Coetzee

This concept of our specie’s, race’s, and/or religion’s superiority is the foundation for the world’s degradation. Homo sapiens have upset the natural order of things in many respects:

1. Abusing other, “weaker” humans: In India many indigenous people have been diagnosed with cancer due to nuclear testing near their villages- all in the name of advancing a race and a nation.
2. Abusing the Earth: The Earth has been polluted by exorbitant amounts of waste, because humans don’t care about the consequences of their consumption habits.
3. Abusing other species: Animals- whether they’re omnivores, carnivores, mammals, birds, crustations, or vertebrae- “…have no more power…” [1] The reverence our species once held for them has been demolished by our desire to conquer and dominate everything. “Animals only have their silence left with which to confront us.” [2]

The saying “cogito, ergo, sum… implies that a living being that does not do what we call thinking is somehow second class.” [3] I have two problems with this idea. First, what do we define thinking as? The ability to create? To communicate? To read books, do math, and understand science? A “consciousness of (oneself) as a… reasoning machine” [4]?

I think it’s ironic how we feel superior to other races or species because they don’t fulfill our standards of intelligence. We’re so removed from our true nature that we’re incapable of understanding other species’ motivations and desires… much less they way they think. And, when we understand so little about the natural world, we’ve still logical deduced the conclusion that we’re intellectually better.

It’s almost contradictory to employee intelligence as one’s main justification for dominance— all things natural feed our existence, directly and indirectly. The word is a complex machine of give and take, and we’re the only species who constantly takes but never gives. If we’re such intelligent beings, capable of such sophisticated things then why haven’t we figured out a way to give back to the hand that has feed our existence for millions of years?

I’ve heard a lot of people say that we’re much more developed today than we were millions of years ago, but I don’t understand how they’ve reached that conclusion (at least from a spiritual perspective). Millions of years ago we respected animals and mother nature- we understood our dependence and we cherished it. Back then we were “alive to the world” [5], fulfilled beings—today we are engrossed in our materialistic desires and power struggles. From a spiritual perspective, are we really better off?! This connection Man can have with all things natural is greater than any books we have read, buildings we have created, cars we have driven. We can find superficial meaning in our big cities and expensive houses, but if we truly want to connect with our spirit then we must stop looking at other beings of the word with notions of superiority and begin recognizing our oneness.

However, I am not suggesting that we resort back to our animal nature- after all, “normal humans have capacities that far exceed those of nonhuman animals, and some of those capacities are significant in particular contexts…” [6] (i.e. technology, medicine, art).

[1]70
[2]70
[3]78
[4]78
[5]78