Endgame Volume I_ The Problem of Civilization - Derrick Jensen [15]
Unfortunately, this form of narcissism—that only humans (and more specifically some very special humans, and even more specifically the disembodied thoughts of these very special humans) matter—is central to this culture. It pervades everything from this culture’s religion to its economics to its philosophy, literature, medicine, politics, and so on. And it certainly pervades our relationships with nonhuman members of the natural world. If it did not, we could not cause clearcuts nor construct dams. I once read a book on zoos and wildlife in which the authors asked why wildlife should be preserved, and then answered their own question in a way that makes this arrogance and stupidity especially clear: “Our answer is that the human world would be impoverished, for animals are preserved solely for human benefit, because human beings have decided they want them to exist for human pleasure. The notion that they are preserved for their sakes is a peculiar one, for it implies that animals might wish a certain condition to endure. It is, however, nonsensical for humans to imagine that animals might want to continue the existence of their species.”34
I told my friend this story.
“Were they serious, or ironic?” she asked.
“Dead fucking serious.”
She replied, “They’re full of shit. The arguments are unfounded.”
I raised my eyebrows.
She said, “I’m not so hard-core as I used to be.” She’d long-since dumped the philosopher, and started making sense again. “If the stories we live by are going to mean anything, they have to be grounded, anchored. We have to have a reference point we can rely on.”
I said, “I can name for you something that is good, no matter what stories we tell ourselves.”
“And it is . . .”
I held up my glass. “Drinkable quantities of clean water.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Drinkable quantities of clean water are unqualifiedly a good thing, no matter the stories we tell ourselves.”
She got it. She smiled before saying, “And breathable clean air.”
We both nodded.
She continued, “Without them you die.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Without them, everyone dies.”
Now she was excited. “That’s the anchor,” she said. “We can build an entire morality from there.”
It was my turn to get excited. “Exactly,” I said again.
We spent the rest of the evening sitting at the restaurant discussing—fleshing out—what an embodied morality would look like, feel like, be. If the foundation for my morality consists not of commandments from a God whose home is not primarily of this Earth and whose adherents have committed uncountable atrocities, nor of laws created by those in political power to serve those in political power, nor even the perceived wisdom—the common law—of a culture that has led us to ecological apocalypse, but if instead the foundation consists of the knowledge that I am an animal who requires habitat—including but not limited to clean water, clean air, non-toxic food—what does my consequent morality suggest about the rightness or wrongness of, say, pesticide production? If I understand that as human animals we require healthy landbases for not only physical but emotional health, how will I perceive the morality of mass extinction? How does the understanding that humans and salmon thrived here together in Tu’nes for at least twelve thousand years affect my perception of the morality of the existence of dams, deforestation, or anything else that destroys this long-term symbiosis by destroying salmon?
Although we both enjoyed our talk, we each knew we were leaving something unsaid. Not until we were outside the restaurant, returning to our respective cars, did either one of us mention it. She said, “I understand the immorality of poisoning our bodies and toxifying landbases, and of course I know that rape is immoral, but how does the fact that we have bodies, the fact that we have needs,