The Myth of Human Supremacy

by Derrick Jensen

So here’s my question: does everything have to come down to how it affects humans? Can we not talk for even a few hundred words about the extirpation of huge swaths of life on this planet without making it all about us? “I’m so sorry you’re dying because I’m overworking and starving you. When you’re dead, who’s going to cook me dinner?”

  Why can’t these people just want to save these nonhumans from this horrible culture because it is the right thing to do? Why can’t we save them out of love? Why can’t we save them because they are important to the earth? Why can’t we just save them? Full stop. End of sentence. End of paragraph.

  •••

  Why? Because this culture is as narcissistic as it is possible to be. Nothing matters to members of this culture except as it affects them.

  •••

  Oh, yeah, I forgot. We’re the ones who developed cooperation . . .

  •••

  I’ve never really liked the cliché, “You can’t solve a problem using the same mindset that created it.” But the cliché does get thrown around a lot. Why not here? For once, it’s actually relevant.

  •••

  A few days ago someone sent me a note asking for help with a presentation he’s doing soon. He wanted a list of ten facts showing pending (or I would say current) ecological collapse. I made him a list—ocean fish reduced 90 percent by weight in the last 140 years; native forests reduced by 98 percent; and so on—and gave it to him. Anyone could easily assemble a list like this. The information is out there. The most difficult part of assembling the list is dealing with your broken heart.

  This afternoon he responded with a note that raises everything I’m talking about: “What I’m looking to do is build an argument for devastating ramifications to us. A counterargument could be: who cares if fish are down, native forests are two percent, if the plastic goes into the ocean—none of that affects me. There’s still food in the grocery store, Facebook, video games, and oh, the Kardashian wedding was so cool! Or look how sunny and nice it is. I went for a nice nature walk today and yesterday, the beach was beautiful. I think a lot of people cannot make the leap from a statistic of how something they cannot see (or verify) [although, of course, to see it, all you have to do is pay attention] to ‘we’re fucked.’ I want to gather some documents to prove a point: that our future is in jeopardy.”

  I have to admit I’ve lost all patience with this culture’s narcissism. Here is what I want to say: “Honestly, when we’re talking about fish in the oceans going extinct we’re talking about a larger problem than this simply affecting humans. And since humans are causing the problem I’m not so interested in protecting humans from the rebounding effects of their own actions; it’s a bit late in the day to be concerned about the effects of these atrocities on the perpetrators. Human supremacism is the biggest problem facing the planet today, and I don’t want to reinforce this culture’s narcissism by making it all once again all about precious little us. And if people are too stupid to figure out the relationship between the oceans being dead and their own future, they don’t deserve to continue on this still-beautiful planet.”

  •••

  A couple of months ago I received an email with the subject header: “Who cares if there are no salmon?” In it, the person said that she herself is concerned about salmon, as are members of her family, but her son also said, “If you told almost everyone that we could save wild salmon from extinction but they would have to sacrifice the things that dams provide, they would say ‘who cares about the salmon? So we have no salmon. We need electricity—we don’t need salmon.’”

  Her son is right about people’s response, and about our enslavement to authoritarian technics.

  That’s why I hate this culture.

  She wanted to know what I would say to people who say that. Well, first, I don’t talk to them. You can’t often argue someone out of bigotry or narcissism or addiction. But if I were going to respond to them, I would say, “Forests care if salmon die. Salmon care if salmon die. Lampreys care if salmon die. Redwoods care if salmon die. Lots of creatures depend on salmon. Salmon help the entire region where they live. On the other hand, who cares if you die? What use are you to the real world? At least salmon help forests, which is more than can be said for most humans. Is the world a better place because you are alive? Not, is this culture better off? Not, have you put in a really nice garden? Not, have you raised children? I’m talking about wild nature. The real, physical world. The real, physical world is better because salmon are in it. The same can’t be said of people who prefer industrial electricity to salmon. And for the record, we don’t need industrial electricity. We need clean air, water, and food. And habitat. Not industrial electricity.”

  * * *

  124 Mumford, “Authoritarian and Democratic Technics,” 6.

  125 Lewis Mumford, Address to the National Book Awards Committee, in Donald L. Miller, Lewis Mumford: A Life (New York, Grove Press, 2002).

  126 Mumford, “Authoritarian and Democratic Technics,” 7.

  127 Michael Wines, “In Alaska, a Battle to Keep Trees, or an Industry, Standing,” The New York Times, September 27, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/28/us/a-battle-to-keep-trees-or-an-industry-standing.html (accessed October 5, 2014).

  128 Alanna Mitchell, “Winged Warnings: Built for Survival, Birds in Trouble From Pole to Pole,” Truthout, September 30, 2014, http://truth-out.org/news/item/26514-winged-warnings-built-for-survival-birds-in-trouble-from-pole-to-pole (accessed October 5, 2014).

  129 Tracy McVeigh, “In the Age of Extinction, Which Species Can We Least Afford to Lose?” The Guardian, October 4, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/05/threatened-species-cannot-afford-to-lose-age-of-extinction (accessed October 5, 2014).

