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Title: The simian redemption Author: Metrius Date: April 2, 2014 Language: en Topics: deep ecology, phenomenology, history, environmental degradation, philosophy, evolution, ethology, Gaia-hypothesis Source: See footnotes
âYou donât know nothing, but you donât need to know. The wisdomâs in the
trees, not the glass windowsâ. â Jack Johnson
]
A lot of theories have surfaced in the relatively new millennium
concerning the human speciesâ relationship to the planet it calls home.
Historically, the mechanized view on nature advocated in the 17^(th)
century Scientific Revolution is criticized by ecological movements as
alienating humanity from its origins. With the advent of the clock for
example, man started measuring time according to its own inventions,
exempting the sun of this function. Likewise, the clock became a
metaphor for the machinery of nature, and âGodâ became a passive
clockmaker who wound his invention at the point of creation only to let
it tick towards unknown eternities by itself. Thus began the burgeoning
dominance of Western scientific modernity, with its instrumentalist view
on natureâs processes and resources, on a scale earlier civilizations
never envisioned.
]
Throughout this assignment I reflect on humanityâs separation from
nature, using several different disciplines: evolutionary theory,
history, phenomenology, Gaia theory, animism and biochemistry. The
assignment as a whole addresses how recent ecological discoveries and
disruptions might alter modern humanityâs felt relationship with the
rest of the biosphere, as simian mammals of the planet, rather than gods
on Earth.
First I shed light on some evolutionary aspects of the human species.
For this I draw in large part on Mark Rowlandâs reflections on the
simian animal in The philosopher and the wolf. Secondly, I construct a
historically modern context, highlighting the main causes of todayâs
civilizational degradation of both mental and physical ecology. Next, I
reflect on deep green and alternative methods for reconnecting our
modern-day simian animal with nature, focusing on sensory phenomenology
and humanityâs co-dependence with the biosphere as a whole. Lastly I
summarize by weaving the three parts together and conclude with a
planetary orientation.
âTake your stinking paws off me you damn dirty ape!â
]
The nature of the exclusively simian intelligence seems to be based in
scheming and lying, with hierarchies arranged according to the
individualâs capacity to outmaneuver oneâs neighbors in social games of
power. This sort of intelligence developed in accordance with the need
to deceive others before one was deceived, an arms-race of manipulation.
Understanding, intellect and creativity came later as a result of this.
Mark Rowlands make these conclusions in light of Frans de Waalâs study
of chimpanzee group dynamic in Chimpanzee politics
], where intricate games are played for alpha dominion of the group. One
of the situations goes as follows: Luit flashes his erect penis to a
female chimp, with his back to Nikkie, the official alpha. As Nikkie
gets to his feet, Luit takes a few casual steps away from the female,
keeping track of Nikkie while maintaining both erection and cover. As
Nikkie picks up a heavy stone and moves in, Luit looks down at his
penis, which is slowly losing its erection, then walks towards Nikkie
âin an impressive demonstration of just what a ballsy chimp he isâ only
to sniff the stone and leave Nikkie alone with the female.
]
Compared to other species, sex plays a dominant role in the simian mind.
For instance, alpha wolves have sex once or twice a year, and the
pleasure experienced is a direct consequence of the drive to reproduce.
The ape on the other hand has inverted this relationship, where
reproduction is an occasional and often inconvenient result of the hunt
for pleasure. Thus, deception forms instinctual patterns of behavior for
apes in much of their social life. Aristotelian, Cartesian and Freudian
understanding of human thought divide basic desires and rational
intellect, with the latter elevating humans from the rest of nature.
Rowlands bridges the divide in claiming that ârationality is, in part, a
consequence of our drive to acquire pleasureâ.
]
However, the greater the deceptions, still greater the risks. The sort
of malicious prosecution Nikkie had in mind for Luitâs potential scheme
is not found in other animals. Whereas other animals may fight and even
kill each other, it is crimes of passion, not calculated punishment in
cold blood. Nikkieâs stone proves premeditated intention, the difference
between manslaughter and murder in a modern day court of law. Luitâs
deception worked where simple submission would have cost him his life.
Aforethought malice is indeed an endemic feature of simian character.
]
Landscape designers and realtors understand intuitively that potential
buyers want to have a high view of open terrain, preferably close by
water in some shape or form. This is exclusively aesthetic â not
practical â but buyers will pay what they can afford to live like this.
