The smell of a forest. Is there anything more beautiful? I don’t think so.
The smell of a desert after a rain. Is there anything more beautiful? I don’t think so.
The Milky Way. Is there anything more beautiful? I don’t think so.
Agates. Crystals. Granite. The smell and feel and sight of soft soil.
Sunrises and sunsets.
How about the first faint star you see after the sun goes down, hanging just so above the silhouette of a ridge of conifers black on deep, deep blue? Is there anything more beautiful? I don’t think so.
•••
Life itself is art.
By destroying life, human supremacists are destroying the most beautiful and extraordinary innovations, creations, art.
How could they do this?
They value only themselves. What humans create has meaning. What nonhumans create does not.
Not only must human supremacists devalue what nonhumans create, they must destroy these creations, lest these creations remind them that there still exist those who are not under their control, lest it remind them they are not the only beings who exist, that they are not the only beings who create.
This is one reason this culture is so destructive. It is one reason it hates nature so much. The real world keeps reminding us that life is not all about us.
* * *
105 And at this point in the book I hope you don’t suggest that just because humans can’t perceive some sense, that it does not exist.
Chapter Twelve
Conquest
Sometimes people talk about conflict between humans and machines, and you can see that in a lot of science fiction. But the machines we’re creating are not some invasion from Mars. We create these tools to expand our own reach.
RAY KURZWEIL
We see hatred of nature everywhere in this culture. And I mean everywhere. Tonight I saw an op/ed in Forbes Magazine entitled, “In the Battle of Man vs. Nature, Give Me Man.” The article begins, “Welcoming the new year contemplating the sunset comfortably ensconced on a cliffside balcony high above the manicured banks of the Miami River, it’s hard not to marvel at the hand of man. Behold as lights defeat the growing darkness, lending sparkle to a condo canyon that was once a malarial swamp. Yes, the pristine wilderness is a wonderful place to visit, but most rational people would rebel if forced to live there.”106
There are, of course, many things wrong with this, not the least of which is that the “battle,” or rather war, or rather massacre, being waged by “Man” against the rest of the world—a.k.a. “Nature”—is killing the planet. Next, of course, is the insanity of the belief that you can win a war against the planet that provides the basis for your own life; or more accurately, the insanity of the belief that winning a war against the planet that provides the basis for your own life can end in anything other than your own demise as well as the planet’s; where does he think the raw materials come from to build these condo canyons, and where does he believe the energy comes from to power those lights? More importantly, where does he think food and water and oxygen come from? Of course what “winning” this war would look like to him and people like him is not the murder of the planet—you can’t perceive yourself as murdering something you perceive as already inanimate—but rather its complete bending to his will. Its “reorganization.” Next, his preference for the artificial over the natural, in this case city lights to night (and moonlight, starlight, or darkness) and condominiums to wetlands; and his near-Biblical and certainly narcissistic reverence for “the hand of man,” are not only measures of this culture’s sickness, but more basically are pretty straightforward statements of common beliefs that are this culture: that the enslavement of the world is a good thing, and that this enslavement is possible without murdering the planet.
I was also bothered by this statement: “Yes, the pristine wilderness is a wonderful place to visit, but most rational people would rebel if forced to live there.” First, until only a few thousand years ago (and on the Miami River, until only a few hundred years ago), what he calls “pristine wilderness” was not called “pristine wilderness,” and it wasn’t a place for people to visit. It was called “home,” and it was where people lived, people who fought against the conquest and enslavement of their homes, people who did prefer wetlands and starlight to condominiums and city lights. Also, saying that “most rational people would rebel if forced to live there,” implies that those who gladly lived there were not as rational as those who destroyed these “wildernesses” and the humans (and nonhumans) who called these places home. It implies they were not as rational as those who live in condo canyons. This is fully in line with the disturbingly common belief among members of the dominant culture that Indigenous peoples—a.k.a. people who live in “pristine wilderness,” a.k.a. “primitives”—are too often not perceived as fully rational.
I’ll tell you what is not rational, or reasonable: harming the capacity of the earth, our only home, to support life. Nothing could be more unreasonable or irrational or stupid or evil than that.
I want to mention one more passage, from near the end of this Forbes essay: “Will we give a clear mandate to leaders who celebrate man’s exceptionalism, understanding that the incidental problems created as we harness technology to bend nature to our will can be solved using more technology? Or will we cede power over every aspect of our lives to an elite [sic] that claims to speak for the inanimate [sic] environment and seeks to command us to live with less, redistribute our property, and empower politically appointed central planners to scale down and reshape civilization to appease Mother Nature’s wrath?”