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Sociopocene

  I think scientific arrogance really does give a great degree of distrust. I think people begin to think that scientists like to believe that they can run the universe.

  ROBERT WINSTON

  To be men, we must be in control. That is the first and the last ethical word.

  THE NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE

  The point of science—and this may or may not be true of individual scientists—is to make the world subject to human domination. If they can abstract, and then they can predict on the basis of that abstraction, then they can try, at both the human and natural levels, to use that prediction in order to exert control.

  STANLEY ARONOWITZ

  Members of this culture are so narcissistic that they’re now calling this era the Anthropocene: the Age of Man.130 The term was devised by someone who meant it pejoratively, that humans have become so destructive of the planet that they could be considered a geologic force. But it didn’t take long for human supremacists to turn the term into the sort of self-congratulatory rationalization for further destruction to which we have become so accustomed, as in Emma Marris proclaiming we run the earth, as in Charles Mann declaring that “Anything goes.”

  I find the term really harmful, for a number of reasons, primarily that the term Anthropocene not only doesn’t help us stop this culture from killing the planet, it contributes directly to the problems it purports to address.

  It’s also grossly misleading. Humans aren’t the ones “transforming”—read: killing—the planet. Civilized humans are. There’s a difference. It’s the difference between old growth forests and New York City; the difference between flocks of passenger pigeons so large they darkened the sky for days at a time, and skies full of airplanes; the difference between sixty million bison and pesticide- and herbicide-laden fields of genetically modified corn. It’s the difference between rivers full of salmon and rivers killed by hydroelectric dams. It’s the difference between cultures whose members recognize themselves as one among many, and members of this culture who convert everything
to their own use.

  Among other problems, the word Anthropocene is an attempt to naturalize the murder of the planet by pretending that the problem is “man” and not this particular culture (and other civilizations).

  It also manifests the supreme narcissism that has characterized this culture from the beginning. Of course members of this culture would present their own perspective and their behavior as representing “man” as a whole; other cultures have never really existed anyway, except as lesser breeds in the way of members of the One True Way getting access to resources. And of course this is happening today, as Indigenous peoples are still being driven off their land, and Indigenous languages are being driven extinct at a proportionally faster rate than nonhuman species.

  Using the term Anthropocene feeds into that narcissism. Gilgamesh destroyed a forest and made a name for himself; this culture destroys a planet and names a geologic age after itself. What a surprise.

  We’ve had six thousand years to recognize this pattern of genocide and ecocide committed by members of this culture because of this culture’s narcissism, sociopathy, and entitlement, and the behavior is simply getting worse. And members of this culture have had six thousand years to recognize that the cultures they’re conquering have often been sustainable. And still they come up with this name that attempts to include all humanity in their own despicable behavior. What a surprise.

  The narcissism extends beyond disbelieving that other cultures exist. It extends to believing no one else on the planet fully subjectively exists.

  Of course members of this culture, who have previously named themselves with no shred of irony or shame (or humility) homo sapiens sapiens, would, as they murder the planet, declare this the Age of Man.

  No one else matters, nothing else truly exists. It’s like the Catholics say, Nulla salus extra ecclesium, which means “Outside the Church there is no salvation.” Likewise, this culture believes, “Outside Science there is no knowledge,” “Outside Technology there is no comfort,” “Outside Capitalism there are no economic transactions,” “Outside Industrial Civilization there is no humanity,” “Outside civilized humans there is no intelligence,” and indeed, “Outside humans there is no function, no purpose, no meaning,” and “Outside humans there is no meaningful existence.” That’s how people can with a straight face insist there’s no evidence that agriculture is inherently destructive: there was nothing there to destroy in the first place. That’s how Emma Marris can say the world is a giant garden: there was no order until we ordered it. That’s how human supremacists can claim to be able to manage a landscape. The forest or wetland or prairie was, to use their words, “decadent” or “inefficient,” or “going to waste” before civilized humans—the bearers of all meaning and function—arrived on the scene; it’s quite extraordinary that oceans and forests and lakes and rivers survived for millions of years without our assistance. That’s how human supremacists can call agriculture a “beneficial use” and act as though water in a river is wasted.

  We are the only ones who exist.

  According to human supremacists, the world is a giant tabula rasa onto which we inscribe our greatness loneliness.

  I also have problems naming an age after a mass murderer. Should we call the twentieth century the Age of Hitler? The Age of Stalin? Why don’t we extend this to other types of killers and call the 1980s the Age of Ted Bundy?

  I’ll relent on the question of naming this era after a mass murderer, and I’ll even relent on calling this era after this culture. But Anthropocene gives no hint of the horrors this culture is inflicting. “The Age of Man? Oh, that’s nice. We’re number one, right?” Instead, the name must be horrific, it must be accurate, and it must produce shock and shame and outrage commensurate with this culture’s atrocities: it is killing the planet, after all. It must call us to differentiate ourselves from this culture, to show that this label and this behavior do not belong to us. It must call us to show that we do not deserve it. It must call us to say and mean, “Not one more Indigenous culture driven from their land, and not one more species driven extinct!” It must call us to fury and revulsion. It must call us to use our lives and if necessary our deaths to stop this insane culture from killing all we hold dear, from killing this planet that is the source of all life, including our own.