In other words, people pay more to live in environments that imitate the
ones our species developed in through millions of years in Africa, where
social status was decided by the height of oneâs tree-branch and
subsequent view.
]
Itâs easy to romanticize prehistoric and indigenous people, given their
apparent harmonic lifestyles with nature. Often with animistic reverence
for nature, and a courage few civilized humans can hope to embody, they
are nostalgically viewed as our common ancestry, a remnant of humanityâs
instinctive relationship to the flora and fauna of the Earth. However,
it is important to nuance the perspective. About 13.000 years ago an
explosion of extinctions occurred in North America. By the beginning of
the Holocene epoch, still going strong today, nearly 40 species had
disappeared. Small fur-bearing creatures seem untouched, but the
megafauna had taken a massive toll. Giant armadillos, short-faced bears
nearly double the size of todayâs grizzlies, huge beavers, dire-wolves,
mammoths, American varieties of camels, the saber-toothed tiger, etc.
All gone. Paleoecologist Paul Martin theorize that the great migrations
of humans correlate with these extinctions. The theory, which was dubbed
Blitzkrieg, contends that the megafauna didnât have any reason to fear
the newly arrived humans as predators. The human pioneers had by then
learned to make spears and other weapons out of wood and stones, and
could simply surround the various packs of megafauna without alarming
them for fight or flight.
]
That primitive humans hunted big game for more food is a given, but the
systematic annihilation of all these mythic-sounding species can make
one think of Agent Smithâs infamous quote from The Matrix:
Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium
with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an
area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is
consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area.
There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern.
Do you know what it is? A virus.
]
As Martin concludes: âI canât imagine a more appropriate setting to
describe what amounts to genocide. (âŠ) They were all exterminated,
simply because it could be done.â
]
These examples are not meant to be misanthropic or advocate any sort of
biological determinism, where humans are imprisoned in manipulative and
genocidal behavioral patterns. They are meant to remind us of our
speciesâ behavioral tendencies, be it within civilization or out in the
âwildâ. Given that humans share 98 % genes with modern day chimps
], such examples may mirror the fact that humans are mammalian primates,
and often act accordingly. Embarrassed by our simian cousins, we strive
to put greater distance between us and them by building up our rational
arrogance.
Anthropocentrism is instinctive to most modern people, whose logic lie
in the fact that every species prioritize its own kind. However, if
humanity indeed is the supreme species of the planet, it cannot per
definition reflect upon itself in the same tribalist manner as other
species. The truly mature thing to do is acknowledge and respect our
heritage, not to live in denial. Only then can we ever hope to become
the magnanimous species we so desperately imagine ourselves to be.
âItâs useless to wait. For a breakthrough, for revolution, the nuclear
apocalypse or a social movement. To go on waiting is madness. The
catastrophe is not coming, it is here. We are already situated within
the collapse of a civilization. It is within this reality that we must
choose sides.â
]
Modernityâs intellectual and political paradigm is highly influenced by
respectively RenĂš Descartes and Thomas Hobbes. Descartes was a pioneer
of the aforementioned Scientific Revolution, and is most famous for
theorizing the mechanization of nature and the duality of mind and body.
Like Aristotle before him, Descartes claimed that non-human animals were
comparable to programmed machines, and empathy for such creatures was
consequently seen as redundant. What set humans above the rest of the
biosphere for Descartes was our rational minds, which exists in an
elevated dimension to that of nature.
]
In the political sphere, Hobbes claimed that all of civilization was the
result of a social contract made between humans fed up with living in
the chaos of nature, where life was defined by constant war and
lawlessness. In the natural state, human lives were âsolitary, poor,
nasty, brutish and shortâ.
] Modern political thought is thus founded on the notion that
civilization is humanityâs escape from the vicious wild of nature, and
our development of society is a way of climbing the tree to safety.
However, as Rowland states with humanityâs obsession with power in mind,
contracts are made with those who can either help or hurt you, people
with agendas. According to Hobbes, primitive humans exchanged parts of
their freedom for the security of a Leviathanâs law and order, a
deliberate sacrifice for anticipated gain. A classically simian loophole
in the contract is thus revealed: not to sell oneâs freedom, but to make
others believe you have, because image is everything.
] Hobbes believed that âmen are in incessant struggle for power over
othersâ
], but his theoretical contract never put a stop to it â the game just
took on an unprecedented level of sophistication. âWildness or
civilization: which is really red in tooth and claw?â
]
Today, the human species has taken it upon itself to consume as much of
the planetâs resources as it possibly can â and in a hurry. The devoted
disciples of market liberalism remain in denial of ecological realities
on a finite planet â metaphorically climbing the hierarchical tree trunk
in a race for a better view and favor with a fictional alpha Leviathan.
