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GREEN PARADISE LOST |
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2. Does Human Uniqueness Mean Superiority? The Jellyfish and Me Pulling aside my curtains, I looked upon a clear and truly glorious day. The sky was a turquoise blue, without a cloud in its heavens. The sun was glistening on the fresh, cool water. Oh what a day to be alive! I jumped out of bed, quickly dressed, and drank a glass of juice. I was anxious to get outside and enjoy this beautiful summer day. As I climbed over the rocks which connected us to the adjacent beach, I caught a glimpse of something glistening in the water below. I descended once again to the sandy shore to investigate. A large clear jellyfish, floating listlessly between here and the islands, had caught the sun's rays and thus appeared to me a reflector. My first reaction was that it was "only a jellyfish" and that I could not be bothered on a gorgeous day like today with something as miniscule and as unimportant of God's creations as a boneless, brainless jellyfish. But that was just it! There are creatures like the jellyfish who are low on the evolutionary scale but are just as important and enjoy this beautiful day just as much as I do. I realized, in these moments of identification with my fellow inhabitant, how anthropocentric my view of life had been. I realized how often I had gazed across the water and tried to envision all the humans on the other side, but how seldom I had tried to envision the other creations of God which inhabited the depths in between. This time as I climbed the rocks, I had a new appreciation of the world around me -- the glorious day that was not just created for two-legged creatures like myself but for all creatures, even the floating jellyfish, to enjoy. [1] My daughter wrote this for a college application. It was to be an essay on a memorable experience in her life, and she entitled it "Revelations on a Glorious Day." It particularly interested me because of its repentance of the anthropocentric illusion we have been discussing. People often ask me, "How could anyone honestly perceive that humans are not superior to the animals? We are smarter than they. We do have more highly developed brains. How can we not be 'higher' or 'superior'?" Are Our Specialties So Extra-Special? Our problem here is the great confusion in our thinking between our being "unique" as a species and our being "superior." Let me illustrate this confusion. A male friend once said to me in the course of a group's discussion of male/female, "But Liz, I am superior to you!" "Really?" I replied, "and how do you figure that?" "I am stronger than you," he said, "I can run a jackhammer and you can't." Another male present immediately testified that he couldn't run a jackhammer either, and did that make him inferior too? A female then pointed out that he could not bear a child and I could, so did that difference make me superior?" This same confusion of thinking is to be found in our thinking about our relationship to animals. We always choose some attribute in which we humans happen to excel, and we then make that the basis for our conclusion that we as humans are not only different from other animals but also superior to them. For example, we sometimes choose arbitrarily to emphasize our more highly developed brain. But other animals have a more highly developed sense of smell or hearing or night vision. Why is any one particular attribute to be singled out as evidence of superiority as a species, except that we as humans always single out what we do best, just as men have done in asserting their superiority to women? Why, for example, do we not recognize the dependence of all life upon the action of chlorophyll in green plants? All life -- human, animal and plant -- is ultimately dependent for its food-energy upon the photosynthetic process by which chlorophyll converts the sun's energy into food-energy usable by plants and by humans and other animals. Why do we not regard this as the most fantastic accomplishment ever, for all life in all its forms is derived from this? Or again, we are deeply dependent upon the phytoplankton in the ocean; we need the oxygen they put into the atmosphere. It is clear that we are deeply dependent upon them, while they can get along very well without any help from humans. How is it, we must ask once again, that we humans have come to think that our specialties are so extra special? Now some would say that we humans are obviously "above" the other plant and animal species because we alone throughout history have been able to change the world so dramatically. We alone seem to have the power to eliminate other species, to bulldoze the face of the earth into new configurations, and to conquer time and space on our way to the moon and the planets. Surely, these people say, such exhibitions of human power and capacity prove our superior status as not only ''unique" but also "above." I would call this the king-of-the-forest syndrome. Would we say that a raging bull elephant is proving his "unique superiority" when he stomps the forest to pieces around him by his raw power to destroy? So too for us as humans. We clearly do have as part of our uniqueness as a species an obvious power to change (and destroy) the earth. But that uniqueness -- dependent as it is for its basic sustenance in life upon other species and upon the biosphere -- cannot therefore be construed as an absolute and unconditional superiority. What has happened is that once again, quite arbitrarily, we have decided upon one attribute -- possessing powers such as our own -- and said that these make us the superior species. Once again, we have declared that what we do best is the true measure of superiority. Ranking by Brain Power: The Whales But even if we consider just our most prized human possession, our brain power, we would do well to compare ourselves also with the whales and dolphins. If size alone determines the "brain hierarchy," then the dolphin easily ranks above both man and monkey. [2] But actually we think the most important thing is not the size of the brain but the development of the cerebral cortex. But even here the whales qualify. Peter Morgane, writing about his work on whales' brains and intelligence, says: The very fact that the whales have such a highly specialized nervous system makes them of immediate interest to man. It is almost mysterious to consider the meaning of the intricate fissurization ... of the whale cerebral cortex. This is so vast and complex a neural territory that it has aroused considerable research interest in attempting to determine the significance of its complexity and regional specialization. Why are the cerebral hemispheres so large and luxuriantly folded? What is the explanation of all this exuberant cortex in animals that seem so restricted in their scope? [3] The former director of the Cetacean (i.e., dolphin and whale) Brain Laboratory of the New York Aquarium, Myron Jacobs, has written that: The white whale ... engages in complex play patterns which have their structural basis in this mammal's relatively large brain.... Few mammals equal dolphins in their complex patterns of play, a behavior which seems related to large-brain mammals only. [4] Peter Morgane has reflected upon man's characteristic expression of himself through the use of tools and our subsequent tendency to equate the use of such tools with intelligence. Is it not well, he suggests, to examine other possible modes of expressing intelligence or intellectual capacity? [5] Similarly, Carl Sagan has observed that "because whales and dolphins have no hands, tentacles, or other manipulative organs, their intelligence cannot be worked out in technology." Sagan asks: What is left? Payne has recorded examples of very long songs sung by the humpback whale; some of the songs were as long as half an hour or more. A few of them appear to be repeatable, virtually phoneme by phoneme; somewhat later the entire cycle of sounds comes out virtually identically once again. I calculate that the approximate number of bits of information (individual yes/no questions necessary to characterize the song) in a whale song of half an hour's length is between a million and a hundred million bits.... Now, a million bits is approximately the number of bits in The Odyssey or the Icelandic Eddas. Is it possible that the intelligence of Cetaceans is channeled into the equivalent of epic poetry, history, and elaborate codes of social interaction? Are whales and dolphins like human Homers before the invention of writing, telling of great deeds done in years gone by in the depths and far reaches of the sea? [6] Using then the standards of "brain power" which humans have established as their criteria for ranking animals, it is interesting that Man may not actually fill the topmost spot. Perhaps we have conquered the world because of our thumb -- and not because of our brain. And perhaps our "social graces" are insufficiently developed for us to conquer the world without also destroying it. By way of contrast with our human lack of "social graces" it is interesting to consider the cetologist Paul Spong's account of the social sense among orcas (the so-called "killer whales"): .. .[W]e had gained our first glimpse of their exquisitely beautiful, efficiently and harmoniously organized existence.... We gained the impression that socially the population of more than fifty orcas was a cooperatively organized group entity comprising several pods which in turn subdivide in various ways; individual, pod, and population activities were obviously highly coordinated. [7] Joan McIntyre has written in a similar vein about her observations of porpoises: The porpoises will fish ... for hours, long enough to satisfy their needs, but they do not quarrel about the fish. The sense of manners and propriety prevails, and once a porpoise is on a course for a fish, or has touched one, ownership is clear and undisputed. The porpoises rarely fight with one another. The cohesion of the group does not allow the dislocation of arguments or grudges. Sometimes there is disagreement over