TheHeretic said:
What makes the human species superior to everything else in the universe?
Generally speaking, the condition is a subconscious result of being human. We look around, we see nothing like us. We ask certain questions of the Universe, and before we ever figured the idea of
rational, we asserted certain answers.
In the twenty-first century, many find rather naîve the notion that the Universe is a creation specifically intended for the human endeavor, but it took until the nineteenth and twentieth for the species to grasp the necessary abstractions to make such ideas acceptable. Certainly, there are theologies wherein humanity does not matter that much in the general scheme, but the particulars of the faith reflected that priority. Polytheism as monotheism? It's a natural result: what binds the diverse deities to their roles? That authority becomes the monotheistic source. In such schemes as the Greek or Roman panthea, that source seemed to matter very little in everyday faith. The gods that made humanity important did so because that was their justification for existing: it was, quite essentially, their job. Why else did Zeus intervene in Phaeton's misfortune? Yes, the job is to drive the sun, but why drive the sun? For the living, perhaps? Or so it seems. And all that from what may have been a comet once upon a sometime.
Humanity answers to itself. For a twist on a philosophical classic, if dogs had religion, how would they account for their place in the human household? It's easy enough to account in theological terms for their place on someone's dinner menu, but what of the family dog? Would the theology assert that dogs are subservient to humans? What justifies that heirarchy? (What is the original sin of canine theology? In Christianity, we have the story of Eden; Jomo Kenyatta, in
Facing Mount Kenya, notes a tale justifying male supremacy as a result of female foolishness and decadence when the world was entrusted to women. And so on.) Would the theology perhaps consider humanity as a gift from God? Servants to accommodate those of God's righteous holy fido?
Superstition often regards disease as a punishment from God. The Bible tells of the Earth's resources being created for human accommodation. Modern society has time to accuse selfishness, but what of a primal theology born in a time when "selfish" was, in fact, the means of perpetuation and survival? It is in such a period of human development that the essential seeds of common religious experience were sewn. Religion as a human institution addresses fundamental questions about the relationship between the human and the Universe, the fundamental philosophical questions of "life, the Universe, and everything".
What I'm having a hard time getting to is the idea that this focus on how everything else relates to the self, and how that translates into the religious focus that puts each religious group at the center of the Universal experience, is somewhat natural. Certainly the creation myths of the Hopi don't tell of God creating the Hebrews and favoring them. Nor, as we are aware, do the Hebrew creation myths assert that the primary experience of God runs through the Japanese. From the self to kin; from there to larger and larger social classifications as the human endeavor evolved into the cosmopolitan first world that has the luxury of caring to explore or not such questions about the religious experience: each new common allegiance within a religious paradigm leads to reconsideration of terminology and boundaries. Much of this reconsideration is subconscious, and is only apparent when subclassifications within the larger body social identify as independent collectives in conflict with one another--e.g. doctrinal and political disputes between factions or other such groupings.
A passage that I resurrect periodically in discussions:
The members of all communities, including nations and whole civilisations, are infused with the prevailing ideologies of those communities. These, in turn, create attitudes of mind which include certain capacities and equally positively exclude others.
The ideologies may be so ancient, so deep-seated or so subtle that they are not identified as such by the people at large. In this case they are often discerned only through a method of challenging them, asking questions about them or by comparing them with other communities.
Such challenge, description, or questioning, often the questioning of assumptions, is what frequently enables a culture or a number of people from that culture to think in ways that have been closed to most of their fellows.
Emir Ali Khan
If we go so far as to make a general denunciation of the presupposition of human superiority, we must look at current generations as victims of an ancient ideology. That's a bit severe, though. Rather, it's only the most recent century or so of human existence that it has even become possible to discuss the idea in such terms. In that time, many individuals and even small groups have struck on positive ideas resulting from renouncing the general presupposition, but one of the stumbling blocks not yet cleared from the road is the focus of the counterpoint on an implied counterpoint: If we cannot suppose ourselves superior, then we must decide what is superior to us. Abstraction seems to confuse some people in that discussion, and so the examination focuses on superficial issues.
Consider music as a vague but useful comparison: Music theory has much beauty and potential. Amazing human responses are evoked by some theoretically-solid music. But there are theorists who think that what defies conventional theory isn't music. To the other are those who reject music theory outright. Music is, after all, human. So there are those who lend their humanity to their interpretation of theory and create some genuinely amazing music. And yet the public gets by on a steady diet of Britney Spears, Garth Brooks, and Chumbawumba.
There is nothing to support the assertion that to attempt 100% conformity with conventional musical theory will produce a worthwhile result. There is nothing to support the assertion that rejection of musical theory will produce a spiritual result. Some of it's just trash.
In objective terms, we cannot declare humanity superior. We can say that by certain criteria, humanity seems superior. We can say that intuitively, humanity seems superior. But the alleged objective criteria, and indeed the scope of those criteria, as well as the basis for intuition, are all products of humanity and thus predisposed toward such a notion.
The presupposition is a vestigial effect of a prior practicality. In the modern era, it is also a confusing issue, since the question certainly pertains to anything we humans do, but there will always be disagreement as to what relevance the idea has in any given circumstance. Generally speaking, people don't care, or can't afford to care. Nuclear war, for instance, seems an easy consideration: "Nuclear war is bad, m'kay?" Drilling the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge isn't so clear. Issues pertaining to the spotted owl certainly weren't so clear.
In the end, the question becomes one of necessity: when is the presupposition necessary? Facing extinction, humanity will assert itself at all costs. Left to decadence, it will assert itself recklessly. Do we respect the assertion or exploit it? And that seems to be the difference.
The human and the rock are equal according to certain criteria. Are those criteria valid and relevant in any given circumstance?
