Our responsibility

I had a conversation recently that really disturbed me.

It was about sustainability. I was saying that I wanted to get more involved in the sustainability field— environmental and social sustainability. I am interested in how we as a species can promote healing and regeneration of not only the natural world, but our relationships with other humans, because we will only continue to exist if we don't kill each other off. There are specific graduate programs that are concerned with sustainable environments and sustainable communities, and I am looking into those.

The people I was talking with, a mixture of family and their friends at a gathering, politely listened, but quickly let me know that they didn't think these were issues worth investigating.

"I don't lose sleep worrying about climate change," said the man sitting to my left, who I had just met that day. "People are so worried about the ocean levels rising, but I'm not. In the Bible, God promises that he would never flood the world again."

This response, and the reasoning behind it, stunned me. I was silent.

"In my Biblical worldview," another person chimed in, "this world is not the final world. There is another world we are headed toward, and it is perfect. This one is not perfect."

This response stunned me further. And disturbed me. I couldn't think of anything intelligent to say— nothing to articulate the deep passion I have for this topic, and the ecological consciousness, spirituality, and love for the world that back it up. I wished I could channel my dear friend, whose words always seem to flow like honey— she would undoubtedly be able to produce some sharp wisdom here. But, I was alone. I had nothing.

All I managed was "...So is this world just a lost cause then?"

Their responses were something like it wasn't up to them to fix something that was beyond fixing, and not their responsibility to fix anyway.

Words and patience failed me again, so I stayed silent and let the conversation drift to other topics. Infuriatingly, I had come to this house prepared to engage in tough conversations with compassion and respect— the house had been a fertile ground for such conversations in the past, since all of its inhabitants fell on the other side of the political and religious spectrum than I do. Here was a chance to practice the skills I wanted to practice, the very skills that would help me to create and sustain the sustainable communities I was passionate about! And yet... nothing. I was too shocked. And offended. I failed myself.

Why hadn't I expected these responses? What had I been expecting? I am still grappling with these questions and coming up dry.

I knew, however, that all Christians did not feel the way they did about our planet, and I talked to my friend (the honey-worded one) when she visited me the following weekend. She is a Christian. She is also the most environmentally-conscious person I know, and she has a deep reverence for nature that is evident in everything she does. I asked her how she personally reconciles the doctrines of Christianity with ecological consciousness.

She said that she felt that acting in a way that decreases suffering is our responsibility.

I wanted to take those words, load them into a cannon (an environmentally-friendly cannon), and blast them around the earth (in a peaceful way). "Acting in a way that decreases suffering is our responsibility!!!!!" I wanted to scream it. I want to scream it still. We have a duty, as active agents with moral obligations, to ease suffering. The suffering of the planet, the suffering of our fellow humans, and the suffering of every creature in the web of life, whether mineral, vegetable, or animal. And I believe this duty is ours regardless of religious identification or lack thereof— it is something that should supersede such labels.

In Christianity, and in the prevailing ideology of Cartesian dualism, it is believed that humans have dominion over nature. That humans are separate from, and superior to, all other forms of life and the natural world. Genesis 1:26 comes readily to mind:

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Humans hold a privileged place in this worldview; humans are the darlings of creation, and everything is ours to reign over and exploit and destroy. I remember my mother's initial reaction when I first told her that I had become a vegetarian several years ago, wide-eyed in innocent confusion: "But, God made animals for humans to eat!"

Daniel Quinn, in his book Ishmael, tells a parable to highlight the myth that humans are the pinnacle of creation. In the story, an anthropologist wanders a prehistoric planet, searching for someone to interview. There are no humans, or grasses, or any discernible creature around. Finally, the anthropologist finds a blob of a creature in the sea, and they get to talking. The anthropologist asks for its creation story:

So at last the creature began its story. "The universe," it said, "was born a long, long time ago, perhaps ten or fifteen billion years ago. Our own solar system— this star, this planet and all the others— seem to have come into being some two or three billion years ago. For a long time, nothing whatever lived here. But then, after a billion years or so, life appeared."

"Excuse me," the anthropologist said. "You say that life appeared. Where did that happen, according to your myth— I mean, according to your scientific account."

The creature seemed baffled by the question and turned a pale lavender. "Do you mean in what precise spot?"

"No. I mean, did this happen on the land or in the sea?"

"Land?" the other asked. "What is land?"