a mate, and often a strange porpoise will be driven away from the school, but the order of the school itself is harmonious and, apparently, kind. There seems to be little reason to fight. There are no objects to accrue or own. There is constant sexual play, enough to allow everyone the satisfying contact with friends and mates and lovers. There is enough food. The school makes its way through the long hours, weeks, and years of its life with remarkable equanimity -- and with great joy. Knit together by the integrated sensing of each member, each member sharing his or her information with the others, the school is an ancient, uniquely supportive culture -- a creation greater than the sum of its parts. [8] Three-Dimensional Communication among Dolphins Language, symbolization, and communication are cited by some as what makes humans special. But here again we can understand only our human symbolization and we can only talk to other humans. Consider, on the other hand, the communication which is possible for the whale species. John Sutphen, writing about "Body State Communication among Cetaceans," has observed that: In humans, communication is made largely through either verbal abstraction or visual imagery. The former is basically spoken and written language as we know it. Visual images, however, frequently transmit gestalt impressions and provide our most meaningful intraspecies emotional link: the curl of the lip, the tear, the turn of the eyes. Vision, of course, is also our major stereotactic sense and serves functions of recognition and location. Imaging in the Cetacean world is primarily in the acoustic metaphor. Therein lies an incredible difference between human and Cetacean communication. Echolocation is three-dimensional. For example, one dolphin scanning another dolphin does not just receive an echo from the other's skin but from the interior body as well. [9] Sutphen goes on to explore the implications for communication of the Cetacean capabilities: Consider what exchanges of personal information may be possible between intelligent acoustic creatures. Each dolphin has to be constantly aware of the internal workings of the other if for no other reason than personal identification. From what is now known about the resolving capabilities of the dolphin's sonar and from certain well established principles of physiologic morphology of internal organs and tissues, it is reasonable to assume that Cetaceans are aware of each other's health and general well-being. Cancers and tumors must be self-evident. Strokes and heart attacks are as obvious as moles on our skins. Equally important, and perhaps more interesting, they could be constantly aware of a considerable portion of each other's emotional state. The psychophysiological alterations of sexual arousal, fear, depression, and excitement may be impossible to hide .... To Cetaceans, then, there would be another order of magnitude of visualizable information, and another cultural experience to bring to bear on their meanings. What sort of candor might exist between individuals where feelings are instantly and constantly bared? It would be irrelevant to hide, to lie, or to deny one's feelings. [10] That sort of mammal communication would involve a depth and sensitivity far beyond our human capacities. So extreme is the hearing-sensitivity of dolphins that they can hear a researcher drop a teaspoonful of water into a large oceanarium pool -- and then echolocate the spot. [11] "Mind in the Waters" Those who work as researchers with the Cetaceans speak of their "awareness," and a book about Cetaceans is entitled Mind in the Waters. The editor of the book, Joan McIntyre, has written: If you look for what might be the common thread in any number of stories about Cetaceans, you are struck with the recurring idea that it appears as if the animals are intensely conscious of what they are doing. Conscious in an exquisitely specific and finely detailed way. This business of being conscious of what you do may seem a simple one, but it is one we commonly do not grant to other animals. We tend to accept the idea that all animals other than humans behave like wind-up clocks of stimulus-response, that their lives are regulated only by instinct, and that the ability to be flexible, to react in a subtle changing way to changing circumstances, is an ability given only unto man -- a kind of divine intercession.... But if we comb through our stories and our encounters with wild whales and dolphins, we find that they seem to hang together along a shining thread -- that whales and dolphins know what they are doing, that their actions are purposeful, and stunningly specific to the occasion, that they intend us no harm, that they are aware. [12] Malcolm Brenner describes his experience of such awareness, which came to him while he was trying to teach a dolphin named Ruby to say her name in English, repeating it after him and rewarding her each time she improved by throwing her ball back to her: I threw the ball, and she returned it. "All right, now, say 'Ruby'! Rooo-beee!" Again that