The Glory of Humanity

So how do you feel about human beings?  Are they the pinnacle of creation, or just a bunch of dirty monkeys with expanding waistlines?  Well, if you’ve ever been to any sort of church, you know that there is an official answer to the question of humanity’s place in the Universe.  For the most part, theologians of any stripe have no problem with the concept that all of creation is specifically intended for our exploitation and amusement.  But suppose we think about it rationally for a space.

Human beings share about 99% of their DNA with their closest relatives, the chimps.  Chimps share a lot of our behavior, as well.  They rape, and kill for sport, and even wage small-scale warfare among themselves.  They use tools.  And weapons.  They communicate in a fairly complex way, and organize and cooperate and plan.  A few have even mastered ASL (sign language)  so that they can communicate more effectively with us.  And they sling shit at zoo visitors sometimes, who knows why, just as if they were rioting human prisoners.

We don’t treat chimps very well, using them for painful medical experiments and zoo spectacles and one-way space trips and whatnot—things that we generally agree that we shouldn’t do to human beings.  But why exactly is that?  What makes the life of a serial killer, a slaveowner, or a monster like Adolf Hitler more valuable than that of a peaceable, ASL-signing chimp?

Of course, chimps are just one example of humanity’s myriad victims, from fellow hominids like Homo Neanderthalis to the American “buffalo” (actually a bison, I hear) to the African elephant to all the species that wink out each year  as their habitat is slashed and burned into oblivion in the Central and South American rainforests.  And we “do” ourselves, too.  Think Inquisition.  Think Holocaust.  Think World Wars I, II and III.  That’s why I’m sure that UFO’s aren’t really spaceships.  If any truly advanced civilization ever discovered us, they’d immediately call pest control.  But many years after the Roswell Incident, we’re still here… although it may just be a matter of time.

And what about those hypothetical aliens?  Actually, to talk about the “possibility” of life on other planets is similar to talking about the “possibility” that human activity may be screwing up the climate.  The consensus seems to be that although the case for the existence of extraterrestrial life remains circumstantial, because our technological limitations have thus far prevented us from going to take a look, the odds are pretty good that we will eventually discover "life as we know it"...  and maybe some other kinds, too.  The elements essential to "life as we know it" (carbon and hydrogen, for example) are scattered throughout the small part of the Universe that we can see.  There are a hundred billion stars in our little galaxy, the Milky Way, and based upon what we’ve seen so far, it looks like many of them… well, perhaps all of them… have planets.  Statistically, as least, it seems very likely that We Are Not Alone in the Universe—i.e., that there are somewhere other creatures who, if they’re anything like us, will consider themselves the Lords of Creation. 

If it so happens that we encounter intelligent life at some point, once again the numbers tell us that it is probable that their civilization will be far in advance of ours in many ways.  Remember, what we call “civilization” is only about six thousand years old at the extreme outside, and for most of that we used only muscle power.  What happens if our infant civilization meets a mature one?  Or even a teenage one?  What will our own civilization be like in another ten thousand years?  Assuming, of course, that our civilization (or any other) can last ten thousand years without blowing itself up. 

Since we’ve never been farther than our own moon, and are at the very dawn of the “Space Age,” I think we’ve got to assume that it’s statistically likely that the technology of any space travelers we run into for the next few thousand years will more likely than not be overwhelmingly superior to ours.  In such an encounter, we will be the Neanderthals.  And remember—the last time Neanderthals met a more advanced culture—Homo Sapiens—they were hunted to extinction, and consumed as food along the way.

Of course, there are those who contend that we ourselves are alien in origin.  http://now.msn.com/humans-are-martians-in-origin-says-scientist-steven-brenner?ocid=ansnowex .  Who knows?  But whether or not Steven Brenner and Arthur C. Clarke (remember those 2001 “monoliths”?) or Ridley Scott (“Prometheus”) are right, it doesn’t get us any closer to divinity.

Remember, dolphins have bigger brains than we do.  Next time you’re on the bus, take a look around at your fellow “Lords of Creation” and think about that.  Or check out the headlines in your local paper.  In my local paper today, it says that the Syrians are bombing their own capital city, while the rest of the world is wondering whether it’s really worth punishing the government there for using horrific, long-banned chemical weapons on the civilian population.  There’s a story about a guy who cooked his three-month-old son by leaving him in the car in triple-digit heat while he went into a sports bar to smoke a joint with his buddy.  There’s a story about the National Park Service’s futile attempts to persuade the public that forests sometimes have to burn in order to stay healthy… and the countervailing efforts of other government agencies to immediately stamp out every spark (so that tourists won’t be disappointed because there’s haze from the smoke spoiling their view, among other non-scientific reasons.)  There’s a story about how now that two states have legalized pot for “recreational” use, the federal government has decided that it won’t be enforcing its crazy anti-marijuana laws anymore, except some places, some times, against some people.  You get the picture.

You might argue  that it’s harmless for people to strut about believing that humanity is “special.”  But it’s not.  Remember, Hubris (aka Pride) is one of the Seven Deadly Sins, and it achieved that status for a reason.  Humanity’s conceit is the reason that many of our fellow Earthlings have been hunted to extinction, often just for sport.  It’s the reason that human activity has screwed up the climate and destroyed entire ecosystems, sometimes through simple carelessness, but often as the “unexpected” byproduct of ill-considered attempts to “improve” on nature.  It’s the reason we’re too superstitious to control our population before we exhaust the diminished resources of our little planet.  It’s the reason that we employ theology and ideological wishful thinking instead of science in our efforts to understand and control criminal behavior, educate our kids, and husband our food supply.

People are quick to jump on someone who believes that they are above it all (meaning “above the rest of humanity,” which apparently is all that most people think should count) except, naturally, if they are a film, sports or pop music star, or a member of the British Royal Family, or really, really rich.  But it’s just as ridiculous to think that human life is more sacred than any other kind.  Trust me, the world is going to miss the last Sequoia tree, blue whale or elephant a lot more than it’s going to miss you.  It’s time to get a little more Enlightened, folks, before it’s too late.