] And in the process, there are terrifyingly many innocent victims.
Half the planetâs cultivable soil and forests are destroyed. The former
degraded at a rate of 25 million acres a year, and the latter vanishing
at a rate of 130 square miles annually.
] The Amazon rainforest loses the size of a football field every two
seconds
], and only 20 percent of its accompanying cerrado savannahs are still
intact after decades of degradation by unsustainable monocultural food
production.
] Humans use 50% of the biosphereâs fresh water, 80 % of which goes to
agriculture
]- who in turn pollute rivers with dangerous fertilizers and use
pesticides which kill off millions of ecologically essential bees.
] In addition, farmers, manufacturers, supermarkets and consumers in the
West discard up to half of their food, enough to feed the worldâs hungry
at least three times over. Agricultural production thus boasts
responsibility for nearly one tenth of the Westâs greenhouse gas
emissions growing food that will never be eaten!
]
25 % of coral reefs, atolls and cays are ruined, and half the remaining
ones are in danger beyond recovery within the next 30 years.
] Between 2006 and 2012 China and India built 800 new coal-fired power
plants
], while CO2 levels in the atmosphere are at its highest in 440.000
years. Earthâs ozone layer was formed over 3.5 billion years, and the
human caused hole in it hit a record of four square km in 2006.
] From 1970â2003 researchers saw a 31% terrestrial decline in
biodiversity. 12 % of bird species and 25 % mammalians will be gone at
this rate in 30 years. 200 species are extinct every day, giving
humanity the Medal of Honor for singlehandedly â directly and indirectly
] â causing the sixth greatest extinction in Earthâs history.
]
In addition to the irreversible degradation of Earthâs physical ecology,
humanityâs mental ecology is being polluted and strained by
consumer-targeted marketing. Ubiquities commercialism haunts both urban
and rural humans, stimulating homogenized thinking.
] Each of the human brainâs 100 billion or so neurons can make between
1.000 and 10.000 synaptic connections with each other, which result in
incomprehensibly complex patterns of behavior.
] It seems our subconscious minds make most of our decisions, and our
perplexed simian consciousness then spends time justifying them, a fact
the marketing gurus knows well. In the US alone they have over 90
neuro-marketing consultancies.
] â[Psychology is] a science wherein the psyche has itself been reified
into an âobjectââ.
]
In 2004 marketing companies worldwide spent more than $200 billion on
advertising. That adds up to about 3.500 sales-shots at our conscious
and sub-conscious attention every day, one for every 15 seconds of our
waking lives.
] Often erotically aggressive and aimed at creating material needs,
critics claim itâs an industry with one overriding message: we do not
yet have all we need to be satisfied. Humanityâs simian instincts are
still programmed to fear scarcity and gather information â clear winners
in the game of evolution â but ultimately made more sense in the trees
and Neolithic villages than in modern day megamalls.
]
âI went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front
only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it
had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not
lived.â
]
Of course, anthropocentric ethics didnât begin at the dawn of modernity,
but is a fundamental aspect of civilization as we know it through
written history. The focus of ethics should concern holistic entities,
which can be seen as various complementary âwholesâ. A tree is an entity
comprised of unnumbered smaller component âwholesâ, just as a forest is
made up of trees.
] An ecosystem is always inter-dependent with larger versions of the
same dynamics, and so in this sense you might call the biosphere as a
whole one big ecosystem. âThe whole Ecosphere is even more significant
and consequential [than its human part]: more inclusive, more complex,
more integrated, more creative, more beautiful, more mysterious, and
older than time.â
] This is the position of deep-green ecocentric parts of todayâs
ecological movements, which is elaborated on in this chapter.
]
Ecocentric perspectives reject assumptions based on the idea that some
or all natural beings have independent moral status.
] The interconnectedness of the biosphere makes separation between
hunter and prey irrelevant within the biospheric equilibrium. In
opposition to Cartesian dualism, Hobbesian fear-laden sense of security
and Aristotelian logic, which are based on the law of identity and
contradiction, ecocentrism is founded on paradoxical logic. Common to
Eastern Taoism and Zen-Buddhism, paradoxical logic âassumes that A and
non-A do not exclude each other.â
] Conventional modern minds often perceive the grand nature of dynamic
polarity â life/death, up/down, active/passive, plus/minus â not as a
game of black and white, but âinstead, we play the game of black versus
whiteâ.