squawk. "No, you're going to have to do better than that .... Cmon, say 'Rooo-beee'!" For several more repetitions all I could get was that squawky noise. I noticed that she was repeating the same sound every time; it wasn't just any old squawk, but one with recognizable characteristics. But it was delphinese, which might as well be gibberish to me. I wanted English out of her, or at least a reasonable facsimile, and I was going to withhold the reward until I got it. Suddenly her vocalization changed. Her squawk came out in two distinct syllables, rather like the way I had been syllabificating "Rooo-beee!" I hurled the ball, and she returned it. Our progress became unbelievably rapid. In the space of five minutes, she began to copy the syllabification, rhythm, tone, and inflections of my pronunciation of the word "Ruby," and she did so with an accuracy and a speed I found amazing. Every time she came closer to my pronunciation I threw the ball, and she would return it to me. Each time her pronunciation was further away from mine I would withhold the ball until she improved. We became completely wrapped up in each other: the outside world ceased to exist. We stood a few feet apart in the water of her pen, staring at each other intently with bright eyes, and the excitement between us was palpable. Never in my life had I known such an intimate feeling of being in contact with an incredible non-human creature. It felt like it was what I had been created to do. Our minds seemed to be running on the same wave. We were together.... She repeated the word with this degree of accuracy a couple of times, then started babbling at me in delphinese, shaking her head up and down with her jaws open in that gesture, usually associated with pleasure, that I called "ya-ya-ing." I tried to get her to say "Rooo-beee!" again; more ya-ya-ing. Then she swam back a few feet and made a peculiar noise, a kind of "keee-orr-oop," but about three times faster than you pronounce it. It occurred to me -- I don't know why -- to repeat that sound. Ruby seemed to be expecting it of me. I did the best I could with it. She repeated it, but now it sounded slightly different; I mimicked her changes. God, she's doing to me what I was just doing to her! Where will this lead? By now the ball was forgotten; I was totally absorbed in listening to Ruby's vocalizations and was attempting to mimic them as accurately as possible with my inadequate human lips and vocal chords. She repeated the sound again, changed still more, and I copied that; she repeated it again, and as I tried to mimic her I thought, this sounds vaguely familiar -- "kee-orr-oop." The light in my head went on. The sound I had just successfully imitated was the one she had been giving to me in the beginning, in response to my first attempts to make her say "Ruby!" This realization struck me as the sound was coming out [of] my lips. Several fuses in my mind blew simultaneously and I did an incredible double-take, nearly falling over, and staring at Ruby, who was watching me with great concentration. When she saw the doubletake, and knew I knew, she flipped out, and went ya-ya-ing around the pool, throwing water into the air, very excited, and apparently happy that this two-legged cousin of hers was progressing so rapidly. I just stood there, watching her, trying to figure out exactly what had just happened between myself and this dolphin. [13] These researchers have come to know over time a number of whales, porpoises and dolphins, some in captivity and some free in the sea in groups. Many of the researchers speak of the conflict between our hierarchical understanding of these animals as "lower" and the "being" which they came to know as they interacted with them. In the opening words of Mind in the Waters Joan McIntyre writes: We have, for too long now, accepted a view of non-human life which denies other creatures feelings, imagination, consciousness, and awareness. It seems that in our craze to justify our exploitation of all non-human life forms, we have stripped from them any attributes which could stay our hand. Try for a moment, if you can, to imagine the imagination of a whale, or the awareness of a dolphin. That we cannot make those leaps of vision is because we are bound to a cultural view which denies their possibility. [14] John Lilly reported in connection with his early pioneering studies of dolphin behavior "a feeling of weirdness": This effect was first noticed in our work in 1955, 1957, and 1958. As I became more convinced of the neuro-anatomical size and complexity of the dolphin brain, I noticed a subtle change in my own attitude in regard to possible performances on the parts of these animals. To one like myself, trained in neurology, neurophysiology, and psychoanalysis, a large complex brain implies large complex capabilities and great mental sensitivity. Such capabilities and sensitivities can exist of course in forms we have not yet recognized .... This opening of our minds was a subtle and yet a painful process.... The feeling of weirdness came on us as the sounds