The Myth of Human Supremacy Read online

  And most humans couldn’t care 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.

  •••

  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?”

  •••

  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.3

  And who could blame them?

  This is human supremacism.

  •••

  Or there’s this. Just yesterday I spoke with Con Slobodchikoff, who has been studying prairie dog language for more than thirty years. Through observing prairie dogs non-intrusively in the field, he has learned of the complexity of their language and social lives. But he has done so, he said, without the aid of grants. Time and again he was told that if he wanted to receive money for his research—and if he wanted to do “real science” instead of “just” observing nature—he would have to capture some prairie dogs, deafen them, and then see how these social creatures with their complex auditory language and communal relationships responded to their loss of hearing. Of course he refused. Of course he didn’t receive the grants.

  This is human supremacism.

  •••

  And then today I got an email from a botanist friend who has worked for various federal agencies. His work has included identifying previously unknown species of plants. He said this work has not been supported by the agencies, because the existence of rare plants would interfere with their management plans, including the mass spraying of herbicides. His discoveries have been made on his own time and on his own dime.

  It’s a good thing science is value free, isn’t it?

  I told him Slobodchikoff had said to me that the scientific establishment makes it very difficult for people to manifest their love of the world. Slobodchikoff said this as someone who loves the earth very much.

  My botanist friend agreed. “Science makes it very hard to love the world. Most scientists want the world to fit nice, clear, linear equations, and anything that doesn’t fit is ignored, unless you can get a publication out of it. Love isn’t a concept that would even come to mind concerning the natural world. The natural world is just a means to an end. A thing to be dissected, so they can get tenure. I was talking to a local botany professor, about how geology can drive speciation/change, and he was actually surprised to consider anything outside of genetic mechanisms. I was surprised at his surprise: his view just seemed so limited. A plant to him is an isolated, discrete entity, rather than the expression of the complex interactions and relationships between all the entities/factors in the environment going back 3.5 billion years.”

  •••

  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.

  •••

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

  This is human supremacism.

  •••

  Or there’s this. Recently some people traveled by ship from Japan to Australia. Along the way, they saw plenty of garbage, but they saw no sea life, save one diseased whale.

  This is human supremacism.

  •••

  Or there’s the news article I just read that begins, “Ocean acidification due to excessive release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is threatening to produce large-scale changes to the marine ecosystem affecting all levels of the food chain, a University of BC marine biologist warned Friday. Chris Harley, associate professor in the department of zoology, warned that ocean acidification also carries serious financial implications by making it more difficult for species such as oysters, clams, and sea urchins to build shells and skeletons from calcium carbonate. Acidic water is expected to result in thinner, slower-growing shells, and reduced abundance. Larvae can be especially vulnerable to acidity. ‘The aquaculture industry is deeply concerned,’ Harley said. ‘They are trying to find out, basically, how they can avoid going out of business.’”4

  This news article follows the pattern of nearly every other news article about the murder of the planet, in that it jumps immediately to what most people in this culture are most concerned about: how this atrocity will affect the economy. Here’s another headline: “Revealed: How Global Warming is Changing Scotland’s Marine Life.” The first sentence: “Global warming could cut commercial fish catches around Scotland by 20% while they increase by 10% around the south of England.”5

  Or how about this? Headline: “Climate Change Will Starve the Deep Sea, Study Finds.” The article begins: “It’s a vast, frigid abyss, where light rarely penetrates, and oxygen is in short supply. Its very otherworldliness has helped it seep into cultural awareness through science fiction and horror stories, but for most people the deep sea barely seems like a real place, let alone an important one. That’s why the news this week that climate change is expected to lead to staggering losses in deep-sea life may not have seemed nearly as relevant as the traffic report or weather forecast. Whether or not it’s public knowledge, however, the deep sea is home to thousands of commercially important species and is one of the last frontiers for new species discovery. The creatures of the deep are also key to the cycling of nitrogen, carbon and silicon in the ocean, a process that maintains the delicate balance of ocean life.”6

  So, the oceans are being murdered. The unimaginably complex, beautiful, once-fecund oceans—home to the majority of life on this water planet—are being murdered, and these articles quickly begin discussing how this will affect the industries that rely on exploiting the oceans?

  This is human supremacism.

  This is obscene.

  This is routine.

  This is why the world is being murdered.

