The other day a friend asked me, “How do you keep your head above it all? You do so much, and your immersion in the dark side of information and events is so deep. I’ve seen most of what can be seen, I think. But even still, I have to periodically recharge with temporary absences from the info stream. It’s so disheartening and yet if you’re a person who cares, you just can’t dig your head in the sand. It’s my most challenging thing in this life — striving for a balance between my mental well-being and my commitment to our fellow beings.”
First, I can understand anyone who finds this all too much on a daily basis. I guess I get through it by choosing my battles and knowing that by not eating animals I’m not so much a part of what’s happening to them. Sometimes I have to step back from the fray and look at it all through the lens of deep ecology. Earth has survived far worse than the toxic attack of the human fly speck that’s currently plaguing her and gone on to flourish, as she certainly will again once the anthropogenic onslaught is over.
Consider this blog a chronicle of mankind’s last days. What were humans thinking when they took this incredibly beautiful, fragile, planet down—in the name of greed, selfishness, arrogance, sport or self-esteem?
Some of the articles I post might seem unrelated, off-topic or out of place when examined alone. But they are all part of the bigger picture which someday may be viewed by a higher intelligence who comes across it in their quest to know just how one species—out of so many—thought they had the right to exploit all others, carte blanc, under the narcissistic delusion that non-human lives on Earth had no rights at all.
Whether or not mankind survives the assault they’re putting the planet through is a non-issue for me. Personally, I hope they don’t. They do not deserve a second chance to rule this vibrant, watery orb any more than they deserved the first chance to steal Nature, abuse and forever change her.
But why all this on an anti-hunting blog? Because hunting, and ultimately meat-eating, is where humans first started screwing things up. For a plant-eating primate to leave the trees, take weapon in hand, turn carnivorous and claim the planet and everything that walks, crawls, swims or flies as their own was a recipe for disaster.
As the same friend so aptly put it, “I do wish we didn’t have to share the planet with persons whose empathy muscles are so undeveloped.”
Exposing the Big Game 
It’s true — humans are under a “narcissistic delusion” in thinking “that non-human lives on Earth had no rights at all”. But humans not getting a second chance at correcting their erroneous thinking/actions includes us all and you.
Thanks, but unfortunately there isn’t time for a second chance for we humans.
And don’t forget agriculture too – that was the beginning of the end as far as I’m concerned, especially when our population started to really grow large.
Read the book “Constant Battles” if you have a hard time accepting that mankind was never in “harmony” with nature–even from the earliest days as a hunter-gatherer.
hunting fostered the narcissistic ego and sense of entitlement that led people to believe they could dominate nature and kill every other species they could get a spear into.
That’s an interesting view, Jim — of hunting leading to entitlement. You most often hear how hunter societies lived in greater harmony, despite the obvious and inherent violence of the interaction. But even with modern hunters, I’ve known several people who took up hunting later in life, whose perspectives toward wildlife drastically changed toward the ethic of acquisition and ownership. One of these people even insisted she couldn’t hurt a spider previously, and now prides herself on bagging a few squirrels and pigeons on her way back to the car from a duck hunt — because it’s her “right” and “privilege” to avail herself of “what nature provides.”
…Meaning, what she steals from nature…I’m sorry to hear you know people like that. More of society’s backslide. Where will it end, back in the compassionless stone age?
Couldn’t agree more! And, yes, agriculture magnified the problem by allowing people to settle down and grow into bigger groups, domesticating (exploiting!) cattle and other animals to do the work and turn into mobile grocery stores. Agriculture allowed the real beginnings of the patriarchy and dominance that made brought more animals under control as food sources, as transport, and participants in raids, and later warfare, etc., etc. It was the beginning of the destruction of the planet, subservience of human opponents, and an endlessly growing source of animal suffering.
Most of what you say is true, but the hunting and meat-eating was the actual beginning of the destruction wrought by humans, if only because it directly let to the idea of animal agriculture, etc…
Yes, the let’s make it easier on ourselves theory – why chase them around with no guarantee of success when we could keep them as prisoners?
Yep. That was the thinking which led to animal agriculture…and now factory farming.
Jane Goodall has documented chimps hunting and eating meat and even engaging in what have been termed “hunting binges” when multiple animals are killed. So we are not the only primate who hunts, but we are the only ones who have “evolved” enough to think of so many excuses and justifications for the killing.
Yup, me too, I am so tired of the horror stories that are occuring everyday courtesy of the ever-multiplying human species. I have no doubt that this species calling itself homo sapiens is a curse on the universe; we are selfish to the point of greed, and violent to the point of self-destruction and extinction…
Reblogged this on Armory of the Revolution.
Reblogged this on Exposing the Big Game.
Du har helt rätt
I agree. I don’t see many original posts from you these days. We are a terrible contradiction of a species. Our reach really has exceeded our grasp. I do not relish, but do not regret our likely impending extinction.
Sorry, I haven’t put out a lot of original posts lately, ever since my brain had a meltdown about a year and a half ago, in the form of a stroke that ended me up in a hospital for 5 days. I’m back in business nowadays, so stay tuned…
Btw, Have you visted my new site “The Extinction Chronicle” yet? Please feel free to follow it to keep up with mankind’s last days…
I’m so sorry to hear about your stroke…lots of work coming back depending on the severity. Please take care.
Thanks. Yep, I could barely raise my left arm and veered off while walking for a few months later.
We humans think we can control the planet on our own, forgetting that we are just a tiny cog in the whole system that supports life on earth. Our arrogance will be our demise and we are too blind to realise it.
Right. Human arrogance is the root of all evil.
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