Anthropocentrism

I've heard a lot of pathetic attempts to explain why humans are above other living and non-living things, like "because we have opposable thumbs", "because we have language", "because we're the most successful creature", "because we have civilization", and of course the most common, "because we're smarter than everything else."

Well, we're not the only animals with opposable thumbs (all other primates and also koala bears have them), so that obviously can't be it. And while no other creature has language exactly like ours, many animals communicate and dolphins actually use an extremely complex system of squeaks to communicate which is not completely understood by scientists. Language is not unique to humans, although our particular type of language is. That can't be it either.

I'm not sure what makes people think we're the most successful creature — considering that some humans are threatening their very existence and the safety of the rest of the ecosystem. And really, in a way we're one of the least successful. Our numbers are nothing compared to, say, bacteria, and there's absolutely no diversity among humans, it's just one species and virtually no difference between different groups within the species. From an evolutionary perspective, diversity is the sign of success, and in that area we're on the other end of the spectrum.

As for the civilization argument, first of all, I've studied anthropology and the conclusion I've drawn is that we were better off before civilization. People in non-civilized society have no social inequality, no gender inequality, excellent nutrition (better than people in first world countries), very little disease (except when they get diseases from civilization), less famine (because total dependence on agriculture is what leads to famine), less social instability (because their system of law works to eliminate the harm caused by crime instead of just punishing it), less environmental damage (because they've learned to live with their environments), and less work to get their food. Civilized people, depending on their social class, work 8 to 14 hours a day, while a Bushman gatherer-hunter works about 2 or 3 and a person of a semi-agricultural society works a few more. And civilization is very quickly leading to the destruction of the ecosystems it depends on. Second of all, not all humans have civilization, such as the Bushman that I cited above. Are civilized people above non-civilized people? Of course not. So humans with their civilization aren't better than other living things (or non-living things) just because of that.

Now, the most often cited, and seemingly obvious argument: humans are smarter. Now why would this make us superior? Is being smart an advantage? Well, certainly in some situations, it is, but it can also be a disadvantage, as smarter animals tend to overanalyze and seek out patterns even when there aren't any, which makes us less efficient. And there are many situations where a human just couldn't survive and something less intelligent like a bacterium could. As explained above, our smarts have not made us the most successful in evolutionary terms. And of course, we don't judge a person's worth by their comparative intelligence. Retarded people are worth just as much as average or intelligent people, so why judge an animal or plant or bacterium or rock by its comparative intelligence?

I don't just think all humans are equal or all animals or even all living things — everything is equal, whether it's alive or not, because nothing has more of a right to exist than anything, and the interests of everything — even rocks — must be taken into account. Anthropocentrism is bullshit, but I'm surrounded by it every day. Every day I hear our culture saying that humans are superior or that the universe was made specifically so we could exist. Despite everything we know as rational, scientific people, our culture clings to this myth.

related rants: The New Tribal Revolution, Animal Rights, The Environment

links:
Beyond Anthropocentrism
Abandoning Anthropocentrism
Anthropocentrism
Wikipedia: Anthropocentrism

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