Notes From A Rainforest (Part II of II)
Environmental Article from All-Creatures.org

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James McWilliams
March 2014

In other words, in the rainforest, where bloodshed is the norm, we can, however momentarily, step aside and seek solace in the human capacity for peace. I’m pleased that I’ve never had to fight to the death in order to have sex. I’m pleased that that I’ve never had to start a war with another clan in order to reserve a place to sleep and eat. I’m pleased that I don’t have to kill and eat animals. I saddened every time we forget that violence could, theoretically, be eliminated among the human species This is what the rainforest reminds me. This is how it enhances my feelings for the potential of humanity to be decent.

rainforest survival humans As a species sharing the earth with others, humans have every right to integrate our lives into the rainforest. However, led as we are by the frontal lobe, we bring to this environment our own unique set of possible contributions. Consuming the oxygen generated by endless primary growth, we may not be able to camouflage ourselves, emit a noxious musk, or carry twenty times our weight, but we can contemplate the most responsible way to minimize our impact on finite natural resources. Granted, that choice might have meant avoiding taking a jumbo jet to San Jose, followed by a puddle jumper, to reach this place. But curiosity has its costs. And, if we can walk out with a clearer notion of our relationship with other animal species, maybe there will be some offsets.

And what would a clearer notion of our relationship with animals look like? Perhaps its best to answer the question by imagining what it won’t be. Few people from the developed world would enter a rainforest and think, “ah, lovely day to slaughter and eat a spider monkey.” Jungle creatures might be enmeshed in a web of violence but the humans who peek into it rarely feel compelled to participate (weirdly, we’re more comfortable bringing exotic animals back to terra cognita and killing them on home turf). I would even guess that there are plenty of humans who would justify eating animals on the grounds of “it’s a dog eat dog world” while, at the same time, balking at killing the javelinas that trudge through the underbrush of the world’s densest garden, serving an ecological purpose that we can barely understand.

The reason for this reticence would surely have something to do with the altogether decent desire to avoid sullying “virgin” territory with our disruptive slugs of lead. But as I noted in the last post, decent as it is, the whole idea is bogus. As far as the human eye is concerned, there is no virgin territory. We are nature; nature is us. Now, I could stop right here and conclude that the “red in tooth and claw” carnivores are merely deluded by a jejune idealization of nature. Sure. Fine. But, as you might suspect, I think there’s a little more to the story.

To spend time in a rainforest is to realize not only our holistic connection with the bees and the trees, but also to appreciate our differences from the surrounding thicket. Guided by a long and embodied history of decision making, one that we sustain with storytelling and reflection, humans are able to negotiate the rainforest with a more abstract understanding of our species’ potential place within it. The wisest among us know not to project “mere instinct” onto the sloth and her many forest companions. We know there’s more to it, and that such a characterization, regularly belied as it is by animal ethology, is essentially self-serving.

But we also know that the sloth is not contemplating the ethical implications of unnecessary animal exploitation. Nor is she in any way considering the moral consequences of her actions. Instead, she’s contemplating how to take a poop and not get eaten by a jaguar (sloths are usually killed while defecating; it’s the only time they come down from the canopy). This distinction (not where we poop, but rather how we think) matters none when it comes to the basic moral consideration we’re obligated to grant to humans and non-humans. But it’s critical when it comes to our attempt to justify our dominance over, say, the animals that we have no problem killing and eating beyond the rainforest, back in the confines of “civilized” life, to eat food we don’t need.

Our cultural willingness to kill and eat animal unnecessarily while, at the same time, showing respect to the creatures that do violence to each other in the rainforest is a double standard that speaks volumes about our confusion vis-a-vis animals. It’s a confusion that persists because we fail to realize that, as we observe the rainforest, that we do so as human beings endowed with the capacity to not only act peacefully, but to make such a quest the essence of our being. Post-humanism notwithstanding, only humans can stand in the midst of violence and ask, “how can we structure our lives to minimize what’s so necessary for other species to stay alive?”

Of course, you could interpret the violence as an easy green light toward aggression. But do note: to align ourselves with the violence of the jungle in order to justify eating animals is to accept moral behavior that, for most decent folks, is considered reprehensible. Endorsing the logic of the rainforest as a model for human behavior is to endorse the myriad forms of dominance that have marked the lowest points of human society: slavery, eugenics, indentured servitude, internment camps, and all the other ways that humans have ignored their better angels in order to further selfish interests.

And that would be a tragic lesson to learn from a rainforest that, through its violence, asks us for peace.

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Notes From A Rainforest (Part II of II) Environmental Article from All-Creatures.org

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Notes From A Rainforest (Part II of II)
Environmental Article from All-Creatures.org