]
David Abram uses phenomenology as a method to reconnect humans with
their forgotten origins. By dismissing Cartesian duality, he guides the
rationally confused human back into its holistic animal body, focusing
on its sentient means of entering into relation with nature. Through the
perspective of our animal selves, the entire material world itself seems
to come alive.
] Recognizing that whatever we may sense in the woods reciprocally
senses us back, creates an understanding for intersubjective phenomena.
For Abram, the boundaries of a living body are open and indeterminate,
âmore like membranes than barriersâ. By enabling the use of
mirror-neurons and associative empathy, phenomena are thus shared with
other centers of experience.
]
Unlike conventional modern scientific methods, Abram calls for
explanations of the world not from the outside, but within it. To
reiterate my starting point: to be of the planet, not on it. The trees
are the lungs of the earth, breathing in carbon dioxide while breathing
out oxygen, in direct polarity to humans. âOxygen gets you highâ
], and meditation is in its essence a matter of filling the body with
oxygen. Thusly, the biosphere doesnât just describe the surface of
Earth, but includes the whole atmosphere â a âwholeâ Abram has coined
âEairthâ. This term includes the air we breathe and trees produce in the
concept of our home planet.
] Within this perspective, it would not be odd to say that humans exist
within the Earth, or to view birds as swimming in an invisible ocean of
air.
The bodyâs actions are never wholly determinate, since it continually
adjusts itself to a terrain that is constantly on the move.
] Existence is a participation in the activity of the world, and by
lending the impressive force of human imagination to things, the nature
of life reveals itself more fully. In such a light, there is no wonder
why indigenous peoples all over the world often have an animistic
reverence for trees, rivers or the Earth as a whole â what ecocentric
people now might call the âGaia-hypothesisâ.
] The followers of this hypothetical superorganism are not intent on
making everything global, but recognizes that all locals are globally
connected.
] As Abram suggest: âWe might as well say that we are organs of this
worldâ.
]
The very last footnote in The Spell of the Sensuous seems to imply that
animism never left humanity, it just metamorphosed into viewing
alphabetic letters and logos as the new symbols of deity. Rather than a
rational account of animism, Abram thus posits an animistic account of
rationality.
] Following this line of thought, the grand ideology of modernity is
seen as an animistic religion, with devoted disciples waiting in line
for days and hours for the next generation of passively consumable
technology. Techno-science is now integral to both industry and
government, which are becoming ever closer. In the global North, it has
now become so powerful and dogmatic as to constitute, in effect, a
secular religion with its own powerful and democratically unaccountable
elite.
] As Erich Fromm articulates it: âMan projects his own powers and skills
into the things he makes, and thus in an alienated fashion worships his
prowess, his possessions.â
]
âTo survive some say we need to heed indigenous people. Perhaps what we
also need is to be indigenous, people: Do we belong to planet Earth or
an alien invasion? A decision that might decide our human fate â good
evening.â
]
In lieu of the many different examples in this paper, I will now
summarize and clarify the different perspectives. First, we were
confronted with the fact that humans are a mammalian species, with some
character-traits that may be hard to swallow. Secondly, the
philosophical, scientific and political rationale of modernity, still
going strong today, are revealed as the tenets of humanityâs separation
from nature. The ecological consequences of this are then laid bare.
These two chapters are meant to produce both humility for the
evolutionary aspect, and the rage and/or grief of a struggling planet.
The third chapter sought to produce hope and love. In light of the
devastation articulated in chapter two, deep-green perspectives have an
âurgency matched only by the extent it is ignored.â
] By combining sensuous love with the horror of modernity and humility
of evolution, we climb the tree to get a better view of the situation.
Thus we can start to orient ourselves in the natural and mental
landscape that is our lives, analyze what sort of epoch we are alive
within, and consequently what role we are going to play in it.
The term âplanetary consciousnessâ can be understood in two ways. One is
the perspective of sensuous orientation, acknowledging oneself as a
species on a planet rotating on its axis; not settling for seeing a
banana-shaped moon, but envisioning its three-dimensionality when it
reflects the set sun. The other is the perspective of the planet as a
superorganism, an all-encompassing Ecosphere capable of reacting to
stimuli; a living entity full of cells that can themselves decide
whether to be healing or cancerous.