of this small whale seemed more and more to be forming words in our own language. We felt we were in the presence of Something, or Someone, who was on the other side of a transparent barrier which up to this point we hadn't even seen. The dim outlines of a Someone began to appear. We began to look at this small whale's body with newly opened eyes and began to think in terms of its possible "mental processes," rather than in terms of the classical view of a conditionable, instinctually functioning "animal." [15] Is the Problem Their Intelligence? or Our Communication? I have lingered at such length with these various accounts of the whales, dolphins and porpoises because the researchers themselves became aware of the mental blinders which our hierarchical thinking and anthropocentric illusion had imposed. Joan McIntyre writes: Our perceptions, ideas, and feelings are filtered through the interpretative process of our culture; it is what we believe the world is about. It has, for several thousand years, insisted that we are unique and dominant in the world of life; that only we, the bearers of the technological literate tradition, learn; that to be this kind of human is to have as our dominion the materials of the planet to do with as we wish. Citing the Genesis passage about God giving man dominion, she goes on to observe that "When we asserted our rights over nature we asserted our isolation and sanctioned a relationship that gives us not only the slaughter of whales for profit but also a belief system that could not imagine them as being like us." [16] In a remarkably similar vein Carl Sagan writes in a book on the evolution of human intelligence about research on the intelligence of chimpanzees. Attempts to raise chimps with human babies had convinced many that chimps were incapable of abstract thought, because chimps did not learn to talk. But two psychologists, Beatrice and Robert Gardner at the University of Nevada, realized that the pharynx and larynx of the chimp are not suited for human speech. So they instead taught chimps Ameslan (American sign language, used by those unable to speak or hear). Ameslan was quite well suited to the great manual dexterity of the chimpanzee but has all the crucial design features of verbal languages. At the present time there are chimpanzees with working vocabularies of 100 to 200 words and using appropriate grammar and syntax. Washoe, Lucy and Lana have also used the sign language to invent new words: On seeing for the first time a duck land quacking in a pond, Washoe gestured "water bird," which is the same phrase used in English and other languages, but which Washoe invented for the occasion. Having never seen a spherical fruit other than an apple, but knowing the signs for the principal colors, Lana, upon spying a technician eating an orange, signed "orange apple." After tasting a watermelon, Lucy described it as "candy drink" or "drink fruit," which is essentially the same word form as the English "water melon." But after she had burned her mouth on her first radish, Lucy forever after described them as "cry hurt food." A small doll placed unexpectedly in Washoe's cup elicited the response "Baby in my drink".... Lucy was eventually able to distinguish clearly the meanings of the phrases "Roger tickle Lucy" and "Lucy tickle Roger," both of which activities she enjoyed with gusto. Likewise, Lana extrapolated from "Tim groom Lana" to "Lana groom Tim." Washoe was observed "reading a magazine" -- i.e., slowly turning the pages, peering intently at the pictures and making, to no one in particular, an appropriate sign, such as "cat" when viewing a photograph of a tiger, and "drink" when examining a Vermouth advertisement. Having learned the sign "open" with a door, Washoe extended the concept to a briefcase. She also attempted to converse in Ameslan with the laboratory cat, who turned out to be the only illiterate in the facility. Having acquired this marvelous method of communication, Washoe may have been surprised that the cat was not also competent in Ameslan. And when one day Jane, Lucy's foster mother, left the laboratory, Lucy gazed after her and signed, "Cry me. Me cry." [17] Finally Sagan tells a poignant story which raises clearly the question, Is our problem communicating with other species in their intelligence or in our communication? Boyce Rensberger is a sensitive and gifted reporter for the New York Times whose parents could neither speak nor hear, although he is in both respects normal. His first language, however, was Ameslan. He had been abroad on a European assignment for the Times for some years. On his return to the United States, one of his first domestic duties was to look into the Garners' experiments with Washoe. After some little time with the chimpanzee, Rensberger reported, "Suddenly I realized I was conversing with a member of another species in my native tongue." The use of the word tongue is, of course, figurative: it is built deeply into the structure of the language (a word that also means "tongue"). In fact, Rensberger was conversing with a