I recently came across the word “Anthropocentrism” while doing some background reading. I had a vague idea that anthropocentrism should have something to do with the Anthropocene obviously, but I have to admit, I was least prepared to learn what it truly meant!
Anthropocentrism is the point of view that humans are the only or primary holders of moral standing. It perceives that human beings are the most important entities in the universe. Whoever who came up with this concept (I don’t know who did because I was too nauseated to read beyond the definition) has not seen how tiny bees help pollinate an entire planet! Without them, our planet would experience ripple effects of ecosystems destruction. However, bees do not question their importance in the world. They simply live up to their purpose. Whoever who came up with the term anthropocentrism, has also clearly not heard of the word photosynthesis. Yes, if it’s not for the lifeless, seemingly-less-important trees, oceans and their planktons, it is not possible for the so-called morally supreme entity to survive on this planet for more than 6 minutes.
Now let us look at the morally supreme, important being. What would happen if the entire 7.1 billion of us go extinct tomorrow? Technically nothing. Gaia hypothesis shows that Earth epitomizes a perfectly self-sustainable, self-regulating complex system. And scientists explain that should humans go extinct, the planet would continue the way it has been for the past 4 billion years. This is because humans are probably the only species that does not biologically contribute to any of the natural systems that help sustain the planet. We have rapidly risen to the top of the food chain and have remained there isolated for so long. The problem of being at the top of the food chain is, no other stratum in ecology depends on us for their survival. But our survival entirely depends on their well-functioning.
This is by no means to underestimate the capacity of humans to achieve wonders. But if we spare a few moments to think objectively, we would see that while we may have emerged earth’s most intelligent animal, it is us who need the planet for our survival, and not the other way around. However, it is becoming increasingly evident that we have not being living with this realization. With our overpopulation, overconsumption and environmental destruction, we are driving over 1 million other species to extinction, and pushing earth’s temperature beyond 2°C: an unimaginable, unprecedented level of destruction wrought by no other single species in the history of the biosphere.
But have humans always been this destructive? We need not look too far, for a striking answer can be found as early as 1855, in an “undocumented” letter/speech delivered by Native American Chief Seattle to Franklin Pierce, the then president of the United States. In one of the most moving responses ever recorded in history, Chief Seattle, whose tribe was in deep harmony with nature, replies to the American President’s offer to buy their land with the following lines: “How can you buy or sell the sky–the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them? Every part of this earth is sacred to my people”. The way the conquerors treated nature, was alien to the last remaining so-called primitive men and women who were deeply bound to earth. And then, in an eerie premonition of what has now evolved to become the Anthropocene, he says “we know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother, but his enemy, and when he has conquered it, he moves on. He leaves his father’s graves and his children’s birthright is forgotten. He strips the earth from his children and cares not. He forgets his father’s tomb and the rights of his children. He treats his mother, the earth, and his brother the heavens, as if they were things that could be bought, plundered and sold, as though they were lambs and glass beads. His insatiable hunger will devour the earth and leave behind a desert”.
Indigenous communities and humans in ancient cultures lived with a profound understanding of the universe. Nature was sacred to them. They understood that nature was always bigger than them, and designed their life in a way so that they can serve to preserve the divine balance. But it is quite evident that at some point in history, a divide began to occur. The serving stopped and we became the masters. The whole concept of man vs. nature emerged rather than man being a part of nature. Chief Seattle’s speech gives us a hint as to when.
Centuries later, even now as we’re battling probably the gravest crisis human species have ever faced, our approach is to put a price tag on nature. We come up with price tags for the amount of carbon a company can emit, and in our research we try to identify ways to price in ecological costs into our balance sheets. While there is no doubt all these methods are better than not accounting for the destruction we have caused at all, it is ironic how our ‘perspective’ of nature has not changed a bit from that mentioned by Chief Seattle in 1855. In essence, we’re still trying to put a price tag on the sky and the warmth of the land. We’re trying to buy our way into polluting, just like we try to buy everything else.
Looking from an economist’s point of view, I wonder if it’s fascinating to figure out how to value a finite resource. Like soil. Yes, we have already degraded around one-third of the world’s soil, and the UN warns that if we continue at the rate we’re degrading the top soil right now (with excessive agriculture, use of chemicals, etc) the world will be left with only 60 more years of harvests before we leave the ground too barren to plant anything. In other words, we’re rightfully fulfilling Chief Seattle’s prophesy of becoming a species that will leave earth a barren desert. Of course, the path to that ultimate dooms day will be a slow, agonizing one, packed with many more dire catastrophes that will herald in unbearable pain not just to human beings, but to all living things. In many ways, it has already begun. While the Asia-Pacific and Africa has been struggling with repercussions of climate change for decades, the West is currently waking to it. The recent floods in Germany, the ongoing heatwave in North America, wildfires in Australia are ominous harbingers of what’s in store for us in the future.
If anthropocentrism was logically accurate, one might wonder, how did the central-most important and morally superior entity in the world, get itself into a dire state as this. The answer lies in the fact that maybe we’re not so morally superior and important after all. A fragile entity that is causing its own destruction by destroying the very beings that help it live could not possibly be morally superior.
The secret to how we can successfully get out of this rut depends on a 180-degree-change in our attitudes. To stop being the architect of our own downfall, we need to understand that we NEED nature for us to survive, instead of nature existing to serve us. We would also need to view nature as the more superior entity, perfectly capable of self-sustaining by itself, whether humans continue to exist or not. Essentially, we need to go back to the thoughts of our so-called primitive ancestors. We need to realize that we do not own nature. We need to know that we can never put a price on it, because it’s sacred. Because, as the old Native American saying goes, when the last tree is cut down, the last fish eaten, and the last stream poisoned, you will realize that you cannot eat money.
But how are we to protect what we do not know? And cannot freely witness? How do we expect to feel a bond with nature when we cage ourselves in skyscrapers for most part of our day and have to travel miles or hop on a plane to go see the closest forest or waterfall? How do we expect our children to preserve it when we bombard them with exams and allow them to be trapped inside digital screens all day? We have enclosed ourselves in cities, so far away from the very nature that we don’t know we’re destroying. How are we to know that the seemingly innocent plastic water bottle that ends up in our hand has reached there by destroying at least a few ecosystems? And will be destroying a few more once it leaves our hand? It is then evident that environmental preservation goes beyond public policy from responsible governments and punishing immoral, polluting corporations. There is so much more that we as individuals can and will have to do to usher in the change we want to see in the world. We will have to redesign every aspect of our lives so that it’s intertwined with nature. We will have to do everything we can do to make sure we all feel the urgency of our actions. The good first step, would be to realize that nature, is bigger than all of us. It’s time for some life spring cleaning.
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