruded." The book Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in American History presents a debate between Sale and Robert Royal, vice president for research at the Ethics and Public Policy Center
Ethics and Public Policy Center
The Ethics and Public Policy Center is a Washington, D.C.-based conservative advocacy group. Formed in 1976 by Ernest W. Lefever, who was its president until 1989, the group describes itself as "dedicated to applying the Judeo-Christian moral tradition to critical issues of public policy."Since...

, who insisted that Columbus was a courageous risk-taker who advanced knowledge about other parts of the world.

Technology

Sale "has written extensively and skeptically about technology," and has said he is "a great admirer" of anarchoprimitivist John Zerzan
John Zerzan
John Zerzan is an American anarchist and primitivist philosopher and author. His works criticize agricultural civilization as inherently oppressive, and advocate drawing upon the ways of life of prehistoric humans as an inspiration for what a free society should look like...

. He has described personal computers as "the devil's work" and in the past opened personal appearances by smashing one. During promotion of his 1995 book Rebels Against the Future: The Luddites and Their War on the Industrial Revolution, Sale debated with Newsweek Magazine senior editor and technology columnist Steven Levy
Steven Levy
Steven Levy is an American journalist who has written several books on computers, technology, cryptography, the Internet, cybersecurity, and privacy.-Career:...

 "about the relative merits of the communications age".

Sale has said that he does not "care much for popular music
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...

 outside some of the Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley is the name given to the collection of New York City music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century...

 era tunes of the early 20th century." For example, "he once heard a 'racket' in a nightclub during his left activist days in the 1960s from some 'young man' everyone told him was a 'big deal.' That 'young man' turned out to be Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

." Kirk recalls that "he’d never heard anything so awful in his life."

In 1995, Sale made a public bet with Kevin Kelly that by the year 2020, there would be a convergence of three disasters: global currency
Currency
In economics, currency refers to a generally accepted medium of exchange. These are usually the coins and banknotes of a particular government, which comprise the physical aspects of a nation's money supply...

 collapse, significant warfare between rich and poor, and environmental disaster
Environmental disaster
An environmental disaster is a disaster to the natural environment due to human activity. It should not be confused with the separate concept of a natural disaster.-History:...

s of some significant size. The bet was turned into a claim on the FX prediction market
Prediction market
Prediction markets are speculative markets created for the purpose of making predictions...

, where the probability has hovered around 25%.

Secession

Sale has been described as "one of the intellectual godfathers of the secessionist movement." He argues that the major theme of contemporary history, from the dissolution of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 to the expansion of United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

 membership from 51 in 1945 to nations today, is the breakup of great empires. Some on both left and right call for smaller, less powerful government.

In 2004, Sale and members of the Second Vermont Republic
Second Vermont Republic
Second Vermont Republic is a secessionist group within the U.S. state of Vermont which seeks to return to the formerly independent status of the Vermont Republic . It describes itself as "a nonviolent citizens' network and think tank opposed to the tyranny of Corporate America and the U.S...

 formed the Middlebury Institute
Middlebury Institute
The Middlebury Institute for the study of separatism, secession, and self-determination is a political think tank and activist organization founded in 2005...

 which is dedicated to the study of separatism
Separatism
Separatism is the advocacy of a state of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, governmental or gender separation from the larger group. While it often refers to full political secession, separatist groups may seek nothing more than greater autonomy...

, secession
Secession
Secession is the act of withdrawing from an organization, union, or especially a political entity. Threats of secession also can be a strategy for achieving more limited goals.-Secession theory:...

, and self-determination
Self-determination
Self-determination is the principle in international law that nations have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no external compulsion or external interference...

. Sale is director of the institute. In 2006, Middlebury sponsored the First North American Secessionist Convention, which attracted 40 participants from 16 secessionist organizations and was described as the first gathering of secessionists since the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

. Delegates issued a statement of principles of secession which they presented as the Burlington Declaration.

In October 2007, the New York Times interviewed Sale about the Second North American Secessionist Convention, co-hosted by the Middlebury Institute. Sale told the interviewer, "The virtue of small government is that the mistakes are small as well." He went on to say, "If you want to leave a nation you think is corrupt, inefficient, militaristic, oppressive, repressive, but you don't want to move to Canada or France, what do you do? Well, the way is through secession, where you could stay home and be where you want to be.” The convention received worldwide media attention.