  •••

  CBS News headline: “Salt-Water Fish Extinction Seen by 2048.” Terrible news for the entire planet, right? Well, we all know what’s really important; one of the researchers is qu
oted as saying, “If biodiversity continues to decline, the marine environment will not be able to sustain our way of life.”7

  Gosh, the real tragedy of the murder of the planet is that if the planet is dead, it will no longer be able to support our way of life.

  •••

  I hate this fucking culture.

  •••

  And these scientists do understand that it is this way of life that is killing the planet, right? This way of life that is dependent upon theft from all other communities, right? “If biodiversity continues to decline, the marine environment will not be able to sustain our way of life.”

  I don’t understand how members of a species who considers itself the smartest on the planet can say so many things that are so stupid.

  And how can members of a species who considers itself the smartest on the planet do something so stupid? Is it possible to be more stupid than to destroy the planet we live on?

  Oh, that’s right, unquestioned beliefs are the real authorities of any culture. And if some of the beliefs we must not question include the notions that human communities who do not share our unquestioned beliefs and values are not real communities; and that nonhuman communities (who certainly don’t share our unquestioned beliefs and values) are not real communities; and that theft from these (not real) communities is not theft; and that murder of these (not real) communities is not murder or genocide; and that our (not real) theft and (not real) murder of these other (not real) communities can continue forever; that the point of existence is to commit these (not real) thefts and murders; that these thefts and murders will not severely impinge upon our ability to steal from and murder these others; that one of the most unquestioned beliefs in our culture must be that we must never question our inability or unwillingness to question these beliefs; and that the real pity of a murdered planet is that we can no longer continue to steal from or murder it, then I guess we can understand how someone can say something so absurd.

  •••

  So, I say to you, “I’ve heard that every member of your family is dying from poison released by the factory I put in next door. You look pretty sick yourself. I’ll bet you aren’t going to last another month. And your kids? That’s one of your children over there? Is she still alive? She looks . . . this is just awful. Unbelievable. I’m so sorry to hear that you’re all dying, because if you’re all dead, who’s going to eat at my restaurant, buy shoes at my shoe store? Who’s going to work in my factory? This is all going to drive me out of business . . .”

  •••

  Just so you know my paragraph above isn’t hyperbolic, here is a headline from today: “Mussels Could Soon be Off the Menu: Climate Change May Wipe Out the Shellfish if Acid in Oceans Stops Their Shells Forming.” The first sentence: “The days of ordering delicacies such as moules marinières could be numbered, as climate change threatens to change the acidity of oceans.”8

  The other articles at least briefly mentioned the murder of the planet before quickly shifting their attention to what is clearly most important to them: the economy. But this article gives up even the pretense of caring about the planet and gets to the real point: how will this affect my access to delicacies?

  This is human supremacism.

  •••

  I just read the following description of sociopaths: “Imagine, if you can, feeling absolutely no concern for another human being. No guilt. No remorse. No shame. Never once regretting a single selfish, lazy, cruel, unethical or immoral action in your entire life.

  “Nobody matters except you. Nobody deserves respect. Equality. Fairness. They are useless, ignorant, gullible fools, who are taking up space and the air you breathe.

  “Now I want you to add to this strange fantasy the ability to conceal from other people exactly what you are, to be able to hide your true nature. Nobody knows what you’re really like . . . how little you care for other people [including nonhuman people] . . . what you’re capable of . . .

  “Imagine what you could achieve. Where others hesitate, you will act. Where others set boundaries, you will cross them, unhampered by any moral restraints or pangs of disquiet, any rules or ethics, with ice water in your veins and a heart of pure stone.”9

  This is a description of sociopathy.

  This is a description of human supremacism.

  * * *

  1 I first encountered this as articulated by Robert Combs, Vision of the Voyage, (Memphis: Memphis State University Press, 1978), 2.

  2 I’m with Mary Daly, who said that at this point there is (at least among the civilized) only one religion on the planet, and that is patriarchy. I am also with her (and Erich Fromm, Lewis Mumford, and others) when she talks about this culture’s real religion as being necrophilia, or the love of death.

  3 Lee Dye, “Why Mice Sing: Sex, and to Protect Habitat,” Yahoo News, http://news.yahoo.com/why-mice-sing-sex-protect-habitat-105328182--abc-news-tech.html (accessed October 8, 2013).

