The Conservative Belief in Human Supremacy Is Destroying Our Planet -- Human supremacism is morally indefensible.

By Derrick Jensen / Seven Stories Press

The following is an excerpt from the new book The Myth of Human Supremacy by Derrick Jensen (Seven Stories Press, 2016):

"The modern conservative [and, I would say, the human supremacist] is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." —John Kenneth Galbraith

[You will note that the author has inserted his own thoughts into the quote and extended its meaning beyond that which was intended by the author. Thus corrupting the integrity of the quote and conferring unearned referential authority to the author. The author could have argued his point without corrupting the quote – thus exploring the color and context of the author’s actual meaning rather than simply hijacking the quote for his own purposes.]

I’m sitting by a pond, in sunlight that has the slant and color of early fall. Wind blows through the tops of second-growth redwood, cedar, fir, alder, willow. Breezes make their way down to sedges, rushes, grasses, who nod their heads this way and that. Spider silk glistens. A dragonfly floats a few inches above the water, then suddenly climbs to perch atop a rush.

A family of jays talks among themselves.

I smell the unmistakable, slightly sharp scent of redwood duff, and then smell also the equally unmistakable and also slightly sharp, though entirely different, smell of my own animal body.

A small songbird, I don’t know who, hops on two legs just above the waterline. She stops, cocks her head, then pecks at the ground.

Movement catches my eye, and I see a twig of redwood needles fall gently to the ground. It helped the tree. Now it will help the soil.

Someday I am going to die. Someday so are you. Someday both you and I will feed—even more than we do now, through our sloughed skin, through our excretions, through other means—those communities who now feed us. And right now, amidst all this beauty, all this life, all these others—sedge, willow, dragonfly, redwood, spider, soil, water, sky, wind, clouds—it seems not only ungenerous, but ungrateful to begrudge the present and future gift of my own life to these others without whom neither I nor this place would be who we are, without whom neither I nor this place would even be.

Likewise, in this most beautiful place on Earth—and you do know, don’t you, that each wild and living place on Earth is the most beautiful place on Earth—I can never understand how members of the dominant culture could destroy life on this planet. I can never understand how they could destroy even one place.

***

[Perhaps if the author spent a little more time exploring and examining the nature which he describes, he would see that nature’s plan appears to be a self-sustaining and self-regulating integrated system of violent death and destruction followed by renewal. Where there exists a natural food chain and many life-altering mechanisms (e.g. viruses, natural disasters, etc.) are beyond human control. Where human intervention appears to be little more than a contribution to the overall scheme of things. The author is not ignorant of the food chain as he acknowledges its existence. And, then goes on to question man’s motives in  using what nature has provided to advance his own preservation and growth – as if that somehow was antithetical to nature’s plan as it has been revealed to the select and enlightened few.]

Last year someone from Nature [sic] online journal interviewed me by phone. I include the sic because the journal has far more to do with promoting human supremacism—the belief that humans are separate from and superior to everyone else on the planet—than it has to do with the real world.

[Sentience, self-awareness, and our capacity to use tools (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) to extend the physicality of our existence to longer-life, living in hostile environments, and acting as a good and honest steward for that which we have been given by nature does set us as being separate and superior to other life-forms on the planet. How arrogant is this author to ascribe his moral and political motivations to a respected journal that is about investigation, exploration, and explanation of naturally-occurring events.]

Here is one of the interviewer’s “questions”: “Surely nature can only be appreciated by humans. If nature were to cease to exist, nature itself would not notice, as it is not conscious (at least in the case of most animals and plants, with the possible exception of the great apes and cetaceans) and, other than through life’s drive for homeostasis, is indifferent to its own existence. Nature thus only achieves worth through our consciously valuing it.”

[This is not a controversial or especially profound thought, it is a statement of fact. It appears to be little more than a statement similar to the old question, “"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" A thought experiment on the perception and understanding of nature’s actions. Similar to the science fiction idea of a rock being a living creature with limited spatial mobility and operating in a different time frame. We do not perceive anything special about rocks – so they go mostly unnoticed until we stub our toe or they create some disturbance in our world.]

At the precise moment he said this to me, I was watching through my window a mother bear lying on her back in the tall grass, her two children playing on her belly, the three of them clearly enjoying each other and the grass and the sunshine. I responded, “How dare you say these others do not appreciate life!” He insisted they don’t.

[A scientist might say that their bears are playing out their evolutionary role and engaging in nurturing behavior. Going beyond that observation to claim that the bears are qualitatively or quantitatively aware of their surroundings and express an enjoyment other than the absence of predators or dangerous conditions is to anthropomorphize animals, in essence giving them human characteristics including the dangerous assumption of self-awareness and shared human values like enjoyment.]

