The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom by Jeremy Lent

Author:Jeremy Lent
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Social Science, Philosophy, Anthropology, Cultural & Social, Existential, Movements, Metaphysics, Psychology
ISBN: 9780865719545
Publisher: New Society Publishers, Limited
Published: 2021-07-13T15:34:09.987000+00:00

The ideology of human supremacy

It’s rather stunning to consider that all this destruction has been carried out by a species that has been around for less than 0.01 percent of life’s history; a species that makes up just 0.01 percent of all life on Earth as measured by biomass. While some may glorify humanity’s ascendancy as ‘godlike’, there are other ways to see it. Humanity has undoubtedly developed unprecedented power, but much of it has been used for destruction. What would other animals say about humans, if they had the opportunity? The animals that still remain on Earth are suffering an apocalypse unlike anything that has occurred in the history of this planet. Other mass extinctions happened through geophysical events that no one was responsible for, such as volcanic eruptions or meteorites. This one is a deliberate and systematic annihilation of life executed by one species with full knowledge of what it’s doing. It may be the Sixth Extinction, but as some have pointed out, a more apt name would be the First Extermination Event.41

With the exception of a few hardy survivors such as cockroaches, rats and pigeons, the animals that have been spared extirpation or extinction are mostly those which have been domesticated, such as cows, chickens and pigs. But the word domestication doesn’t hint at the reality of their existence. For the most part, these animals are enslaved, brutally tortured and mercilessly slaughtered merely for human convenience. The ongoing atrocity of the systematic torment administered in the name of humanity to tens of billions of animals a year – each one a sentient creature with a nervous system as capable of registering excruciating pain as you or I – must represent the single greatest cataclysm of suffering that life on Earth has ever experienced. It’s most likely, as eco-philosopher Derrick Jensen points out, that if animals could speak, they would tell us that when they see the face of a human, they don’t see a god – they see the devil.42

But of course they can’t speak, and that is why this ongoing holocaust continues with barely a mention in public discourse. Ever since the rise of agrarian civilizations, cultures have justified their domination over those they conquered by claiming innate superiority. In recent centuries, as Europeans subjugated other regions, a narrative of white supremacy – one that retains its pernicious power even today – asserted superiority over other races. Among those who recognize its toxic qualities, white supremacy is understood as a form of violence that inflicts suffering on others while simultaneously damaging the perpetrators by binding them to a system of brutality. What is less recognized is that the ideology of human supremacy – claiming innate superiority over nonhuman animals – has a similarly malignant effect.43*

Human supremacy is so embedded within our cultural norms that it is barely even discussed. As Crist describes, ‘it is indoctrinated into humans from a tender age, without time-out, hammered into the human mind by innumerable conditioning feats of the dominant anthropocentric culture’.

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