Rethinking ‘The Human’

Introduction

The theme that stood out to me most from the texts we read this quarter was what changes need to be made as we go forward into the Anthropocene. I think firstly what is needed is a change of perspective, recognizing the period in which we are living for what it is and acknowledging the responsibility we have as guardians of the Earth and all the species on it. We must ‘see the bigger picture’ in relation to the disturbing trends that together make up climate change (not just separate pieces of puzzle like in In the Palm of Darkness) We must also change the way we view other human cultures, which is an important discussion raised by Heart of Darkness and The Hungry Tide, and move away from thinking through our own socio-cultural lenses (as in The Word For World is Forest).    

Key question

What do we need to do/what changes need to occur to the way we think about the Anthropocene and our role in it?

Key terms

• Anthropocene: The Anthropocene Epoch is an unofficial unit of geologic time, used to describe the most recent period in Earth’s history when human activity started to have a significant impact on the planet’s climate and ecosystems (National Geographic)

• Biocentrism: the concept that human rights are no more important than those of any other species; what is required is a rethinking of what it means to be human and a forsaking of the hubris with which we have lived for millennia on account of our perceived superiority^[1]
• Ferality: "Feral, here, describes a situation in which an entity, nurtured and transformed by a human-made infrastructural project, assumes a trajectory beyond human control."^[2]
• Interspecies relationship: Anna Tsing argues that “human nature is an interspecies relationship”; in other words, we live in harmony with myriad other “companion species”, and must therefore be more conscious of the way we treat them^[3]
• The Great Acceleration: the dramatic, continuous and roughly simultaneous surge in growth rate across a large range of measures of human activity, first recorded in mid-20th century and continuing to this day

Quotes

Quote 1

"We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet. We could have fancied ourselves the first of men."^[4]

I chose this quote from Heart of Darkness because I think it is a perfect example of something we need to leave behind and from which we need to learn.  I think it typifies a western ignorance of the rest of the world/Eurocentric outlook and also an almost morbid fascination with the mysterious and the unknown, which is what the Congo (and its inhabitants) represent for men like Marlow. For the Europeans in the novel, the Congo is mystery and horror personified, the ultimate test which Kurtz and others end up failing. Their stereotypes and ignorant and racist views are something better left in the colonial era and something from which we, as proponents of the Anthropocene, should move on.

Quote 2

"A realist is a man who knows both the world and his own dreams. You’re not sane: there’s not one man in a thousand of you who knows how to dream. Not even Lyubov and he was the best among you. You sleep, you wake and forget your dreams, you sleep again and wake again, and so you spend your whole lives, and you think that is being, life, reality! You are not children, you are grown men, but insane. And that’s why we had to kill you, before you drove us mad. Now go back and talk about reality with the other insane men. Talk long, and well!”^[5]

I think this quote is useful as we move forward into the Anthropocene as I think it perfectly captures the discord between the way the yumens and Athsheans view the world, which I think is indicative of the way we as humans deal with cultural and societal differences. Western society, of which we are a part, is all too guilty of imposing its own world-view onto other cultures and looking down on them as a result. This can be seen in Heart of Darkness in the way that Marlow sees the indigenous people of the Congo as incapable of performing anything but the most menial of jobs due to prejudices about their primitiveness. It is also a concept Anna Tsing touches on in her article "Unruly Edges: Mushrooms as Companion Species", where she writes of the US' tendency to view other cultures and nations as culturally and morally inferior, thus justifying its "inhumane" practices around the world (Tsing, “Unruly Edges”, 151).

The Athsheans' definitions of "insan[ity]" and "reality" are clearly at odds with those of the Terrans, which I think lies at the heart of the disputes the two civilizations have. As we as readers of this novel look forward at the Anthropocene, I think a rehaul of our Euro- or America-centric worldviews is needed, which would involve a realization that the way in which we view the world is neither the only nor the 'best' way of doing so, and thus we should be more open and tolerant of cultural differences.

Quote 3

“"The great flight has begun," he repeated. "You people invent excuses: acid rain, herbicides, deforestation. But the frogs are disappearing from places where none of that has happened."

        I wondered who he meant by “you people.” You people, the professional herpetologists. Or you people, the biologists who hold their conferences in Canterbury, in Nashville, in Brasilia, hold them behind closed doors and walk out more perplexed than when they came in. You people, fearful, finicky people, incapable of looking at the dark, recalcitrant, atemporal side of the decline.”^[6]

This quote highlights the western scientific community’s inability to solve or even identify and the urgency with which we need to view the climate crisis we are currently causing. Montero’s novel also powerfully demonstrates the danger of failing to see the bigger picture through its use of isolated passages on the extinctions of various frog species offered at the end of each chapter. At the same time, the novel does much to create intrigue and mystery around the subject of the species’ extinction, proposing various explanations (one of which is rooted in Haitian folklore), and thus fails to provide us with a clear solution to how we should approach this issue.    

Quote 4

"Climate change - itself a driver of extinction - will also leave behind geologic traces, as will nuclear fallout and river diversion and monoculture farming and ocean acidification...