I asked him if he knew any bears personally. He thought the question absurd.

This is why the world is being murdered.

[Murder? The unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another? Perhaps the lack of precision with which the author chooses and uses his words is symptomatic and expressive of his beliefs. The author has made a unjustified leap of logic and has just anthropomorphized the entire world. The world is an ecosystem that is governed mostly by nature’s rules and man’s impact on the planet is both local and transitory. Whether or not man will really have the power to destroy the planet is questionable. But, man does have the power to destroy the species, our own included. Perhaps why unchecked viral experiments are so dangerous – especially in these politically corrupt times when science has been corrupted by activism and the weaponization of its findings to convey an advantage to a particular political entity.

***

Unquestioned beliefs are the real authorities of any culture. A central unquestioned belief of this culture is that humans are superior to and separate from everyone else. Human supremacism is part of the foundation of much of this culture’s religion, science, economics, philosophy, art, epistemology, and so on.

[The problem with the author’s assertion of the unquestioned belief of supremacy over lesser life forms appears to be rendered moot by nature. We are demonstrably superior to and separate from  in that we can shape our lives and destinies in ways that lesser inhabitants of the planet can not. If the author is speaking about people being separate and superior to other people – than that is a moral and political question; not exactly a concern of an unfeeling, uncaring nature that is regulating the planet’s affairs. If one were to look closely, one would find that religion is simply another political tool for a few to control the many. And, in its purest form, religion is little more than a codified system of laws for living our lives in a socially acceptable manner. Like all things man-made and political, religion can be corrupted for the use of self-serving acolytes.]

Human supremacism is killing the planet. Human supremacists—at this point, almost everyone in this culture—have shown time and again that the maintenance of their belief in their own superiority, and the entitlement that springs from this belief, are more important to them than the well-being or existences of everyone else. Indeed, they’ve shown that the maintenance of this self-perception and entitlement are more important than the continuation of life on the planet.

[If the author was morally and intellectually honest, he would not be using nature in a straw-man argument. The truth is simple, if anything is “killing the planet” it is the corrupt politics which weaponizes environmentally-unfriendly agents or engages in the wanton slaughter of fellow human beings for political reasons having little or nothing to do with preserving the planet. The idea that we can sit idly by and chat about the destruction of the rainforests while we see the Muslims engaged in widespread ethnic cleansing is symptomatic of the paucity of moral and intellectual rigor. But, who other than the Muslims are asserting that their religion and religion-based politics is manifestly supreme over all religions, people, and political systems. The widespread destruction of historical monuments, the pollution of the ground with nerve agents, does not seem to be a concern of the environmentalists who are decrying the use of incandescent light bulbs as energy hogs.

The problem is political corruption. In particular, the progressive socialist democrats who are trying to gain perpetual power by balkanizing the population and assigning real or imagined grievances to each class – and, in return for granting the progressives political power, they will address these grievances. Thus the use of the concept that supremacists are to be demonized and that the use of the false “nature” narrative will somehow shield the progressives from the bankruptcy of their political motives.

Perhaps the author should have extended his thoughts about the “continuation of life on the planet” to the continuation of life, as we currently know it and wish it to be.]

Until this supremacism is questioned and dismantled, the self-perceived entitlement that flows from this supremacism guarantees that every attempt to stop this culture from killing the planet will fail, in great measure because these attempts will be informed and limited by this supremacism, and thus will at best be ways to slightly mitigate harm, with the primary point being to make certain to never in any way question or otherwise endanger the supremacism or entitlement.

[Notice that the author has already come to the pre-ordained conclusion that examining the question of “this supremacism” will lead to accepting the author’s assumptions, conclusions, and prescriptions. Perhaps examining the issue will prove my point. That the author’s argument about nature’s hierarchy can be falsified by simple observation and that the real problem facing man is a corrupt political system. Now, if the author wants to debate cultural supremacy, that is another worthwhile and useful conversation that is needed to save millions of lives currently at risk from toxic ideologies, both secular and religious.]

In short, people protect what’s important to them, and human supremacists have shown time and again that their sense of superiority and the tangible benefits they receive because of their refusal to perceive others as anything other than inferiors or resources to be exploited is more important to them than not destroying the capacity of this planet to support life, including, ironically, their own.

[The author states a truism: that people act in their own self-interests, often to the exclusion of the rights of others. Forgetting about the author’s specious anthropomorphization of the planet, perhaps we should look more closely at the motives of those who purport and avow that they are serving the common good or acting on behalf of “the people.” Again, a circular argument that returns us to those who are trying to demonize the idea of supremacy, to promote their own ideological agenda. (e.g. the corruption of politics)]

***

Especially because human supremacism is killing the planet, but also on its own terms, human supremacism is morally indefensible. It is also intellectually indefensible. Neither of which seems to stop a lot of people from trying to defend it.