member of another species in his native "hand." And it is just this transition from tongue to hand that has permitted humans to regain the ability -- lost, according to Josephus, since Eden -- to communicate with the animals. [18] The Eyeglasses of Culture through which We See "We have the impression," Sagan writes, "that other animals are not very intelligent. But have we examined the possibility of animal intelligence carefully enough, or, as in Francois Truffaut's poignant film The Wild Child, do we simply equate the absence of our style of expression of intelligence with the absence of intelligence? In discussing communication with the animals, the French philosopher Montaigne remarked, 'The defect that hinders communication betwixt them and us, why may it not be on our part as well as theirs?''' [19] Do you remember in The Wizard of Oz that everyone when they reached the Emerald City received green eyeglasses so that everything they saw looked emerald green? All of us have such eyeglasses. It is through these eyeglasses that we perceive our experience. These eyeglasses are the mental models or paradigms we use; as such, they constitute our culturally generated and shared basic interpretations of life. These Cetacean and chimpanzee researchers experienced a basic "lens" (or paradigm or mental model) which we have all inherited as a cosmic vision. We use this lens in perceiving reality and interpreting its relationships and processes. When seen through this lens, reality is like a ladder or pyramid -- "a great chain of being" in which everything is either up or down, dominant or subordinate, superior or inferior, better or worse. Seeing the "Different" as "The Other" What I am saying is that when we are responding to differences (whether man and woman, or man and whale, or man and chimp, or man and God), our perceptions are dominated and distorted by the hierarchical paradigm. Almost in the same instant that we perceive difference, we are looking to ascertain rankings of power, moral or economic value, and aesthetic preference. We do this whether it is a different animal, a different culture, or a skin pigmentation that is different. The hierarchical paradigm is thus not simply an ordinary eyeglass for our culture. It is a veritable contact lens. So intimately is it a part of how we perceive that we seem never to assess difference as just that -- different. Instead we insist upon imposing comparative rankings which are incomplete and often self-serving. Perhaps more important, we have in our Western tradition perceived what is different as "the Other." (This goes back to our hierarchical Judeo-Christian heritage and its perception of God as transcendent and thus Other.) And we have always set immediately to work ranking ourselves against that Other. If that Other is God, He is above me -- superior. If that Other is female (and I am male), she is below me -- inferior. If that other is animal, I am superior because I am more complex, more "highly developed," or because I am "created in the image and likeness of God." If that Other is another culture, it is probably below me because I do not understand it but at first glance it seems "more primitive," "less complex," or simply less powerful. Legitimating the Power of Some over Others Thus behind inequality, behind sexism, classism, racism -- when these forms of social relationship and oppression are pursued back to their origins -- you come finally to a common Gordian knot, which I have labeled hierarchical thinking. In its essence hierarchical thinking is a perception of diversity which is so organized by a spatial metaphor (Up-and-Down) that greater value is always attributed to that which is higher. This greater value which is attributed to that which is higher, legitimates the power of some over others -- for, if you accept the Up-and-Down organization of perceptions and value which this metaphor provides, then inequality itself has been legitimated -- when, in fact, prior to the metaphor of Up-Down one would have said only that there existed diversity. It is ironic that many activist clergy, theologians and academics passionately concerned to fight oppressive systems, do not yet perceive how those same oppressions are rooted in and legitimated by the hierarchical thinking to which they still cling. "Why," some will ask, "is responsible stewardship over nature not an adequate safeguard?" Because so long as stewardship carries with it the illusion of superiority or noblesse oblige (as it now does), it is simply benign paternalism. Power corrupts, and hierarchical categories legitimate that power. I am amazed that many who are activists for social causes and who would never give the power of benign paternalism to slave owners, to government bureaucrats, or to corporate management, are strangely blind to the corrupting effects of that same sort of power inhering in benign paternalism when it is exercised over endangered animal species, the air, the waterways, the oceans, the soil, or "over" nature in general.
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