News stories about the Second North American Secessionist Convention in 2007 mentioned the controversial Southern Poverty Law Center
Southern Poverty Law Center
The Southern Poverty Law Center is an American nonprofit civil rights organization noted for its legal victories against white supremacist groups; legal representation for victims of hate groups; monitoring of alleged hate groups, militias and extremist organizations; and educational programs that...

's allegations that the other co-sponsor, The League of the South, was a "racist hate group." Sale responded, "They call everybody racists. There are, no doubt, racists in the League of the South, and there are, no doubt, racists everywhere." The Southern Poverty Law Center later criticized the New York Times' October 2007 Peter Applebombe interview of Sale for not covering its allegations.

Sale wrote the foreword to Thomas Naylor
Thomas Naylor
Thomas Naylor, born May 30, 1936, in Jackson, Mississippi, is a Professor Emeritus of Economics at Duke University, the author of thirty books, and a founder of the Second Vermont Republic...

's 2008 book Secession: How Vermont and all the Other States Can Save Themselves from the Empire. Sale continues to speak on secession and other issues around the nation.

Books

  • The Land and People of Ghana, Lippincott, 1963, 1972.
  • SDS, Random House, 1973. Vintage Books edition (paperback) 1974. ISBN 0-394-47889-4
  • Power Shift: The Rise of the Southern Rim and Its Challenge to the Eastern Establishment. New York: Random House, 1975.
  • Human Scale. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1980. ISBN 0-698-11013-7
  • Dwellers in the Land: The Bioregional Vision. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books
    Sierra Club Books
    Sierra Club Books is the publishing division of the Sierra Club, founded in 1960 by then Sierra Club President David Brower. Volumes intended for club members had been published prior to 1960. In addition, books under their name had been published before 1960, but done through already established...

    , 1985. ISBN 0-87156-847-0
  • The Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy, Knopf, 1990.
  • The Green Revolution: The American Environmental Movement, 1962-1992, Hill and Wang, 1993.
  • Rebels Against the Future: The Luddites and Their War on the Industrial Revolution: Lessons for the Computer Age, Addison Wesley, 1995.
  • Why the Sea Is Salt: Poems of Love and Loss, iuniverse, 2001.
  • The Fire of His Genius: Robert Fulton and the American Dream, Free Press, 2001.
  • After Eden: The Evolution of Human Domination, Duke University Press, 2006. ISBN 978-0-8223-3938-0

Writings on-line


Interviews


See also

  • Bioregionalism
    Bioregionalism
    Bioregionalism is a political, cultural, and environmental system or set of views based on naturally defined areas called bioregions, similar to ecoregions. Bioregions are defined through physical and environmental features, including watershed boundaries and soil and terrain characteristics...

  • Decentralization
    Decentralization
    __FORCETOC__Decentralization or decentralisation is the process of dispersing decision-making governance closer to the people and/or citizens. It includes the dispersal of administration or governance in sectors or areas like engineering, management science, political science, political economy,...

  • Human scale
    Human scale
    Human scale is the set of physical quantities, and quantities of information, characterizing the human body, its motor, sensory, or mental capabilities, and human social institutions.- Science vs...

  • Middlebury Institute
    Middlebury Institute
    The Middlebury Institute for the study of separatism, secession, and self-determination is a political think tank and activist organization founded in 2005...

  • Thomas Naylor
    Thomas Naylor
    Thomas Naylor, born May 30, 1936, in Jackson, Mississippi, is a Professor Emeritus of Economics at Duke University, the author of thirty books, and a founder of the Second Vermont Republic...

  • Neo-Luddism
    Neo-luddism
    Neo-Luddism is a personal world view opposing any modern technology. Its name is based on the historical legacy of the British Luddites which were active between 1811 and 1816...

  • Simple living
    Simple living
    Simple living encompasses a number of different voluntary practices to simplify one's lifestyle. These may include reducing one's possessions or increasing self-sufficiency, for example. Simple living may be characterized by individuals being satisfied with what they need rather than want...

  • Secession
    Secession
    Secession is the act of withdrawing from an organization, union, or especially a political entity. Threats of secession also can be a strategy for achieving more limited goals.-Secession theory:...

  • Secession in the United States
    Secession in the United States
    Secession in the United States can refer to secession of a state from the United States, secession of part of a state from that state to form a new state, or secession of an area from a city or county....

  • Second Vermont Republic
    Second Vermont Republic
    Second Vermont Republic is a secessionist group within the U.S. state of Vermont which seeks to return to the formerly independent status of the Vermont Republic . It describes itself as "a nonviolent citizens' network and think tank opposed to the tyranny of Corporate America and the U.S...


External links

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