Here we go again, with human exceptionalists, which is really just another name for human supremacists—and the same is true for white exceptionalism (or supremacism), male exceptionalism (or supremacism), US or capitalist or civilized exceptionalism (or supremacism)—dismissing the harmful effects of their exceptionalism and supremacism. As always, this dismissal happens because the harmful effects are suffered by the victims of the supremacists, and not generally the supremacists themselves, who are then—what a surprise—generally the beneficiaries of the exploitation that follows from this exceptionalism or supremacism. Two hundred species went extinct today. Ninety-eight percent of old growth forests are gone. Ninety-nine percent of prairies. Ninety-nine percent of wetlands. Ninety percent of the large fish in the oceans are gone. Shellfish in the Pacific Northwest are undergoing reproductive failure because of industrially-induced acidification of the oceans. And these are what he calls “incidental problems,” that is, when he doesn’t claim they’re positive goods. And remember, he is not the point; the point is that he’s articulating a destructive and narcissistic attitude that is the dominant culture—that the extirpation of nonhumans is at most an incidental problem, but more likely either progress (converting nasty swamps to glorious condo canyons), production (developing natural resources), or something completely inconsequential. Because it’s happening to someone who—or, in the human supremacist formulation, something that—is not fully alive, not fully “rational,” not fully aware, and certainly not worthy of moral consideration.
Sometimes the extirpation of nonhumans is perceived as “saving the earth,” as in an article in today’s Los Angeles Times headlined, “Sacrificing the Desert to Save the Earth.”107 The article is about how state and federal governments, a big corporation, and big “environmental” organizations/corporations are murdering great swaths of the Mojave Desert to put in immense solar panels. The desert is being sacrificed not, as the article states, to save the earth, but to generate electricity, primarily for industry. The earth doesn’t need this electricity: industry does. But then again, from this narcissistic perspective, industry is the earth. There is and can be nothing except for the supremacists themselves.
Here are a few of the other problems with this Forbes text, problems which are near
ly universal in this culture’s way of being in the world. First, there is the immorality (and, in this culture, the ubiquity) of wanting to “bend nature to our will.” Or we could talk about this writer for Forbes waxing enthusiastic about bending the entire planet to (his perspective of) “our will,” and then immediately afterwards accusing someone else of being part of some elite. Uh, wouldn’t wanting to bend the world to your will make you by self-definition part of an elite? Or we could talk about the cognitive dissonance that inevitably follows when we propagate lies like human exceptionalism, in this case the dissonance manifesting as calling nonhuman nature inanimate, but then immediately speaking of “Nature’s Wrath.” Which is it: is “Nature” inanimate or is it wrathful? You can’t have it both ways. And of course his language reveals that on some level even this human supremacist recognizes that the real world has reason to be wrathful.
I find it extraordinary—and of course, entirely expected—that so many human supremacists speak blithely of bending the entire world to “our” will, and attempt to force all of us to live with less of the planet (and to force all those exterminated to not live at all), but then they freak out at the possibility of anyone in any way constraining any of their own freedoms, at the possibility of someone “commanding” them to live with fewer luxuries (luxuries that are gained by forcing others to bend to their will), and freak out as well at the possibility of reshaping this culture to be in line with the needs of the planet, the source of all life.
•••
Here’s another fairly typical argument: the plow was the greatest invention of all time “not because it makes all else [sic] possible, but because it single-handedly diverted the direction of the human race to a wider degree than anything else.” Or, “I have heard it argued convincingly that the greatest invention ever was the plow. It allowed us to have surplus food, which allowed armies, priests, scientists, builders, just about everything [sic].” Just about everything, that is, except peace, which it makes impossible; and justice or even survival for those about to be conquered or exterminated; and sustainability, which, like peace and justice and the survival of the victims, was for this culture never even a consideration.
Please note again that it’s just plain wrong to say that the plow “allowed us to have surplus food.” Don’t you think an entire river full of salmon is more food than local humans (or bears, eagles, ravens, trees) could eat? Why doesn’t that qualify as “surplus food”? Prior to the plow, the world was already full of food. It just wasn’t under human control, or more precisely the control of an elite. It was available to humans and nonhumans, without regard to any individual or collective human wealth. This means that within this culture that is based on authoritarian technics, not only won’t these wild food surpluses be considered real—the only real food surplus, like the only real meaning, is one humans create and control—but worse, that these other communities that provide these food surpluses must be eradicated in order to maintain control of human populations; how are you going to force people to work for you if they can find food, clothing, and shelter on their own? All of this means that, as is true for innovations, food (or other) surpluses that contribute to democratic social structures will be undervalued, privatized, exploited, and destroyed. Food (or other) surpluses that contribute to authoritarian social structures will be lauded as innovations, cultivated, and controlled.
So, if you think the diversion of much of the human species into a direction that is ultimately going to kill the planet (but allow the richest of humans to have lots of “comforts or elegancies” in the meantime (while their human and nonhuman slaves lead lives of grinding immiseration)) is a good thing, the plow is your invention. Likewise, if you think armies, priests, and scientists are good things on their own, or in any case are worth more than the liberty and lives of all those harmed by the entire agricultural technics, then the plow is for you.
