Anthropocentrism
Our generation must suffer atonement for a century of environmental devastation. To be frank, this effort to make reparations for our wanton past is humbling to both parties: the educator, be it the government, the baby-boomer or the teacher, who must deal with the reproach of a now environmentally-conscious populace and the youth, who despairs over the burden he has inherited. Consequently, both parties disguise their “green” duties in a bastardized sense of nobility. Hence the pretentious “Save the Planet” and “Save the Animals” campaigns of our elementary years, as if mankind were some sentinel over the planet, and environmentalism was the maintenance of an otherwise paralytic Mother Nature. This idiotic, self-exalting conception of humanity is called anthropocentrism. To a society on the brink of an ecological cataclysm, such a philosophy is incompatible with reality.
Mankind is insignificant. The sooner we come to terms with this fact, the more honest we can be about our future. In the grand scale of things, our emissions, our footprint, our toxicity, are of little consequence to the Earth. Nature has endured the great extinctions of the Cretaceous, Jurassic, Permian, Devonian and Silurian ages; there is no reason to expect its collapse during the Holocene, the minor time of the humans. In terms of sheer collective impact, we are easily superseded by evolution’s greatest product: bacteria. To Earth, we are just a temporary nuisance, a bipedal parasite. There is nothing sacred about human life, which is simply one of the expressions of a vast biological process. To be anthropocentric despite this evidence is to blindly assert that we are special organisms. To be anthropocentrically environmentalist is to then further proclaim that our special existence is crucial to the harmony of all life.
As the clock ticks down, we must realize that the only motive for environmentalism is self-preservation. The rhinos of Africa and the polar bears of the Arctic are all failures from an evolutionary standpoint. They failed as species to adapt to a more intelligent and ruthless competitor. Mankind will become a failure as well, unless it learns to deal with its arrogance and self-denial. Those who are endeared by the death throes of “endangered” species should perhaps consider saving their fellow man before anything else.
In the wake of the Academy’s inaugural Climate Action Day, it is important to commend Bill McKibben for advocating a non-anthropocentric campaign. From the moment he emphasized the human cost of unfettered climate change, he dismissed any misconceptions about our current predicament. It is not about the animals. It is not about the planet. It is purely about us resisting extinction, which is as legitimate a cause as any other. History suffices to tell the incredible power of man’s simple desire to live. As McKibben showed in his keynote, there is no heroism in the eyes of those threatened by climate change. Heroism is born of choices. Our generation has none. ♥