Mark , you give a very succinct and cogent statement of the issues from my standpoint
( as I have understood DE ideas here).
I would add that our focus on socio-politico-economic dimensions is with the idea that
humans have run into seriously dangerous problems running "themselves" which surely
must be solved before we can start taking on the role of special species in charge of
the other species. But Mark certainly makes a daring statement on humans really
stepping up and doing it for all life.
Charles Brown
>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/14/00 06:07AM >>>
The problem I have with DE is that it assumes what it sets out to DISprove, i.e. it
assumes (logically, theoretically, and also empirically) that homo sapiens sapiens
is somehow a distinct and unique by-product of evolution, and then seeks to disprove
this by asserting that after all, we are interdependent with all other species, we
cannot exist without biodiversity etc. But in truth this argument is highly
contradictory, or I am missing something. Homo sapiens sapiens is a characteristic
product of the evolutionary process. It is no exception to the rules which have
governed the entire evolution of life on earth. The determining characteristic of
evolution is that it is a process in which ALL species whatsoever seek to maximise
their niche, at the expense of as well as in concert and co-operation with, all
other species (or subsets thereof). As a matter of self-evident fact (unless you are
a Creationist) humankind is not an exception in any sense, either functionally or
typologically. Humankind is simply a normal product of the evolution of DNA-based
life forms, which is why we share most of our genes with potatoes, amoeba etc. Homo
sapiens sapiens has been more successful (perhaps only temporarily) at maximising
its niche and can therefore be considered to be a highly-successful (in the short
term) adaptation. But that's all it is, an adaptation, and a fairly minor one at
that, if you consider the whole immense process which has filled geological time and
which has shaped the planet, its atmosphere etc.
Arguably, if we hadn't come along something else would. Therefore, it is not what we
are doing to nature that is the problem, but what evolution is doing to itself. And
this ecosphere-threatening outcome was the inevitable outcome of the totality of
evolution during 500m+ years. Blame evolution, not humans. Blaming humans is just
inverted anthropocentric arrogance.
If homo sapiens sapiens is functionally and morphologically part of general
evolution, we should stop arbitrarily abstracting ourselves from evolution. What
bigger or more characteristic anthropocentrism is there, than human guilt-trips?
What other species does this?
Equally, what DE proselytisers ignore is the fact that in seeking to 'conserve
biodiversity' and be fully 'biocentric', they are actually arguing that homo sapiens
sapiens should single-handedly negate (and transcend?) the entire evolutionary
process, with its governing logic of niche-maximisation, the evidence for which
geologically (and in other ways), is overwhelming. So in this sense, too, DE is
highly contradictory. DE seeks not just the negation of *human* evolution, i.e. of
its underlying niche-maximisation dynamic, but in so doing, it seeks to negate the
evolutionary dynamic which it wants to conserve. For by endowing homo sapiens
sapiens with a new and unprecedented custodial role, as guardian of biodiversity and
evolutionary complexity, DE negates the underlying logic of the whole of evolution.
It is saying that evolution should stand on its head and do what it has never done
before, that it should cease interspecies competition/maximisation in favour of some
other process in which biodiversity is "sustained", i.e. in which biodiversity
actually goes into stasis and evolution goes into suspended animation. For once
humans do get full control of biodiversity, and have their hands on the levers of
change, then either evolution ceases to be a blind stochastic process, which is its
essence, and becomes something subject to conscious development, i.e., something
teleological, with ends presupposed by actions: OR all change of any kind is
stopped, in the name of "conservation".
Actually, that latter option is a non-starter. Trying to stop all change is in
itself the most drastic change, inflection, that will ever have occurred in
evolution, and is also theoretically impossible if only because the laws of entropy
and thermodynamics build change into our slowly-unwinding universe, so failure to
adapt to change is more likely to result in general extinction than it is in
conservation. So what DE is actually all about is a fantastic, profound and
completely unprecedented acceleration of evolutionary processes, and in the context
of the complete negation, and transcending (sublation) of the rules of
transformation which have always governed evolution and which are predicated on
competition and co-operation by species striving to maximise their niches. This is
why I say that DE is philosophically completely contradictory. That does not mean we
cannot learn from Deep-Ecology, we can and we must.
I have yet to see ANY DE thinker from Naess to Sahtouris, face up to this conundrum.
Probably the reason is because (a) people are afraid to contemplate this Faustian
prospect, in which humankind consciously seeks to apply and to develop what, from
the point of view of all other species, would be divine powers and (b) because once
you accept the argument that we have to be responsible for CHANGE not just
conservation, and that that is the real essence of biocentrism, i.e. it puts humans
first and not (as Naess absurdly argues) seeks to remove homo sapiens sapiens
altogether from Nature-- once you accept this, then immediately you are confronted
with the question of means-- of what technologies do you use. And we already know
what they are, don't we? They are things like DNA splicing, cloning,
gene-engineering etc. Yes, we shall have to deploy all those technologies. Think
about it.
It is, I repeat, absurd to argue that humans must be eliminated in order to preserve
biodiversity, as if we were not a result of evolution ourselves. Deleting humans
would be the greatest act of vandalism against evolution which could be envisaged.
But equally, only if humankind does take a decisive step forward, and does accept
that, as the highest (and most dangerous) product of evolution, we have both the
duty and the necessity to take charge, and to be the custodians and then the
inventors of future evolution and future biodiversity, will evolution and life
continue at all.
Mark
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