Yeah, I know ... a lot of letters. But it's a key concept in my geocosmystical lexicon. It's the idea that humans are the fait accompli of creation's trajectory. The sine qua non of everything else in the universe. Without reference to French or Latin, "it's all about us". Whether you're of the evolutionary biology or scientific creationism school, the entire sweep of cosmic history reaches its climax in Homo Sapiens (there I go with my Latin again!). We da man! We da best! Whether we're "created in the image of God", or "the farthest along on the evolutionary scale", it amounts to the same thing. From one perspective, we've adapted as a species rapidly and effectively enough to dominate other species. From the other point of view, we were just given "dominion" over all the other species. Bottom line: both ways of approaching our human status among other life forms bring us to the conclusion that we are the reason for everything. Go us! But ... what if these very perspectives are what have put us in peril of losing everything? I thought we were beginning to wake up as a species during the cold war, when the threat of mutually assured destruction as the result of nuclear holocaust opened our eyes to the consequences of harnessing our mental superiority in service to our national arrogance and imperial aspirations. Enough people made enough noise back then to cool down the firey rhetoric of the superpowers. And here we are again, on the brink of irreparably depleting the planet's biodiversity, melting polar ice, further eroding the ozone layer. How do we plan to prevent global disaster? By once again launching an heroic human agenda to stimulate MORE human productivity, MORE human "solutions", MORE of the same hubris that insists ... what? Right! "It's all about US!" I have this argument frequently. "So what are you saying, geocosmystic? Are we just supposed to quit being human beings, quit having inventive minds and voracious appetites? Are we supposed to 'go back' and live like animals?" Here's what I want to say, although I seldom have the presence of mind to articulate it in the heat of verbal exchange. It's not beyond the range of our collective imagination that we can slow down the pace of planetary degradation. Just as there are methods for de-escalating interpersonal or national conflict, we can learn to regulate our furious pursuit of MOREBIGGERBETTER. Take a collective breath, count to ten, sing a song together, play drums, splash mud on ourselves ... laugh for the sake of laughing. Participate in activities together that can help us not take ourselves so damn seriously, activate and amplify the foolishness which is a part of each one of us. Dance. Pretend to be a chicken. Sometimes when I write this blog I have to say to myself, "Oh yeah? You're not so damn smart!" Yeah, I'm not so damn smart. Nor am I that wise. But I'm workin' on it. And I can do a pretty good chicken! Maybe it's the result of our shift from hunter-gatherer to agrarian living that changed our fundamental relationship to the Earth. I do remember, however, that farmers used to practice "crop rotation", leaving a field "fallow" for a season or two in order to permit it to renew it's nutritional content. There was that sense of "husbandry", of humans living in respectful, caring relationship to a living world that had it's own timing, its own balance and flow, and that our human presence within it required some attention to the ways of that living world. Within a single century, we figured out how to make that living world operate according to OUR wants and needs, pumping artificial chemicals into the soil and our bodies and water, spraying them into clouds and on insects and trees. We can stop that, and begin again paying attention to the beauty of circadian rhythms, the cycles of a living system in motion. Yeah, I know. That's a lot of words. Hey - it's all about me! Sometimes I think and act as though I'm the center of the universe. But I know better, and I'm working on living my life more in sync with the other critters who are just as sure it's all about them. In the end, it's all about the Earth, the Cosmos, and our intimate, mysterious dance around the fire. Aho! |
Monday, March 30, 2009
Anthropocentrism
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WELL SAID!!!!!!! AHO!
ReplyDeleteYou, Geocosmystic, have hit that proverbial nail on it's head! Thank you!
Care to dance??
Jordan sent me this from work and gave me permission to post it. Lots to ponder ...
ReplyDelete"the idea that humans are the fait accompli of creation's trajectory"
"we've adapted as a species rapidly and effectively enough to dominate other species"
"Within a single century, we figured out how to make that living world operate according to OUR wants and needs"
Adaptation and speciation are not competitions, there is no time line for evolution. The evolutionary process takes dozens of generations to make even the smallest difference in human biology. By evolutionary measures, homo sapien sapiens are among the slowest "evolvers" on Earth. Our reproductive rates and medical science make evolution almost impossible for our species. In the meantime, other species are FAR more successful - right now, living among us - than humans have ever been. Humanity, even in it's earliest stages is only at most 2 million years old. The Earth, in it's more than 4 billion years, has barely had time to register our presence. Most reptiles predate humanity by hundreds of millions of years. Modern birds are evolved from dinosaurs. Every species is constantly adapting, evolving and changing - evolution is an ongoing process within all life. There is no goal, no end-game. At no point in the circle of life will any species (except humans, of course) stand up and say, "Hey! I finished! Me and my species have been perfected! Time for a mai tai." In biological terms, evolutionary success is simply the continuing ability of a species to produce viable, fertile offspring and for those offspring to do more of the same. In terms of reproduction and population size, human beings are pretty insignificant. 7 billion people? Waaaaaaaayyyyyyy too many - but only because we are large, highly inefficient creatures that require the use of other resources for our own survival. There are nearly 2 trillion trees on Earth right now. Evolution would measure trees as a more successful species than humans. And considering how many trees we have to use just to make our own survival possible, I'd say that trees have it all over us. But even trees pale in comparison to other species. Ants ... more than 100,000,000,000,000,000 (that's one hundred quadrillio, or more than 2,000,000 times more than humans) by most estimates. Biologically and evolutionarily successful? I'd say so. The current state of "human dominance" on Earth has taken much longer than a single century. For ten thousand years now mankind has been shaping the world to suit his needs. It is only in the last few hundred years that modern industry has begun to define our world to the degree we now see around us, but animal and plant domestication were the first steps down this path. There is nothing "natural" about these processes, and the side effects are devastating to other life that previously depended on the same crops and animals - whether or food or as predator. In the last 100 years, only 4 things have been domesticated - strawberries are one (I forget the others right now, but I will look them up later). More than 80% of the world's domesticated crops, livestock, and household pets were first domesticated by Native American tribes. In as much as tribal people lived "in harmony" with their enviroment, they also hunted numerous species to extinction, created surplus populations of other species that were no longer being preyed upon, and deforested millions of acres of land that is now desert in the Southwest. The difference - they saw these things happening and CHANGED THE WAY THEY LIVED so that they would survive. They saw themselves as part of the world, dependent up the world, and protected the parts they thought needed to be protected to unsure they would live on. We are no longer seeing the world this way - it is our plaything, we are "supposed" to be dominant over all the animals on the land and the fish in the sea. It is ours to do with what we will. We have to get past the idea that we are living the best way we can. We have to understand that we can't look elsewhere to find the best way to live. What worked for Native American people for thousands of years would not work for us for thousands of minutes. What worked for the Austrailian aboriginies would not do well for us. What still works exceedingly well for remaining tribes in South America and Africa wouldn't last a day with us. But there are ways to make our lives sustainable, if only we'd be willing to take responsibility. We are not flawed. We are evolving. Slowly. My head hurts. Jordan
Thank you Jordan. Point well taken. I agree.
ReplyDeleteAho!