mlw
Active Member
Humans are especially prone to deny the sufferings of nature, and are one-eyedly oriented toward the expansion of our own species. The population increase in the Third World must be sustained at all costs. The fact that the monkeys and apes are eaten as bush meat, and the rain forest is cut down, is a small matter compared with the glorious proliferation of our species. It has been denoted 'speciesism', an egoism focusing on the needs of our own species, to the detriment of all other life on earth.
Fishing-vessels have demolished many coral reefs in Scandinavia through bottom trawling, thereby destroying the capacity for regeneration of fish. Comparatively, there are fish species that eat corals. But they take care not to eat too much on a coral reef before swimming to another. In this way corals can regrow. So these fish prefer to risk their own lives by swimming between coral reefs, rather than staying put and destroying the conditions for future generations. The conclusion is that fish have greater wisdom than humans.
Haiti exemplifies the future prospect of the earth, should we continue on this destructive path. Haiti was once called "The pearl of the Caribbean." It was a wonderful island, but now the rain forest is almost gone--less than 2% of it remains. The rains erode the earth and leave the bedrock bare, on which the African descendants raise their ramshackles. These hapless people are supported by Western taxpayers so that they can multiply and continue to cause devastation. But is this good, really? Mustn't we, after all, accept the divine order of things, and realize that this earth wasn't created only for us humans?
We do not care about the sufferings of nature and of animals nearly as much. We think that animals merely follow a machinelike program, and have no real feelings, corresponding to death's anguish or sorrow. Nothing could be more wrong. They are more exposed to, and more defenceless against, their own terror, pain, and anguish, than are humans. A human being can always withdraw into himself, into his inner intellectual universe, but an animal is left at the mercy of his/her feelings and sufferings.
If the animal kingdom must put up with so much suffering, including the agony of death and the extinction of their own kind, why can't the human species carry some of the load, too? Why must we always expand our species, maximize welfare and well-being for ourselves, and remove all the sufferings of humanity, while at the same time chewing up the earth like a voracious monster? Pig farmers are so mean that they refuse to give the pigs filings to root in and to rest on. They have to make do with a concrete floor.
The only thing that is really essential, in today's ideology of welfarism, is how to create many more of this voracious monster--homo sapiens--and how to make human life as comfortable as possible, at extreme costs to the environment. The ideology of global welfarism, including the nearly religious principle of human maximization, seems to be blindly accepted across political party lines. The politicians never question it. As a human being, I feel ashamed of my own species. But we needn't be such voracious monsters--we needn't be fixated on the well-being for all humanity at all cost. Instead, we must accept the darkness of nature, including our own suffering and death, like humanity did in earlier times. We must learn to tolerate life's sufferings and acknowledge the dark side of existence. This stands in contrast to United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25:
"Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control."
It is a declaration of speciesism. There is not a word about the sufferings of Mother Nature, who pays the price for our welfare fixation. Nor is there are word about the rights of other species. The UN and the Western states have adopted a view according to which the number of human beings on the planet must be maximized. Every person, especially those living in the Third World, must be fended for in any way possible. The population in black Africa, and the Third World overall, is exploding. Western institutions make provisions for this development in the form of medicine, food distribution, monetary aid, etc. The environmental cost is enormous. Forests are cut down and the sea is emptied of fish. Animals, such as the the gorilla and the rhino, are threatened with extinction. The immigration from the Third World to the Western world, is tearing society apart.
But we cannot always go against the current of dark nature. It's time to accept that suffering and death is part and parcel of life. We should do what is humanly possible but not pretend that we are gods capable of maximizing well-being on this earth. Instead we must go along with our instincts, with a focus on our private social circle. However, we ought not go beyond this and develop megalomaniacal visions of a paradisal global welfare society, where every human being is fended for. Should the UN:s article 25 apply to rabbits, that is, if they were given the right to food and medicine, then the whole of earth's surface would soon be covered with rabbits. Somebody has calculated the immense speed by which the layer of rabbits would increase. It would soon reach the orbit of the moon. Somewhere beyond Jupiter, the perimeter would approach the speed of light.