"Oh, you know," he said, waving toward the shore, "the expanse of dirt and rocks that begins over there."

The creature turned a deeper shade of lavender and said, "I can't imagine what you're gibbering about. The dirt and rocks over there are simply the lip of the vast bowl that holds the sea."

"Oh yes," the anthropologist said, "I see what you mean. Quite. Go on."

"Very well," the other said. "For many millions of centuries the life of the world was merely microorganisms floating helplessly in a chemical broth. But little by little, more complex forms appeared: single-celled creatures, slimes, algae, polyps, and so on. But finally," the creature said, turning quite pink with pride as he came to the climax of his story, "but finally jellyfish appeared!" (Quinn, Ishmael, pages 55-56).

I can understand why some people believe that humans are on top. We do have the biggest brains, and we are the ones who have invented technology and put people on the moon. We have power, but we have abused that power. Our ancestors lived in harmony with nature, respecting and revering her (not "it") at every step— and they thrived in communities of mutual belonging. But somewhere along the way, our egos got too big, and we started thinking we were separate from, and better than, our surroundings. Believing such a thing must be freeing. It must relinquish all responsibility.

The image below shows an illustration of the Cartesian self vs. the ecological self:

The Cartesian self stems from the philosophy of René Descartes, who believed that the mind and body are distinct substances ("mind-body dualism"). Separateness prevails, not just in mind and body, but between humans and everything else.

The ecological self, in contrast, sees humans as an integral part in an interconnected web of life— organic creatures that evolved on this planet like everything else, with roles to play and other beings to eat, but not to dominate. We are deeply dependent on the web of life around us, and we could not exist without everything else— without the sun and rain that provide nutrients for the plants that nourish our bodies; without the earth's natural materials that we use to provide shelter for ourselves; without each other to depend on and take care of.

The way Thich Nhat Hahn conceives of it, we "inter-are":

There is a biologist named Lewis Thomas, whose work I appreciate very much. He describes how our human bodies are “shared, rented, and occupied” by countless other tiny organisms, without whom we couldn’t “move a muscle, drum a finger, or think a thought.” Our body is a community, and the trillions of non-human cells in our body are even more numerous than the human cells. Without them, we could not be here in this moment. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to think, to feel, or to speak. There are, he says, no solitary beings. The whole planet is one giant, living, breathing cell, with all its working parts linked in symbiosis.

We can observe emptiness and interbeing everywhere in our daily life. If we look at a child, it’s easy to see the child’s mother and father, grandmother and grandfather, in her. The way she looks, the way she acts, the things she says. Even her skills and talents are the same as her parents’. If at times we cannot understand why the child is acting a certain way, it is helpful to remember that she is not a separate self-entity. She is a continuation. Her parents and ancestors are inside her. When she walks and talks, they walk and talk as well. Looking into the child, we can be in touch with her parents and ancestors, but equally, looking into the parent, we can see the child. We do not exist independently. We inter-are.

(Excerpted from this article).

My Buddhist spirituality helps me recognize my interdependence with everything else on the planet, and it also provides a strong moral imperative that all life has value. Everyone, including non-humans, are here for a reason and a purpose. Everyone has a role to play, and value to give to the whole. We are a beautiful, chaotic mosaic, all of us.

I do not believe that humans have any right to ruthlessly and heartlessly destroy our mother earth and countless of her plant and animal beings in the process. As someone who sprang up on this planet, someone who is lucky enough to have a voice and some iota of power that comes with having that voice, I make it my responsibility to speak for those whose voices we cannot hear— the trees, the chickens, the sea. There is another way— there are many other ways. We do not have to progress down this road of capitalism and colonialism and destruction and greed.

Will God keep his promise not to flood the earth again? Maybe, but humans have made no such promise to ourselves, and the sea levels continue to rise.

I am trying so hard to move beyond "ego" and into "eco." And yet, I can't help but think that the ecological consciousness framework also contains some ego within it. For, if other beings and the natural world are just an extension of ourselves, then a prime motivator in healing it would be that we would also heal ourselves in the process. It is not entirely altruistic, for we are going to benefit from it. But the benefit might not be seen in our lifetimes. This is hard, long work. It takes time for ecosystems to regenerate. Can we as a species work for a goal that we may not see achieved in our lifetimes? Could we simply want to help— even if there is little direct benefit to us, in our lifetimes?