Humankind Seems To Be Missing the Main Point Re: Sustainability
Though we humans account for only about 0.01% of the mass of all living beings on this planet, we “big-brains” don’t really act in accordance with this remarkable fact, do we?
To some degree, this can be explained by the assertion in the Book of Genesis to the effect that God gave man dominion over all other life forms. In fact, those who know EPA administrator Scott Pruitt explain his promotion of fossil fuels and his other forms of hammer-and-tongs onslaught against the environment as an expression of his religious beliefs: God gave us natural resources, specifically for us to use to our benefit without concern for the well-being of the other life forms.
Having said that, most of the justification for humankind’s abuse of our environment is secular.
Human arrogance is the assumption that humankind is fundamentally different from and superior to all other living things. It’s the same kind of self-important thinking that lies at the core of slavery, American exceptionalism and xenophobia, i.e., that the white race is somehow superior to everyone and everything else.
Yet human arrogance is actually even more pathetic than the thinking of the KKK and that of the other hateful morons of this world; it’s the inability to understand that human beings are a part of a vast ecosystem of plants and animals whose collective health is the only thing keeping us alive.
Craig,
There are a more than a few errors and false assumptions in your view of humans and especially Caucasian type humans beings.
It’s hard to tell how much of your obvious self-loathing,desperate need to assume imagined guilt, and confused leftist philosophy merges with a need to apportion ‘lame’ and ‘atonement’ through punishment acquired no doubt from puritanical education and ancestry.
What is evident from your writings, is you seem to be confused by a very strange view of history, genetics and what the environment means.
Firstly, let’s deal with the “White Guilt” and how terrible the “White race” and in your opinion, evils of “white” society”.
Humans, like many animals, live in ‘tribal’ or ‘clan’ societies. Without organized tribes, the human race would never have successfully evolved. Or greatest skills are our ability to co-operate within a tribe or clan with increasing specialization.
This is how we developed our social specialization. We are by nature as a species highly aggressive, covetous,etc, but we can also be altruistic and compassionate.
All races and societies of human beings have been xenophobic, and from time to time, aggressively expansionist.
“Slavery” was not a European invention, in fact even the slave trade existed in African thousands of years before the “whites” got involved. The Europeans bought slaves from African Chiefs who had been selling slaves for hundred of years before the first European arrived of the shores of Africa.
Even Polynesian and Native American practiced slavery before contact with Europeans.
The only nation to abolish both the slave trade and suppress slavery, was Great Britain and the British Empire. ( A decidedly “white” nation).
” Human arrogance is the assumption that humankind is fundamentally different from and superior to all other living things ” It’s not ” arrogance “, but simple reality !
On this planet we are the dominant species. The environment is our responsibility because it exists by our grace. We can make the environment richer and more diverse, or not. We are the only creatures to appreciate the planet’s aesthetic appeal.
Only humans can appreciate the complexity of evolution. Whatever we do, we do from self interest. There is no ‘all-wise’, nurturing ” Mother Nature” looking after “Mother Earth”, just us.
We must care for the planet, because it’s in our own self interest. From just plain aesthetics to real benefits in medicine and science we must strive to maintain as much bio-diversity as possible.
That doesn’t mean no further human progress or prosperity ! We can’t destroy ourselves on the alter of some nature worshiping demagogue. Humans must strive to balance all needs and bend or creativity, ingenuity to make both environmentalism and prosperity possible.
People who read my post are going to have no idea what you’re talking about, as there is no mention of guilt at all.
I don’t feel guilt, though I do feel compelled to do the right thing here and now.
Craig,
“White guilt” is a collective term of which I think most people are aware. Usually, typified by excessively liberal phrases such as:
” American exceptionalism and xenophobia, i.e., that the white race is somehow superior to everyone and everything else”.
Since you are 1) An American 2) White 3) an card carrying, sign waving liberal, 🙂 the term would seem to be accurate.
Due to largely a unique combination of historical circumstances, the “white race” enjoyed a brief period of ascendancy. That period has long since passed, yet we still live with many of the historic benefits and institutions created during that era.
Humans are “fundamentally superior to all other creatures”, that’s not arrogance, simply a fact. Although we have much in common with other species, no other life form possesses our unique attributes and characteristics.
That’s not arrogance, simply reality. The very concept of a “moral” argument about “arrogance” marks out the human race as unique.
Only last month I was considerably embarrassed by an earnest and undoubtedly well meaning, University lecturer explaining to a group of local and overseas visitors the amazing ‘technology’ employed by pre-European Australian Aborigine’s in home construction.
The Academic had actually written a doctoral thesis on the subject in praise of the superior construction technology and spiritual meaning of the ‘architecture’. Following this lecture, he further confused his audience by a lengthy and caustic condemnation of government expenditure of modern government housing for Aboriginal communities.
Since the best example of pre-European native housing consisted of basically a sort of temporary tent made from twigs and tree branches offering very little weather protection, the foreign audience nodded politely, his followers earnestly applauded, while the rest of the Australian audience seethed with anger, and embarrassment that such idiotic nonsense was funded at great expense by the tax-payer !