[Again, the author’s assumption that “human supremacism is killing the planet” and that it is both morally and intellectually indefensible is flawed. The author continues to conflate and confuse natural law and political actions. And, that man somehow owes it to nature to promote a particular political ideology that nature neither recognizes nor supports.]

The first line of defense of human supremacism is no defense at all, literally. This is true for most forms of supremacism, as unquestioned assumptions form the most common base for any form of bigotry: Of course humans (men, whites, the civilized) are superior, why do you ask? Or more precisely: How could you possibly ask? Or even more precisely: What the hell are you talking about, you crazy person? Or more precisely yet, an awkward silence while everyone politely forgets you said anything at all.

[Danger: We are now entering the land and language of the progressive socialist democrats and extending the “planetary” argument to include that of Marxist class warfare. The very mechanism which the progressives use to accrete political power.]

Think about it: if you were on a bus or in a shopping mall or in a church or in the halls of Congress, and you asked the people around you if they think humans are more intelligent than or are otherwise superior to cows or willows or rivers or mushrooms or stones (“stupid as a box of rocks”), what do you think people would answer? If you said to them that trees told you they don’t want to be cut down and made into 2x4s, what would happen to your credibility? Contrast that with the credibility given to those who state publicly that you can have infinite economic (or human population) growth on a finite planet, or who argue that the world consists of resources to be exploited. If you said to people in this culture that oceans don’t want to be murdered, would these humans listen? If you said that prairie dogs are in no way inferior to (or less intelligent than) humans, and you said this specifically to those humans who have passed laws requiring landowners to kill prairie dogs, would they be more likely to laugh at you or agree with you? Or do you think they’d be more likely to get mad at you? And just think how mad they’d get if you told them that land doesn’t want to be owned (most especially by them). If you told them there was a choice between electricity from dams and the continued existence of salmon, lampreys, sturgeon, and mussels, which would they choose? Why? What are they already choosing?

[The basis of capitalism is the recognition on unalienable rights – those rights of freedom and action that cannot be given or taken by the government, property rights to be exploited by its owners, and that individualism is a superior concept to collectivism – especially under the enlightened elites who become dictators and oppressors over time. Thus we see an assault on capitalism, property rights, the Constitution, the rule of law, the civil society, and the infrastructure that supports the capitalist paradigm.

Let us examine the stupidity of the author by noting that the progressive socialist democrats are deliberately reducing our standard of living and affecting our food supply by tinkering with the environment. Shutting off water to central valley farms, killing agriculture, killing jobs, and destroying families to protect a worthless fish of no known scientific value. Weaponizing environmental law to be used against the very people it purports to represent. Pretending carbon dioxide is a pollutant and raising the costs of energy for everyone, but especially impacting the poor and minorities who these useful idiots purport to support.]

***

This is too abstract. Here is human supremacism. Right now in Africa, humans are placing cyanide wastes from gold mines on salt licks and in ponds. This cyanide poisons all who come there, from elephants to lions to hyenas to the vultures who eat the dead. The humans do this in part to dump the mine wastes, but mainly so they can sell the ivory from the murdered elephants.

[Excuse me! I’m not doing this. America is not doing this. This is being done by degenerates and dictators who are mostly socialists and communists. This is a political problem. This is being done by an oppressed people who are forced to mine natural resources in order to provide for themselves and their families. Little of this wealth is provided to the people, it is siphoned off by the politicians and their special interests. And, if you want to look at corrupt mining practices, why isn’t the Chinese embassy being bombarded with protests? Or why isn’t the author hectoring the Chinese to reform their “communist” system?]

Right now a human is wrapping endangered ploughshares tortoises in cellophane and cramming them into roller bags to try to smuggle them out of Madagascar and into Asia for the pet trade. There are fewer than 400 of these tortoises left in the wild.

[Go talk to the rich Asians who support these activities. China is a gross polluter of the world and yet it is America that must change.]

Right now in China, humans keep bears in tiny cages, iron vests around the bears’ abdomens to facilitate the extraction of bile from the bears’ gall bladders. The bears are painfully “milked” daily. The vests also serve to keep the bears from killing themselves by punching themselves in the chest.

[Again, not my problem. It is a political and cultural problem that has existed for centuries in Asian cultures. There will always be those who use scarcity to drive the prices up – another rule of human nature: supply and demand. And nothing Americans can do will stop the practice. But, then again, the progressives are promoting a one world government where internationalism supersedes national sovereignty. And, if you speak of internationalism and point out that the majority of the United Nations is ignores human rights, is corrupt and is governed by despots and bigots, you are ignored.]