•••
You could argue that it doesn’t matter how destructive and disastrous plows and agriculture (or other authoritarian technics) have been for the entire planet. They have helped human populations to expand, and they have helped “push wolves, bears, tigers, and other wild beasts out to the wild and woolliest fringe places of the world.” That by itself means we’re smarter and superior; were we not smarter and superior, we would not have been able to conquer and exterminate them. They would have conquered and exterminated us. In this sense, far from arguing that the destruction of wild places doesn’t matter, the argument would be that this destruction—this conquest, this transformation—is actually a sign, if not the sign, of our intelligence and superiority. Which is the real point, and has been all along. It’s also, ultimately, the argument that underlies and is the real reason for all of the other arguments for human supremacism.
Both intelligence and superiority are here conflated with conquest and murder. But that only works if your definition of intelligence or superiority means not only acting atrociously—might makes right; might makes intelligence; might makes superiority—but also greatly decreasing the capacity of the planet to support life. By which I mean not only nonhuman life—which, at best, doesn’t count to human supremacists, and often is considered pestilential—but human life, as well. I know there are a lot of humans alive now, but what do you think will be the human population when the oceans are dead?
Recently Richard Dawkins said he believes humans have a 50 percent chance of surviving this century. The tools of science, he says, have enabled scientists to create weapons powerful enough to kill all humans; his fear is that religious fundamentalists will get ahold of these weapons and use them (never mind what capitalists already do with the weapons science has provided for this culture’s war on nature). If we choose as our “sine qua non of behavioral intelligence systems” “the capacity to predict the future; to model likely behavioral outcomes in the service of inclusive fitness,” would creating tools that are powerful enough to destroy life on the planet—or at the very least, all humans—not, in all truth, disqualify us from being considered intelligent? Actions leading to a realistic chance of driving your own species extinct (and taking down much, if not all, of the planet in the process) clearly are not “in the service of inclusive fitness.”
Dawkins is not alone in perceiving humans as causing their own near-term extinction. Stephen Hawking has famously remarked that in order to keep from driving ourselves extinct, humans need to colonize space.108
The real point, apart from Hawking’s appalling and sociopathological—and completely typical for this culture—lack of concern for everyone else on the planet, is that even though he understands that human behavior is killing the planet, he refuses to question human supremacism, or the right of humans to murder every known living being in the universe. Him and just about everyone else in this culture.
A couple of years ago a mechanistic scientist said to me, “The miraculous explosion of knowledge these past few centuries since the industrial revolution is almost—almost—worth the cost in terms of environmental destruction.”
I was horrified to hear this, not only because he ignored the knowledge lost as this culture eradicates Indigenous human and nonhuman cultures—as scientific knowledge and power have increased there has been a consequent and easily predictable decrease in other forms of knowledge, such as, for example, that knowledge held by and contained in passenger pigeons and the humans and nonhumans who relied on them—but also because of his clear expression of a human supremacist perspective; I’m guessing that passenger pigeons and the forests who depended on them would not so readily agree that their own eradication has almost been redeemed by the increase in scientific knowledge and power wielded by industrial humans.
•••
Pretend I run a business. Let’s say I make doughnuts. My store is called Doughnut Supreme—Latin name doughnutus supremus supremus—and that name is entirely deserved. How do we know it’s deserved? Because I say it is. I write lots
of reviews extolling the supreme quality of my own doughnuts. I develop a religion called The Church of the Supreme Doughnut where the Giant Baker in the Sky (who looks remarkably like the baker in my logo) describes how my doughnut shops are supposed to go forth and multiply. The first commandment of this religion is, “Thou shalt have no other bakers before me.” I develop an epistemology that declares we know something to be true if it begins with the understanding that my doughnuts are the best. I develop a literature in which the heroes run Doughnut Supremes, and the purveyors of other doughnut stores are either nonexistent or are obstacles to be overcome: “In the battle between Doughnut Supreme and everyone else, give me Doughnut Supreme.” I love to make long lists of Doughnut Supreme’s greatest innovations. I propagate the notion that if Doughnut Supreme makes a doughnut, it is a doughnut, full of meaning and import. Any other “doughnut” made by anyone else is not a true doughnut, and does not serve the functions of true doughnuts.
I know my doughnuts are superior, and my store is superior, not only because I say so, but also because Doughnut Supreme is the most profitable doughnut store in the world. And because profits are a central measure by which every endeavor must be judged, Doughnut Supreme is supreme! It expands across the world. There are Doughnut Supremes everywhere! I am, by any measure, the most successful and intelligent doughnut chain owner on the planet. Which means I am the most successful and intelligent being on the planet.
So, how did I get to be so successful? How have I been able to expand across the globe? How have I been able to drive every other “doughnut” store out of business? It’s because I’m the best! That’s how.
That’s where you come in. You say to me, “It’s very simple, really. You never pay your bills. You don’t pay rent. You don’t pay for materials. You don’t pay for energy. You don’t pay for labor. Of course if you don’t pay your bills you’re going to run a profit. You’d have to be an idiot not to, right?”
The Myth of Human Supremacy Page 24