"Case for the Anthropocene:

• Human activity has transformed between a third and a half of the land surface of, the planet.
• Most of the world's major rivers have been dammed or diverted.
• Fertilizer plants produce more nitrogen than is fixed naturally by all terrestrial ecosystems.
• Fisheries remove more than a third of the primary production of the oceans' coastal waters.
• Humans use more than half of the world's readily accessible freshwater runoff...

"The sorts of changes that Crutzen had enumerated would, they decided, leave behind "a global stratigraphic signature" that would still be legible millions of years from now, the same way that, say, the Ordovician glaciation left behind a "stratigraphic signature" that is still legible today."^[7] 

I decided to include these quotes from the Kolbert reading in my Anthropocene Backpack because I think they form an excellent definition of the very concept of the Anthropocene. I think this constitutes a vital part of the Backpack as it provides us with a working definition of what the Anthropocene is. Kolbert writes that anthropogenic climate change will leave behind "geologic traces" of humanity's impact on the world. I think that by aligning human climate change with significant geological events such as the Ordovician glaciation, he makes the case that we have entered into a new age: the age of man.  

Quote 5

"'Last night: I still can't get it out of my head. I keep seeing it, again and again - the people, the flames. It was like something from some other time - before recorded history. I feel like I'll never be able to get my mind around the--'

     Kanai prompted her as she faltered. 'The horror?'

     'The horror. Yes'"

...

"'these killings are never reported, never written about in the papers. And the reason is just that these people are too poor to matter. We all know it, but we choose not to see it. Isn't that a horror too - that we can feel the suffering of an animal, but not of human beings?'

...

"'The difference, Kanai,' Piya said slowly and emphatically, 'is that it was what was intended - not only by you or me, but by nature, by the earth, by the planet that keeps us all alive. Just suppose we crossed that imaginary line that prevents us from deciding that no other species matters except ourselves. What'll be left then?'"^[8] 

I've chosen these three quotes for my Anthropocene backpack because of both their importance to the book and their relation to other texts in the course. This seems to be one of if not the key debate/message in the book, essentially presenting the reader with the choice of what is worse or more 'horrific': the devaluation of the lives of the global poor, or the anthropogenic extinction of endangered species. I also think the use of Conradian language - "like something from some other time - before recorded history" - and the fact that it is being used by Piya is important in relation to the idea of the legacy of Heart of Darkness. Finally, I think it is interesting in light of Wynter's idea of biocentrism (that human rights are no more valuable than those of other species), which serves to discredit Kanai's argument in favor of the marginalised people on Morichjhapi.

Quote 6

"Humans presume to transcend and master nature, rather than forming worlds together with nonhumans… The Anthropocene, like every other trajectory in which humans have been involved, is more-than-human… Various kinds of entities, living and nonliving, make accommodations with infrastructures. Wood-boring insects live in wooden shipping pallets and follow them to new places. Jellyfish polyps proliferate on underwater marine sprawl. The activities of such entities, in Feral Atlas, are “feral” because they emerge within human-sponsored projects but are not in human control." (From introduction to “Feral Atlas”)

I wanted to include this quote in my Anthropocene Backpack because I think it is an interesting way to (re)think humanity’s position on planet Earth in relation to other species. If we are to continue to live on Earth responsibly, it will be necessary that we come to see ourselves as a species equal among myriad others. It also introduces the concept of ‘Ferality’, which touches on other species’ ability to subvert human control and infrastructure and often play an antagonistic role against mankind.

Quote 7

"To look into the tiger's eyes is to recognize a presence of which you are already aware; and in that moment of contact you realize that this presence possesses a similar awareness of you, even though it is not human."^[9] (Ghosh, 29)

I chose this quote from Ghosh’s “The Great Derangement” because I think it is a perfect example of a text engaging with Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Having read Conrad’s novel, it is almost impossible not to be reminded of his famous quote:

“It was unearthly, and the men were—No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of it—this suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity—like yours—the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar.”^[10]

Applying this quote to tigers, which feature so heavily in Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide and (tragically) in life in the Sundarbans, not only reminds us of how dated and deplorable the attitudes put forth in Conrad’s novel are but also raise interesting questions about mankind’s relation with other species, and to what extent our assumed superiority over other species needs reevaluating.

I think the interconnection between discourses about human-nonhuman as well as human-human relations which this quote raises is one of the reasons I have selected it as important moving forward in the Anthropocene.

Conclusions

As we look to move forward into the Anthropocene, what is required is a series of radical changes to our definition of ‘the human,’ including discussions about our relation to other species and thus the responsibility we have to take care of them. We must recognize the reality of anthropogenic climate change and act to mitigate and reverse its effects before it is too late, which will inevitably necessitate a restructuring of the economic systems around which most of the world is based. A dramatic rethinking of the way we view ourselves in relation to other cultures is also required, the dangers of narrow-mindedness being shown in the selected quote from Le Guin’s The Word for World is Forest. Finally, we must strive to view Anthropocene discussions not just as ones of mankind’s relation with Mother Earth but also include within it questions of social justice and how the western world can solve not only ecological crises but also ease the burden off of the poorest societies who bear the brunt of the effects of these crises.