  4 Larry Pynn, “Acidification of Oceans Threatens to Change Entire Marine Ecosystem,” Vancouver Sun, October 25, 2013, http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Acidification+oceans+threatens+change+entire+marine+ecosystem/9085021/story.html.

  5 Rob Edwards, “Revealed: How Global Warming is Changing Scotland’s Marine Life,” The Herald, December 29, 2013, http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/revealed-how-global-warming-is-changing-scotlands-marine-life.23052108. (accessed December 31, 2013).

  6 Joanna M. Foster, “Climate Change Will Starve the Deep Sea, Study Finds,” Think Progress, January 2, 2014, http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/01/02/3113101/climate-change-starve-deep-sea/ (accessed January 3, 2014).

  Don’t you love how commercial interests and scientific “discovery” are primary, and maintenance of life in the ocean rates an “also”?

  7 “Salt-Water Fish Extinction Seen By 2048,” CBS News, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/salt-water-fish-extinction-seen-by-2048/?mc_cid=f15c2bdadc&mc_eid=83a5da071d (accessed May 10, 2014).

  8 Victoria Woollaston, “Mussels Could Soon Be Off The Menu: Climate Change May Wipe Out the Shellfish as Acid in Oceans Stops Their Shells Forming,” Daily Mail, December 23, 2014, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2885290/Mussels-soon-menu-climate-change.html (accessed December 26, 2014).

  9 Michael Robotham, Say You’re Sorry (New York: Little, Brown, 2012), 49-50. The book is a novel, but the description of sociopaths is accurate. The ellipses were in the original.

  Chapter One

  The Great Chain of Being

  The Courtier disdaineth the citizen;

  The citizen the countryman;

  the shoemaker the cobbler.

  But unfortunate is the man who does not have anyone he can look down upon.

  TOMAS NASH, 1593

  What really fascinated him was. . . . [P]ossessing them physically as one would possess a potted plant. . . . Owning, as it were, this individual.

  SERIAL SEX KILLER TED BUNDY

  One of the most harmful notions of Western Civilization—and one of the most foundational—is that of the Great Chain of Being, or Latin scala naturae (which literally means ‘ladder or stairway of nature’), closely related to the divine right of kings. It is a hierarchy of perfection, with God at the top, then angels, then kings, then priests, then men, then women, then mammals, then birds, and so on, through plants, then precious gems, then other rocks, then sand. It’s a profoundly body-hating notion, as, according to those who articulated the hierarchy, those at the top—the perfect—are pure spirit; and those at the bottom—the imperfect, the corrupt—are pure matter, pure body. Then both men and women live in a battleground of spirit and body, with men tending to be put more in the box representing mind/spirit/better/perfected, and women tending to be put more in the box representing body/life/death/corruption/imperfection. In this co
nstruct, humans are the center of attention, with those above humans being bodiless and perfected, and those below being fully embodied, imperfect, and having no mind. Of course, within each category there are sub-categories. So civilized man is far more perfected than ‘primitive’ man, who is barely removed from animals. You see this hierarchy everywhere within this culture, only now as we’ve secularized we’ve gotten rid of God and angels, leaving civilized (especially white) men at the top.10 And of course, those at the top get to use those below however they want. For example, men have access to the bodies of women, because men are higher on the hierarchy than women.

  The Great Chain of Being has long been used to rationalize whatever hierarchies those in power wish to rationalize. It has been and is central to the notion of the Divine Right of Kings, to racism, to patriarchy, to empire. It is a very versatile tool.

  The Great Chain of Being also underlies the modern belief that the world consists of resources to be exploited by humans. Traditional Indigenous peoples across the earth do not believe in this hierarchy; instead, they believe the world consists of other beings with whom we should enter into respectful relationship, not inferior others to be exploited. This is one reason these other cultures have often been sustainable.

  Our perception of evolution is infected with this belief in the Great Chain of Being, as so often people, including scientists, think and write and act as though all of evolution was about creating more and more perfect creatures, leading eventually to that most perfect creature yet: us.11

  •••

  Did you know that mother pigs sing to their children?

  And pigs dream.

  And pigs have a good sense of direction, and can find their way home from great distances. They learn from watching each other. And they will outsmart each other: one pig will often follow another to food before grabbing it away; the other pig will then change her behavior so she won’t get fooled again (which is more than we can often say for many humans).