  If we’re going to name this age after this culture, we must be honest, and call it The Age of the Sociopath. The Sociopocene.

  And then we need to end this fucking age, as quickly as possible, using whatever means are necessary.

  •••

  Today I read an Op-Ed in The New York Times entitled “Building an Ark for the Sociopocene.” No, I lied. It was entitled “Building an Ark for the Anthropocene.” But can’t you imagine how the article might have read were it accurately titled?

  The article begins, “We are barreling into the Anthropocene, the sixth mass extinction in the history of the planet. A recent study published in the journal Science concluded that the world’s species are disappearing as much as 1,000 times faster than the rate at which species naturally go extinct. It’s a one-two punch—on top of the ecosystems we’ve broken, extreme weather from a changing climate causes even more damage. By 2100, researchers say, one-third to one-half of all Earth’s species could be wiped out. As a result, efforts to protect species are ramping up as governments, scientists and nonprofit organizations try to build a modern version of Noah’s Ark. The new ark certainly won’t come in the form of a large boat, or even always a place set aside. Instead it is a patchwork quilt of approaches, including assisted migration, seed banks and new preserves and travel corridors based on where species are likely to migrate as seas rise or food sources die out. The questions are complex. What species do you save? The ones most at risk? Charismatic animals, such as lions or bears or elephants? The ones most likely to survive? The species that hold the most value for us?”131

  The article goes on to describe some of the efforts, which are of course desperately important, and some of the ways different people and organizations can make these difficult decisions. There’s a part of me that is happy that the corporate news is taking time out of its busy schedule to mention the murder of the planet. After all, these 1,200 words could have been used to cover other topics, like someone’s folksy reminiscences of gummi bears, or someone else’s analysis of how “Ladyfag is the rave of the future,” or the extremely important information that the stock market dropped sharply today over fears that the economy isn’t growing fast enough.132 Such is the poverty of our discourse that mere mention of the biggest problem the world has ever faced can be enough to make me, well, happy isn’t the right word. . . . Perhaps grateful, like a starving dog thrown the tiniest crust of bread.

  Not surprisingly, though, my response is mixed. My first problem is that this is precisely where this culture has been headed since its beginnings: it has always wanted to play God and decide who lives and who dies. That’s a central point of human supremacism. How do we know we’re superior? Because we’re the ones who are deciding. We’re the ones who do to, as opposed to everyone else, to whom it is done. We’re the subjects. They’re the objects. From the beginning members of this culture have wanted to be God. That is, they’ve wanted to be the God they created in their own image. That is, the God created in the image of how they wanted to be—omnipotent and omniscient—and in the image of how they themselves actually were: jealous, angry, abusive, vengeful, patriarchal. It pleases the supremacists no end to pick up the civilized man’s burden and pretend they’re being merciful in deciding which of their lessers to exterminate, and which to save. For now.

  But there’s a much bigger problem than this. Did you notice who is on the chopping block, and what is not? Did you see it?

  What is missing is any mention of technics, technologies, luxuries, comforts, elegancies. Sure, we’re supposed to choose whether to extirpate or save Bulmer’s fruit bats or Sumatran Rhi
nos, wild yams or hula painted frogs (with the default always being extirpate, of course); and we’re supposed to make careful delineations of how we choose who is exterminated, and who lives (at least until tomorrow, when we all know there’ll be another round of exterminations, complete with another round of wringing our hands over how difficult these decisions are, and another round of heartbreak; and then another round, and another, until there is nothing and no one left); but just as the Japanese energy minister said that no one “could imagine life without electricity,” so, too, entirely disallowed is any discussion of what technologies should be kept and what should be caused to go extinct. There’s no discussion of extirpating iPads, iPhones, computer technologies, retractable stadium roofs, insecticides, GMOs, the Internet (hell, Internet pornography), off-road vehicles, nuclear weapons, predator drones, industrial agriculture, industrial electricity, industrial production, the benefits of imperialism (human, American, or otherwise).

  Not one of them is mentioned. Never. Not once.

  Why? Because we are God and God never relinquishes power. We are omniscient and omnipotent, and we are the top of the pyramid. We are the champions, and we can and will do whatever the fuck we want.

  None of these are mentioned because none of the benefits of our dismantling of the planet can be seriously questioned.

  Anti-imperialist discourse provides a great example of this lack of serious questioning. Of course anti-imperialists rail against imperialism—that’s what anti-imperialists do—but so many of them don’t seem to understand that you can’t have the benefits of imperialism without having the imperialism itself. So they will argue against imperialism at the same time that they argue in favor of, for example, high speed rail or groovy solar panels. But you can’t have high speed rail and groovy solar panels without mining and transportation and energy infrastructures, and you can’t have those infrastructures without the military and police to control them. And in terms of the planet, you can’t have any of those infrastructures without the harm those infrastructures and their related activities cause. And since almost none of the anti-imperialists will question those basic infrastructures, that means most of them aren’t, in all truth, questioning the imperialism.