God is dead.....again!

If we apply a general definition to thought as simply 'the neuronal and/or electrical impetus towards behaviour', we can assert that - to a greater or lesser degree - all life experiences some form of thought, whether it be instinctive, or the lofty imaginations of homo-sometimes-sapiens.

In this respect, the distinction between the entity we refer to as 'life', and that which we describe as 'thought' becomes less clear. As far as we humans are concerned both thought, and life, are mutually dependent, yet we cannot be completely certain that one can exist without the other? We don’t exactly know what thought is. And yet it is relatively easy for us to imagine the existence of thought that is not attached to a particular material form. We do this when we consider entities such as Gods, spirits or ghosts etc, and of course it is easy enough for us to recognise matter that is apparently devoid of thought, which we describe as ‘inanimate’. Therefore perhaps it is not unreasonable to suggest that life may be defined as 'matter that is animated by thought'.

In the context of human beings, we possess as much certainty about the purpose and process of thought as we do about the process, and purpose, of life. Undoubtedly it is for this reason that the origins of both are often attributed to the particular deity, or scientific vogue, of the day. Perhaps this uncertainty is a reasonable starting point for any philosophy that aspires towards an understanding of either? It may be an indication that our quest might ultimately conclude that there is no distinction between the two at all.

The notion that ‘only humans experience thought, or that the human variant of thought is superior to that experienced by other forms of life, has been as problematic as it has been alluring for various theologies. As a result Buddhism, and Hinduism, find it difficult to distinguish between the sanctity of different life forms. I recall a recent experience with a friend from Sri Lanka who was helping me to paint my house. The poor man became quite distraught after he had caught a spider in his wet paintbrush. He hurried into the garden, and covered himself in paint, whilst making every attempt to release the paint-soaked arachnid back into nature, undisguised, and no doubt an easy prey for the next passing blackbird. My friend informed me that the 'tragedy' could have been avoided had he been “more careful” and brushed the door frame beforehand with a dry brush - to warn unwary life of his approach.

Though touching, the experience did not turn me into a vegetarian; to my mind, there is perhaps little difference between the life that animates a spider, and that which opens the petals of a flower in the morning. Nonetheless, I wondered whether this indiscriminate respect for animal life is not at least a little more philosophically sound than the Christian notion that all life is sacred, but some (our own) is a little more sacred than others.

As my Sri Lankan friend proceeded to apply Buddhist caution in the form of a dry brushing before he continued to paint, I recall him telling me he was glad to be out of Sri Lanka whilst the Tamil Tigers, and the Sri Lankan government, were inflicting atrocities upon each other, and thousands of civilians in the ongoing conflict that was dividing his country. For Sri Lankans and Westerners alike, the respect for life does not always extend further than a spider. We concluded the painting without any additional tragedies, and we both agreed that religion is clearly a personal phenomenon, and perhaps the application of its morality can only ever be evaluated on that basis.

In functional and practical terms, Buddhists, Muslims and Christians alike readily apply a moral, political, and economic paint to distinguish between the various forms of life with whom we share the earth. I have no doubt of the answer if I were to ask my Buddhist friend to choose between the life of his son, and that of the paint spattered spider. We feel quite comfortable with the assertion that the life of a man is more valuable than that of a spider, however what (other than our ability to step on the spider) allows us to make this assertion with such confidence? In a philosophical sense what perhaps gives the Buddhist the upper hand is the fact that he accepts that this rather homocentric discrimination has no definitive philosophical basis. Therefore we must construct one, and it is arguable that this is the very point at which each, and all, of our religions were born.

The Christian and Muslim alike apply a more palatable, but less logical rationale in the general assertion that man has a ‘special’ relationship with god, one that renders him distinct from all other life, and thence must proceed to establish a doctrine upon the basis of this initial mother of all assumptions. In many respects this primary distinction is the first question that is encountered by philosophy, and by religion. It may be as essential to ethics, as it is to economics, to distinguish between the life and the thoughts of a man, and that of an animal. However outside of religion, the justification for this distinction has no logical basis, why should the life of a man be superior to that of a sperm whale or a butterfly?  It is as a consequence of this discrimination, this first contradiction to logic, (the first occasion that we must lie to ourselves), that we are ejected from the Garden of Eden, and an entirely necessary theology is born.

Christianity begins its vindication of this initial assumption with the notion that man, having being 'made in God’s image', occupys , a sanctified, and special, place in the universe. Out of the assertion that Man is therefore closer to God than a butterfly, arises the birth of materialism, this first notion of relative 'value' assigned in this instance to life itself. This is the primordial, and seminal, ‘currency’ of human civilisation, the birth of our class structure, our belief in the superiority of varied forms of life.  Once we humans can assert with certainty the life within us is superior to the life within all other creatures, it becomes realitivey easy for us then to asssert that the life within some humans is superior to the life within other humans. In this initial assumption class and class distinction are born and the seed of most if not all our self inflicted suffering have germinated.

