A friend of mine, attending a public University in Pennsylvania, relayed the story of a particular day during one of her classes. The professor asked the following question to the students: "Who here thinks that human beings should be the dominant animal on the planet?" Only one hand was raised that day, and it belonged to my friend, and all the others, agreeing with the professor, thought that humans should not dominate the planet. Now, the particulars of how best to prevent human beings from dominating the planet were not discussed that day, and I am afraid to think of what possibilities might emerge from such a discussion. But nevertheless, it does reveal that the professor, and apparently an overwhelming majority of his students, have not only a pessimistic view of the human, but suffer simply from blindness to reality.
I decided to conduct a similar poll. I went out onto a local farm, with the permission of the farmer, of course, in order to propose the same question to a group of bovine. "Who here thinks that cows should be the dominant animal on the planet?" I asked. And would you believe, the results were stunningly similar to those of the classroom, but without the lone dissenter: not one cow raised a hoof. All were opposed. I asked the same question in the chicken coop, although it was difficult to keep them quiet long enough to even hear the question. But the same result: chickens don't believe chickens should dominate the planet. I asked the same of two horses, a group of pekin ducks, a rather fussy bundle of swans, and even, from a distance, some black bear. Not one of these animals, in response to my poll question, raised an appendage.
The fact that this question was asked at an institution of higher learning indicates to me that this institution has forgotten about the very important lessons of lower learning, which can be done on farms. For instance, when I was very small my mother read me books with pictures of horses and cows, teaching me about horses and cows. And perhaps somewhere in my youthful imagination I envisioned that all animals teach in this way. But as I got older, I noticed that young horse mothers do not have books with pictures of cows and humans, teaching their yearlings about cows and humans. Nor do bulls write calf's books in order to teach them about the proper techniques of grazing. I started to notice and understand that there is a difference between humans and all the other animals. The first lesson about the human is that he doesn't belong in the same category as cows and horses, nor indeed, even apes. There is something terribly different about the human, something which compels him to do something as crazy as categorize the other animals, and write books about them, and give them names.
The question of dominion over animals need not start with violence, animal cruelty, or whether or not we should eat them. These discussions have their place. The question of dominion begins with the fact that we write books about animals. It begins with the fact that we name the animals: cow, horse, pig. Why isn't anyone complaining about the cruelty of calling that fat, pink creature pig? Perhaps he doesn't want to be called pig. Perhaps we should let pigs name us instead.
This all seems absurd. But this is exactly why I can't understand that a class of thirty young minds has only one that can see the very present reality that human beings are made to dominate the planet. If human beings are not supposed to dominate the planet, then there are not supposed to be human beings. This may just be what the professor believes: that human beings are some tragic evolutionary mistake and that our domination will ruin the planet. Certainly we have the ability to ruin the planet. Certainly we have the ability to save the planet. What the professor seems to ignore is the very extraordinary fact that we have the ability at all. Our abilities, which when compared to the animal world look like supernatural gifts, are those very things which enable us to understand ourselves as having some sort of dominion. If we cannot recognize this, if we cannot respond to the poll question with a raised hand, then we are in some way admitting that the fact we are here is a mistake.
But there is another view of things. There is the view that we are not a mistake, but rather, we make mistakes. There is the view that our very presence is very purposeful, that there is meaning in our existence, and that there is meaning in our dominion over the world. The ancient Hebrews seemed to recognize this, and the ancient Christians followed suit. Whether or not we use our dominant status to build up the world or destroy it is a question that needs to be addressed. But the fact that we have dominion, and ought to have it, is something that shouldn't be unlearned, despite the efforts of pessimistic professors. If you want to learn about it again, read to a child from a child's book. You will quickly learn that the child's fascination with learning about a dog comes from the very fact that he can recognize that dogs are for some reason made for him, and not the other way around. He knows that he can ask his mother if he can get a dog, and has no fear that any dog will be getting him. These are lessons learned when we are very young, and we do well not to forget them.
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