First of all, thanks for the constructive response.

bigotry was kind of a part of the origin story [of evolution and genetics], not just a distortion [...] They started as a means for racism and bigotry

Good catch! I was under the impression that they were impossibly entwined at the start and almost immediately co-opted, rather than directly conceived to be a means for racism, bigotry, and colonialism - but that's not what I wrote in my previous comment either, so thanks for the clarification/pushback.

No, it does not follow that humans dominating each other is the root cause of dominating nature, and the final conclusion is therefore rendered invalid.

For the record, that quote isn't in the article but in this community's sidebar. Apologies if you're clearly aware of this already; it's not clear to me when reading your comment and so I'm not super confident that I'm engaging with this remark on the proper grounds.

I have not yet seen a justification for the domination of nature that doesn't invoke the separation of humans from nature at some point. I tend to agree that it is not accurate to claim that humans dominating each other is the root cause of humans dominating nature (if there is a cause-and-effect relationship here, I tend to think it goes the other way around). I do think it is accurate to view othering of people and othering of nature as two peas in a pod; either can lead to the other, both seem profoundly unscientific and both must be dismantled (ideally in tandem, at the very least in quick succession) to prevent one "sneaking back in" under cover of the other. Under this lens, the final conclusion seems quite valid to me - though I understand criticizing the reasoning this quote uses to arrive at said conclusion.

Apologies if you felt personally attacked.

Mostly confused, but thanks for clearing that up. I certainly don't feel attacked now, on the contrary!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_confederalism
Öcalan reformulated the political objectives of the Kurdish liberation movement, abandoning the old statist and centralizing socialist project for a radical and renewed proposal for a form of libertarian socialism that no longer aims at building an independent state separate from Turkey, but at establishing an autonomous, democratic and decentralized entity based on the ideas of democratic confederalism.

Very interesting, thanks for that link! I had read https://raddle.me/f/Anarchism/154271/why-rojava-is-neither-anarchist-nor-communalist a year or two ago which cited sources that, among other things, there was a cult of personality developing there. Not only did I mix up Rojava with the PKK but that link now gives a 404. That'll teach me to not regularly inform myself.

But with regards to the article, the biggest issue I have is that it’s founded upon the “othering” of people who disagree. “It’s not our fault or something that we should fix together. It’s their fault, and we should try to eradicate their disease.” That’s not to say that we have to “tolerate their intolerance,” but they aren’t diseased for having bad paradigms any more than someone is diseased for liking pineapple on pizza or believing in a different god. Ideas aren’t diseases.

I'm not convinced that the article necessarily others people, nor that your summary is exactly accurate, especially when the latter 2/3 of the article are about the work needed to "free ourselves" (not others) of these paradigms of domination and (over)consumption. From my reading, it qualifies our culture as diseased, which then seeds these bad ideas in us in a self-perpetuating cycle. The wikipedia page on disease states:

A disease may be caused by external factors such as pathogens or by internal dysfunctions. [...] In humans, disease is often used more broadly to refer to any condition that causes pain, dysfunction, distress, social problems, or death to the person affected, or similar problems for those in contact with the person. [...] In developed countries, the diseases that cause the most sickness overall are neuropsychiatric conditions, such as depression and anxiety.

This seems to me to be very compatible with the anarchist critiques of domination and the very notion of alienation. I think I understand your criticism in regards to the language used; "disease" is unfortunate given how it has been used to justify various flavors of ableism, eugenics, and general othering over the past few centuries. Is the way the article uses that word enough for you to pass on the entire text, are you merely focusing on the text's flaws in your critique (without necessarily a wholesale rejection of said text), or have I maybe just misunderstood you here completely?

To quote the article a final time:

Thus, one of the starting points for healing is the simple act of seeing wetiko in ourselves, in others, and in our cultural infrastructure. And once we see, we can name, which is critical because words and language are a central battleground.

I see clear parallels to (my understanding of) how racism, colonialism, imperialism, misogyny, patriarchy, speciesism must be dismantled in our minds to truly make progress in dismantling them "outside of ourselves" (i.e. in society as a whole). I find there is a sad irony in how the article seems to ultimately fail because of it's choice of words and language when that seems to be one of it's key takeaways.

Perhaps I should have included this as the initial, top-level post body: I was asked a few years back by a family member to read a blog post criticizing the state of the 5th edition of the tabletop role playing game Werewolf The Apocalypse, written by a First Nations member. The blog post took great offense to the game's use of "Wendigo" as name for a native tribe of werewolves but mostly explained other issues with the game. At the time I didn't know of the actual background for this concept. The article I shared here [that we're discussing] was the first source I found since that fully brought home the gravity of the cultural appropriation being done by western media commercializing a piece of folklore that specifically is about the type of antisocial, cannabilistic mindset that so deeply characterizes the worst of "western civilization". It also does a decent job of citing sources (though I haven't read any of them (yet)). It seemed à propos to share it in the communities on this instance that are ostensibly about repairing/bettering our collective relationship with others and the "natural" world.

Oof, apologies for the long post. In case you don't feel up to continuing this exchange, thanks for reminding me to at least be more careful with how I share things (and what I share) on the fediverse.