This is a notion, a delusion that has proved morally indispensible throughout the history of civilisation for it lies at the heart of our ability to possess material, and power, and to insist, and believe, that these bounties are the blessings of a just God, rewards or recompense for our inherant class or moral superiority. Indeed the more material and power we possess, the more likely we are to believe ourselves more blessed, and closer to our God. The spiritual journey becomes conveniently attached to the material journey, and usually with disastrous effects. Here is the fundamental moral basis of our assertion that 'some are more equal than others'. It is for this reason that species are extinguised by us, and it is the reason that many live in comfort and ease whilst many more starve in squalor.

In this sense it is not simply the creation of a God, or the idea of God itself, that has proven destructive, but rather the secondary assumption that man is closer to God, that man has a greater ownership of God, a greater entitlement to God, than other life. In this sense God has been raped, for that is how a rapist considers his victim,that she exists entirely for his gratification and his pleasure. It is in this sense that Nietzsche is correct in his assertion that “God is dead, and we have killed him”.

This view of human life as superior to all other is the first lie. this materialisation of God His transformation into an entity that exists solely for the benefit of man. This is the birth of capitalism and it is the birth of much theology as this first lie must be justified by an increasing complexity of lies, each subsequent lie is necessary to justify or prop up the preceeding one, all of which can be traced back to the initial assumption that Man is closer to God than all other forms of life. If there is a God and a heaven wherein he might reside, one wonders what he might make of our wonderful and entirely self-serving assumption?

Whale Weeping.

Annually, the western world looks on with horror as a Japanese whaling ship hauls the carcass of a whale from the sea, and butchers it before the teary eyes, and lenses, of the Greenpeace eco-warriors, who each year try in vain to intervene in the whalers’ exercising of the Japanese whale 'quota'. Ironically, many of us find this particular form of cruelty to be infinitely more immoral, and unjust, than the mass slaughter of cows and pigs for our hamburger meat, or the battery farming of chickens for cheap eggs and roasts!

It is undoubtedly because we have invested thought, into the whale, and the dolphin, that this is so. Hollywood has given us Flipper, Free Willy and Whale Rider. Popular science and National Geographic have confirmed whales, and dolphins to be more 'like us'; to communicate with one another, to be 'intelligent' in accordance with our definitions, and to perhaps have feelings as we do. An alien observing humanity from afar might find our yearly whale-loving indignation to be ironic, if not quite entertaining. The yearly deluge of Western crocodile-tears on behalf of the whale was gainfully employed in the South Park episode ‘Whale Whores’. At the end of this very amusing caricature of a real, and prescient irony, the supposed Japanese hatred for whales, and dolphins, is converted into an apparently more appropriate contempt for chickens and cows, at which point the Japanese are deemed to be more like the people of South Park…to be ‘normal’.

Perhaps the Japanese look at the whale in the same way that we look at the pig and the cow? Perhaps they are more ethical in their thinking, in that they fail to apply the ultimately ludicrous discrimination between the life of a pig, and that of a dolphin?

Probably the Japanese are no different to westerners in that they too have their 'preferred animals', and might be equally horrified at the sight of an Englishman eating pheasant, or a wealthy Vietnamese businessmen treating cancer and infertility with a pulverised rhino horn? Perhaps the only conclusion that can be drawn from our contemporary notions of animals, and their 'rights', is that we humans have a morality that is no more, or less, valid than most of the animals we butcher.

We can ask - at least in the context of philosophical reasoning - what is the real basis of this arbitrary assignation of relative worth between the species? For the ancient Egyptians the cat was sacred; for Indians, the cow; for Westerners it is our pets, the whales, or those species that remain on life-support in our zoos. Why should it be immoral to kill a whale, and not so immoral to eat one’s sausages, or not eat them and throw them in the rubbish bin? In Yemen it is an honour to give and receive a jimbaya: a ceremonial dagger presented to young men, and fashioned out of polished rhino horn? The simple answer is that on the whole human beings are quite stupid, and when stupid people have access to money stupidity becomes a pathology, spreads like a virus and ultimately kills everything including the stupid people.

Ironically we humans posses an intelligence that (for the present at least) allows us to dominate all life upon the earth. For the most part, and for today at least, it is we who decide who stays, and who goes; what forms of life will be preserved in our zoos and our parks; and what, must become extinct as we require more lebensraum for our civilisation, and more Rhino horns for our dagger-handles and aphrodisiacs. This temporary ascendancy has encouraged us to declare ourselves masters of the universe, and arbiters upon the relative value of all forms of life.

In a brutal and violent sense, we are indeed the ‘Masters of Nature’. However, not even Nietzsche would suggest that the schoolchild who can beat up all the other children in his classroom is the ‘superman’; the prisons are overflowing with such illiterate ubermensch. It remains to be seen if the reign of man will achieve a mere fraction of the sixty-five million years during which the supposedly less-intelligent dinosaurs were the undisputed masters of everything.