As mentioned earlier, we may be embarrassed by our distant chimp
cousins. But whenever we become aware of such thoughts, we should
immediately flip the board: maybe they are embarrassed by us? Basic
psychology suggests that humans project its own flaws onto others. Maybe
our rationally arrogant distance from our origins in reality is arrogant
rationality?
In closing, I will quote an animistic technique for connecting to the
phenomenal field (the druids of ancient Britain called the tree spirits
dryads): âA powerful technique, if the dryad allows it, involves
breathing in as the dryad breathes out and vice-versa, forming a mutual
energetic exchange.â
]
] Jack Johnson, Breakdown, In between dreams album (2005)
] Steven Shapin, Den vitenskapelige revolusjonen (1996), p. 37, 38, 39
] Rise of the planet of the apes (2011):
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1318514/quotes
] Mark Rowlands, The philosopher and the wolf (2008), p. 67
] Rowlands, The philosopher and the wolf, p. 73, 74
] Rowlands, The philosopher and the wolf, p. 76
] Rowlands, The philosopher and the wolf, p. 77, 78
] Edward O. Wilson, Morgenbladet:
http://morgenbladet.no/ideer/2012/om_kunstenes_opprinnelse#.U0Ues3Y4Xcs
] Alan Weisman, The world without us (2007), p. 69, 72
] The Matrix (1999): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/quotes
] Weisman, The world without us, p. 82
] Jared Diamond, The third chimpanzee (1992), p. 23
] The Invisible committee, The coming insurrection (2009), p. 96
] David Abram, The spell of the sensuous (1996), p. 48
] Rowlands, The philosopher and the wolf, p. 121
] Rowlands, The philosopher and the wolf, p. 120â126
] Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan(1651, Penguin Classics translation 1985), p.
183
] Rowlands, The philosopher and the wolf, p. 124 â 126
] Patrick Curry, Ecological Ethics (2011), p. 21
] Curry, Ecological Ethics, p. 18, 19
] Nasjonal Digital LĂŠringsarena: http://ndla.no/nb/node/25468
] http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/apr/11/meat-industry-food
] Curry, Ecological Ethics, p. 17, 18
LeMonde diplomatique MiljĂžatlas (2009), p. 16
] Al Jazeera English:
http://www.aljazeera.com/video/europe/2013/04/20134631924285553.html
] Tristram Stuart, Waste (2009), Back cover
] Curry, Ecological Ethics, p. 17, 18
] Fareed Zakaria, The post-American world (2008), p. 31
] LeMonde diplomatique MiljĂžatlas, p. 50
] Everything is direct when the planetary biosphere is seen as a whole
in itself, which I will return to in «Planetary consciousness».
] Curry, Ecological Ethics, p. 16,
Derrick Jensen, Deep Green Resistance (2011), p. 21
] Adbusters, Whole Brain Catalog (2010), p. 15, 16
] Adbusters, Whole Brain Catalog, p. 5
] John Naish, Enough (2009), p. 20, 21
] Abram, The spell of the sensuous, p. 35
] John Naish, Enough, p. 15, 19
] John Naish, Enough, p. 3, 8, 10
] Henry David Thoreau. (n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. Retrieved April 1, 2014,
from BrainyQuote.com Web site:
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/henrydavid107665.html
] For more on «wholes» I recommend Arthur Koestlerâs «The roots of
coincidence»
] Curry, Ecological Ethics, p. 57
] Curry, Ecological Ethics, p. 54, 94
] Curry, Ecological Ethics, p. 93
] Erich Fromm, The art of loving (1995), p. 57
] Alan Watts, The Book (1989), p. 35 (my emphasis)
] Abram, The spell of the sensuous, p. 65
] Abram, The spell of the sensuous, p. 37,46
] Tyler Durden in Fight Club (1999):
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137523/quotes
] Abram, The spell of the sensuous, p. 46, 47
] Abram, The spell of the sensuous, p. 49
] Abram, The spell of the sensuous, p. 58
] Michiel Schwartz, Sustainism, p. 46
] Abram, The spell of the sensuous, p. 68
] Abram, The spell of the sensuous, p. 303
] Curry, Ecological Ethics, p. 24
] Fromm, The art of loving, p. 50
] Rap News, War on terra, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM3W5XBrVEA
] Curry, Ecological Ethics, p. 94
] Danu Forest, Nature spirits, p. 30. The author is a Celtic shaman.