There's an Elephant in the Room blog
April 2018
We are a rather tragic species suffering from a delusion that we are apart from all others, brutalising and destroying our way through our days, rather than acknowledging our role as a part of the interwoven, interdependent network of life and living that is planet Earth.
These delusions of ours are dragging the planet we share to the brink of an abyss of our making, a beckoning cataclysm caused by our arrogant assumption that our shared world and everyone who has fur or feathers, scales or wings, have no purpose other than to serve our petty whims and convenience. The end is perilously close, and time is running out for us to stop the behaviour that is causing the problem.
Another comment that often appears amongst the arsenal of tired old
excuses that humans cling to in their attempts to justify the use of members
of other species, centres around presumptions of superior intelligence when
compared with every other species on the planet. When asked to provide
examples, reference is sometimes made to landmarks of human endeavour such
as writing symphonies, great works of literature, major inventions through
the ages, and travelling to the moon, amongst others.
Well yes. These are indeed breathtaking achievements, but let’s just stop
for a moment and get a grip on reality. Given that we, as a species,
currently number some 7.5 billion individuals, there are relatively few
humans whose names ring out across the centuries as beacons of intellectual
prowess. Da Vinci, Archimedes, Newton, Tesla, Hawking and several others are
names that stand out. For the rest of us – the vast majority, that is – no
one is ever going to wax lyrical about our towering accomplishments.
What actually is intelligence?
Most of us are simply ordinary people, even though we are surrounded by
technological marvels. Our expertise extends to knowing where the ‘on’ and
‘off’ switches are. If one of us were to be left somewhere with no tools or
weapons, no instructions, no raw materials and no access to Google, I
suspect that no one would ever be able to invent and create a computer for
themselves, or write a symphony, or travel to the moon, and rocket
scientists would not need to open their ranks to any newcomers. In fact many
if not most of us would be seriously challenged to create some form of
shelter or find something to eat without a handy supermarket.
To quote Isaac Newton in a letter in 1676:
If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.
Although this is similar to a phrase used by the 12th century John of
Salisbury, it may even pre-date him as he was known to have adapted and
refined the work of others. Which really serves to illustrate the point that
as humans, we are standing on the shoulders of giants, and the majority of
us would never have attained the comforts and wonders that surround us, had
it not been for the accumulated efforts of others. Thus, for us to claim
some level of superior intelligence based on the achievements of the
intellectual giants of our species could not even be called tenuous. It’s
actually laughable.
So what about ordinary people like me?
So what about just general, common-or-garden intelligence then? When we look
deeper into definitions of human intelligence, Wiki provides many angles and
measures and it seems like the jury is still out on that one. There are
theories about so many aspects; linguistic, logical, spatial, bodily,
interpersonal, intrapersonal. There is no single definition that encompasses
everything and I’ve been on the planet long enough to know that few of us
would shine in even one of these areas, far less all of them.
Yet it is abundantly clear that despite the limitations that the majority of
us have, whatever method by which we decide to define intelligence, however
nebulous, however narrow, is the yardstick by which we as a species,
generally presume to measure every other. It speaks to our elitist and
speciesist mindset that we find and in fact expect to find articles about
intelligence in the human animal separate from articles about intelligence
in other animal species.
Looking for the sake of comparison at pages about intelligence in other
animal species, I was not particularly surprised to find that the subject
seemed to be broken up into a series of anecdotes, many of which are about
individuals whose actions were in some way thought notable, combined with
sparse paragraphs that say so little about a whole species as to be almost
insulting, as well as one or two more lengthy pieces discussing wider issues
such as theory of mind in animals. Our recognition of their skills is
grudging even at best, frequently couched in surprised or patronising terms,
determined that whatever we discover is not indicative of anything that
would elevate their status to being worthy of their birthright to live their
lives free from the violence and brutality of our merciless exploitation.
Life in a mirror
Shackles in a slaughterhouse for hens
And in just the same way as our definition of ourselves as ‘animal lovers’ astonishingly disregards the copious bloodbath for which we are each personally responsible when we refuse to be vegan, our eager definition of ourselves as ‘intelligent’ includes pinnacles of human achievement that we personally can scarcely even understand, far less ascribe to. Despite this, we claim this ‘human intelligence’ as if it were our own, and we use it as a cudgel with which we bludgeon our way through the lives, the bodies and the habitats of our fellow earthlings; arrogantly assuming that although we have never taken the time to think about how this supposed intelligence manifests itself in the creature we see in the mirror, we are safe to assume that every other species is inferior.
Mother hen teaching her infants about life
And what exactly is that creature in the mirror doing with all their
intelligence? Well I know what the one in my mirror does. She cares for
those for whom she feels responsible, looks after the place she thinks of as
home, struggles to find a way to acquire the resources she needs to keep
herself and those who depend on her fed, clothed, warm, safe and sheltered
from the weather. Occasionally she’ll write, she’ll talk with friends,
gather information about what others are doing with their time. It’s what I
do. And let’s be honest, isn’t that what most of us do?
Recently I have shared a video or two that have been greeted with much
delight – I’ll link them at the end. One depicts a tiny bird carefully and
with consummate skill, sewing leaves together to create a shelter where she
can build her nest. Another video gave an insight into the complex and
fascinating life of members of the crow species.
And do you know what they were doing? They were looking after those for whom
they were responsible, looking after the places they regarded as home,
struggling to acquire the resources they needed to keep themselves and their
dependants fed, safe and sheltered from the weather, gathering information
about what others were doing with their time.
Common ground, shared priorities
In short, we have more that connects us with every other species than we
care to admit. Each of us is simply living from day to day, caring for
family, staying fed and sheltered. That is the level on which most of us
function. And when we drop the assumption that we’re so superior to other
species, other questions present themselves. Who the hell are we to measure
all others by the standards we set – not for ourselves because we know we’re
not in the same ballpark – but rather for a few individuals of our species?
Who are we to decide that other species are not important enough to live
unless they do so exclusively for our interests? And even – how do we
actually know that we are the only species in which individuals come along
every so often whose brilliance outshines us all?
We are a rather tragic species suffering from a delusion that we are apart
from all others, brutalising and destroying our way through our days, rather
than acknowledging our role as a part of the interwoven, interdependent
network of life and living that is planet Earth. These delusions of ours are
dragging the planet we share to the brink of an abyss of our making, a
beckoning cataclysm caused by our arrogant assumption that our shared world
and everyone who has fur or feathers, scales or wings, have no purpose other
than to serve our petty whims and convenience. The end is perilously close,
and time is running out for us to stop the behaviour that is causing the
problem.
If we don’t wake up, and wake up very soon, it will be too late for every
one of us, and being responsible for planetary disaster on an apocalyptic
scale is hardly something that any intelligent species would do.
Be vegan.