The relative superiority of our thought is only irrefutable when we apply the measure of our own intelligence, and declare that no animal can think as we can. Yet if the owl were in the ascendancy, he would perhaps have no difficulty consuming men in the same way he devours mice, and declaring mankind redundant for his relatively poor vision, near deafness and incapacity for independent flight.

Ultimately, an ethical system that positions human life, and thought, as 'superior' to all other forms is co-dependent upon a divinity of some kind. Without it, there is perhaps no reason to consider the life of a man to be worth more than that of a toad. In order that we might rate ourselves as ‘superior’, the earth, and all of its inhabitants, must have been bequeathed to man for the purpose of satisfying his material wants, as is the traditional Judaeo-Christian view. Yet this is a view that has surely reached its sell by date. Ecology, and common sense, have confirmed that man is as dependent upon global ecology as he is the master of it, and that we are here (as my first biology teacher wisely counselled) - as 'the guests of green plants'.

One is not suggesting in practical terms that the life of a child, and that of a butterfly are on a par, or should be considered so. Human beings exist at the top of the food chain, and to persist as such, we are dependent upon the consumption of plants, and animals,. The view whereby we humans apply a higher value to human life above other life (animal or vegetable) is ultimately not in question here. To a greater, or lesser degree, our continued existence as a species is dependent upon this distinction. What is being questioned is thenotion that we are unique in experiencing thought, that we are inherantly superior to other species. The ethic we apply to this discrimination, and how it pertains to our view of the living world and our place within it must be re-considered if we are to develop a philosophy of living that is sustainable and compatible with an ecology upon which we are entirely dependent.. Previous ethical models, religions etc, did not have to consider man'ns impact upon ecology because up untill recent times that impact was considered to be negligible. Our views here - our notions of the inherent superiority of our own life above that of all other life - are the bedrock upon which much of our contemporary philosophy is constructed. It is upon this premise that our entire ethical system is defined. If our views here are flawed (and the irony of our consumption of mass produced meat and our 'love' for preferred animals would lead us to suspect that it is), then it is no stretch to suggest that our view of the world, and our place within it are also, flawed. As such we require either a stiff drink, or a divinity, to help us believe ourselves.

In truth, our ethical system has been built upon the simple instinct that bids us to consume life so that our own might continue. Therefore, an understanding of philosophy, a 'correct' view of the world, one that would obviate the need for gross inconsistencies, and for the creation of creators, and divinities, is predicated upon an understanding of our instinct, and the true motives behind our thoughts.

To understand instinct is to return to the beginning of our understanding of the ‘self’. Here we must dig beneath the flawed foundations upon which the greater portion of modern thought, and contemporary philosophy, have been falsely construed. We must begin a quest for truth that travels in a different direction entirely. Not beyond and outwards into civilisation - the essentially and inherently unstable edifice that has been constructed upon humanity’s greatest mistconceptions - but inwards, into the realm of our own minds, into the instinctual basis of our thought. We must leave behind the material trappings of the external world, our carefully crafted divinities and our notions of superiority, we must make this journey alone, because the crowd, the herd, the vast majority, are moving in the opposite direction.In Irish mythology when the Milesians, the ancestors of modern Irishmen, came to Ireland from the European continent, they discovered that the island was already inhabited by a race of men called the Tuatha de Danann. This race of demigods had themselves seized the island from a fierce race of miscreants known as the Fomorians, who besieged the Tuatha de Danann from their stronghold on Tory Island, north of Donegal. The Tuatha De Danann were also at war with a race of one-legged giants called the Fir Blogs, whom the Tuatha de Danann had just defeated when the Milesians arrived from the Iberian peninsula to offer them yet another challenge. After a bitter exchange and another exhaustive battle, the Tuatha De Danann, and the Milesians came to an agreement whereby they would share the land of Ireland between them. The Milesians would take the surface of Ireland and the Tuatha de Danann would take everything underneath. The Tuatha de Danann were quite satisfied with the bargain, as they felt they had obtained the greater share. The numerous mounds or tumuli that are scattered about the Irish countryside were believed for some time to serve as the portals through which the Tuatha De Danann would occasionally come from below to look in upon, or intervene, in the complex affairs of the mortal Milesians.

Perhaps in keeping with this mythological metaphor, the philosophers of the future may partition the world, and move into the subterranean world of our thoughts and our instincts, and may find themselves on the better side of the bargain. The material civilisation we have constructed at the surface of our instinct, and our thoughts, is fleeting and ephemeral. A great many civilisations have already turned to dust before we have carved our present version of Ozymandias, ‘King of Kings’. Yet despite the relentless march towards obscurity, the thought that is stamped upon these lifeless things remains infinite, and accessible, to those of us who might -as a tired cliché puts it - 'close our eyes and see'.

Whilst it is perhaps essential for human life to consider itself entitled to end life in order to support our own, the ethical system we apply to our preservation must be based upon a sound philosophical footing. If and when it is not, we find ourselves in the rather ridiculous position of eating our hamburgers, and weeping for whales and of kneeling before a God that is entirely of our own making.