We cannot endorse doctrines that lead to the devastation of earth and all living beings other than humans. It is as if humanity, like Icarus, unconsciously identifies with God and attempts to fly up to the highest crest of divinity. But megalomania always leads to a crash-landing.
Mats Winther
Fishing-vessels have demolished many coral reefs in Scandinavia through bottom trawling, thereby destroying the capacity for regeneration of fish. Comparatively, there are fish species that eat corals. But they take care not to eat too much on a coral reef before swimming to another. In this way corals can regrow. So these fish prefer to risk their own lives by swimming between coral reefs, rather than staying put and destroying the conditions for future generations. The conclusion is that fish have greater wisdom than humans.
Haiti exemplifies the future prospect of the earth, should we continue on this destructive path. Haiti was once called "The pearl of the Caribbean." It was a wonderful island, but now the rain forest is almost gone--less than 2% of it remains. The rains erode the earth and leave the bedrock bare, on which the African descendants raise their ramshackles. These hapless people are supported by Western taxpayers so that they can multiply and continue to cause devastation. But is this good, really? Mustn't we, after all, accept the divine order of things, and realize that this earth wasn't created only for us humans?
We do not care about the sufferings of nature and of animals nearly as much. We think that animals merely follow a machinelike program, and have no real feelings, corresponding to death's anguish or sorrow. Nothing could be more wrong. They are more exposed to, and more defenceless against, their own terror, pain, and anguish, than are humans. A human being can always withdraw into himself, into his inner intellectual universe, but an animal is left at the mercy of his/her feelings and sufferings.
If the animal kingdom must put up with so much suffering, including the agony of death and the extinction of their own kind, why can't the human species carry some of the load, too? Why must we always expand our species, maximize welfare and well-being for ourselves, and remove all the sufferings of humanity, while at the same time chewing up the earth like a voracious monster? Pig farmers are so mean that they refuse to give the pigs filings to root in and to rest on. They have to make do with a concrete floor.
The only thing that is really essential, in today's ideology of welfarism, is how to create many more of this voracious monster--homo sapiens--and how to make human life as comfortable as possible, at extreme costs to the environment. The ideology of global welfarism, including the nearly religious principle of human maximization, seems to be blindly accepted across political party lines. The politicians never question it. As a human being, I feel ashamed of my own species. But we needn't be such voracious monsters--we needn't be fixated on the well-being for all humanity at all cost. Instead, we must accept the darkness of nature, including our own suffering and death, like humanity did in earlier times. We must learn to tolerate life's sufferings and acknowledge the dark side of existence. This stands in contrast to United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25:
"Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control."
It is a declaration of speciesism. There is not a word about the sufferings of Mother Nature, who pays the price for our welfare fixation. Nor is there are word about the rights of other species. The UN and the Western states have adopted a view according to which the number of human beings on the planet must be maximized. Every person, especially those living in the Third World, must be fended for in any way possible. The population in black Africa, and the Third World overall, is exploding. Western institutions make provisions for this development in the form of medicine, food distribution, monetary aid, etc. The environmental cost is enormous. Forests are cut down and the sea is emptied of fish. Animals, such as the the gorilla and the rhino, are threatened with extinction. The immigration from the Third World to the Western world, is tearing society apart.
But we cannot always go against the current of dark nature. It's time to accept that suffering and death is part and parcel of life. We should do what is humanly possible but not pretend that we are gods capable of maximizing well-being on this earth. Instead we must go along with our instincts, with a focus on our private social circle. However, we ought not go beyond this and develop megalomaniacal visions of a paradisal global welfare society, where every human being is fended for. Should the UN:s article 25 apply to rabbits, that is, if they were given the right to food and medicine, then the whole of earth's surface would soon be covered with rabbits. Somebody has calculated the immense speed by which the layer of rabbits would increase. It would soon reach the orbit of the moon. Somewhere beyond Jupiter, the perimeter would approach the speed of light.
We cannot endorse doctrines that lead to the devastation of earth and all living beings other than humans. It is as if humanity, like Icarus, unconsciously identifies with God and attempts to fly up to the highest crest of divinity. But megalomania always leads to a crash-landing.
Mats Winther
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