The tragic myth of anthropocentrism

The Bible is cited to defend the tragedy and justify it as not only right but godly. Genesis 1: 26-28 are the verses that are lifted up and weaponised to justify the conquest and abuse of the Earth by humans. The narrative is that: “And God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So, God created man in his own image, in the image of God created him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” These scriptures are cited whenever humans, some humans, want to justify their domination of nature and its multiple qualities, forms and figures. Today I write of the tragic myth of anthropocentrism where humans have centred themselves and their interests at the expense of nature and the many different forms of life that have the earth as their home. This has resulted in ecocides, killings of the natural environment and the ecosphere, that has made the planet hostile to different forms of life. Huge masses of water have literally died while quantities of the air and the atmosphere have been polluted to toxicity. The soil and the land have also been destroyed, poisoned and or corrupted to levels that have reduced the hospitality of the earth as a home for multiple forms of beings. Plant and animal life have been rendered precarious and fragile under the human conquest and dominion of the earth. The way the planet and the earth now threaten the destruction of all forms of life puts into question the durable assumption that humans are the most intelligent and most powerful animals under the sun. We might just be that unreasonable, selfish and suicidal lot that has attacked the nature that gave birth to us and has thus far nursed and nurtured us. Friedrich Nietzsche, the nihilist, might have been right that “perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.”

In the pursuit of conquest and dominion of the earth, humans have sentenced other beings and themselves to suffering and death. When humans laugh, which is their unique gift, they actually laugh at themselves for their tragedy on earth.

The lie of enlightenment
The age of enlightenment was christened the age of light and reason where man rose to deploy science and philosophy to conquer the universe and bring it under his dominion. The age was called the “age of reason” and rationality of man that was now a god on earth. Some called the age the “death of God” as man had now achieved godly powers and abilities. No doubt the age was an age of immense production of ideas. From the late 17th Century to the 19th Century there was, in the West, massive production of philosophical ideas and scientific developments that seemed to emancipate man from darkness. Modernity itself was produced, in that way. Such books as John Locke’s Two Treatise of Government in 1689, Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan in 1651 and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Social Contract in 1762, are philosophical books that modernised and civilised government.

Tragically, alongside these great ideas came other evil ideas that overtook the great ideas. As if to fulfil the observation that light is always accompanied by and can only be seen in darkness evil ideas also triumphed. The Enlightenment as the arrival of light also became the arrival of darkness. Ideas of slavery, colonialism and imperialism were also energetically generated and promoted during the Enlightenment. That some men were going to be masters over others, that some nations were going to be empires that conquered other nations, and that some races of people were to be superior to other races were all ideas that gained currency and purchase during the “age of reason.” That nature itself was a resource and not a being, a capitalist and extractivist idea, was born in the Enlightenment.

The birth and growth of reason was accompanied by the birth and growth of unreason and evil itself. Looking at how industrial revolutions and other scientific developments have been accompanied by evil, colonialism, slavery, coloniality and imperialism, one can make the conclusion that the good of Enlightenment has been overshadowed by evil and darkness. It is as if darkness and evil are the price that we must pay for modernity. We will miss the “God who died” and the traditions and customs of man the innocent and simple animal that feared God and nature.

War and Modernity
As I write the world is littered with wars of different sizes. Technological inventions and their scientific product of Artificial Intelligence are being deployed in military acts of death and destruction everywhere. Due to industrial emissions nature is angry, the ice melting to drown the earth because of excessive heat. Diseases and poisons are in the air. And in the water. Plant, animal and human lives are in peril as natural disasters that are actually generated by human are at large everywhere.

In 1933, Albert Einstein wrote a letter to Sigmund Freud, Why War? Asking if humans might ever avoid war. Freud answered to say that the love for power, hate and fear will always make war an inevitable accompaniment of life. What human should seek and find, Freud said, was love for each other and respect for laws. Modernity has occasioned the scarcity of love and disrespect of the laws. The wisdom to love and the courage to fear and obey the laws are the qualities that humans need to make the world a peaceful and better place for all forms of life beyond the life of humans. As such, not only the laws of man must be feared but also the laws of nature that spell out that the water, the soil, and the air are alive. That nature itself is alive and God is not dead is part of the laws of nature and the law of the unknown.

The anthropocentrism, the centering of human beings as the superior beings, and speciesism as the discrimination of other species in preference for the human are part of the violations of the laws of nature and the attack on God. Our tragedy, starting with the Enlightenment, has been our anthropocentrism and criminality towards nature. That human beings are still alright with not only attacking nature but also shooting and bombing each other are an indictment on man. Modernity itself is falsified when man powerfully deploys barbarism such as in war. The dominion over the earth that man aspired for has become true destruction of nature and lives on earth. That we are the powerful and the laughing children of nature is actually a demonstration of our tragedy. Modernity, especially colonial and western modernity has been an advancement that is also a retreat back to darkness and blood.

Cetshwayo Zindabazezwe Mabhena writes from Sunnyside, Pretoria, in South Africa. Contacts: [email protected].