Right now there are fewer than 500 Amani flatwing damselflies left in the world. They live along one stream in Tanzania. The rest of their home has been destroyed by human agriculture.

This year has seen a complete collapse of monarch butterfly populations in the United States and Canada. Their homes have been destroyed by agriculture.

Right now humans are plowing under and poisoning prairies. Right now humans are clearcutting forests. Right now humans are erecting mega-dams. Right now because of dams, 25 percent of all rivers no longer reach the ocean.

And most humans couldn’t care less.

[So? This is nature – species mutate, adapt, seek new habitat, or die. That humans owe it to an uncaring and indifferent nature to save these species is a ludicrous idea. We are part of nature and its system of natural threats. Nothing more, nothing less.]

Right now the University of Michigan Wolverines football team is hosting the Minnesota Golden Gophers. More than 100,000 humans are attending this football game. More than 100,000 humans have attended every Michigan home football game since 1975. There used to be real wolverines in Michigan. One was sighted there in 2004, the first time in 200 years. That wolverine died in 2010.

More people in Michigan—“The Wolverine State”—care about the Michigan Wolverines football team than care about real wolverines.

This is human supremacism.

[No! This is nature. This is progress. This is corrupt politics. This is corrupt people trying to capitalize on nature to push their own corrupt and toxic ideology. One might consider that the progressives who worship socialism, communism, Cuba, Venezuela, Russia, and China have watched the death and suffering of millions of human beings with less regard than they give to turtles, butterflies, and wolverines. (If you want to see wolverines, a form of weasel, try looking in the high country of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Washington Stat, Alaska, Canada, Siberia and elsewhere where the can be found in greater abundance.)]

***

I just got a note from a friend who was visiting her son. She writes, “Yesterday morning when I emptied the compost bucket, the guy next door called out to ask if that was ‘garbage’ I was putting on the pile. I told him it was ‘compost.’ We went back and forth a couple of times. Then he said, ‘We don’t want no [sic] animals around here. I saw a raccoon out there. There were never any animals around here before.’

What better statement of human supremacism?”

[No! The neighbor was probably, and rightly, concerned about attracting disease-bearing rodents or wildlife harmful to his private property. Left unchecked and under the protection of the law, rodent and animal populations have grown out of control. And yes, human interests supersede those of the indigenous animals. A morally, intellectually, and religiously defensible position.]

***

Recently, scientists discovered that some species of mice love to sing. They “fill the air with trills so high-pitched that most humans can’t even hear them.” If “the melody is sweet enough, at least to the ears of a female mouse, the vocalist soon finds himself with a companion.”

Mice, like songbirds, have to be taught how to sing. This is culture, passed from generation to generation. If they aren’t taught, they can’t sing.

So, what is the response by scientists to these mice, who love to sing, who teach each other how to sing, who sing for their lovers, who have been compared to “opera singers”?

Given what the ideology of human supremacism does to people who otherwise seem sane, we shouldn’t be surprised to learn that the scientists wanted to find out what would happen if they surgically deafened these mice. And we shouldn’t be surprised to learn that the mice could no longer sing their operas, their love songs. The deafened mice could no longer sing at all. Instead, they screamed.

And who could blame them? This is human supremacism.

[Is the author ignoring decades of medical miracles that have come from physiological and psychological animal experimentation? Is the author, once again, romanticizing and anthropomorphizing animals and turning lab animals into pets?]

<snip> 

Or there’s this. I just saw a snuff video of scientists pouring molten aluminum into an anthill to reveal the shape of the tunnels. Then the scientists marveled at the beauty of the shape of the anthill they just massacred to the last ant.

This is human supremacism.

[No! This is legitimate and valid scientific inquiry with a purpose, not the callous and unmerited infliction of torture upon defenseless animals as the author might have you believe. There are ant problems that cause untold suffering in third-world populations and they are routinely irradiated as unwanted and dangerous pests – not even serving the purpose of scientific inquiry.]

***

Or there’s this. The air around the world has recently been declared to be as carcinogenic as secondhand smoke. The leading cause of lung cancer is now industrial pollution.

This is human supremacism.

[No! This is bastardization of the environment by gross polluters who have been given a pass by their corrupt politicians and their special interests who profit from selling pollution indulgences for profit and tax purposes – and then decry the actions of the gross polluters. This is political corruption. Nobody is against curtailing the pollution of the air, water, and land – except the politicians who want to monetize environmental regulations.]

Derrick Jensen is an author and environmental activist. His latest book is The Myth of Human Supremacy (Seven Stories Press, 2016).

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