We fall as King Kong falls

Human activity is causing a form of genocide as species go extinct

by Michael Nenonen <mnenonen@republic-news.org>

It wasn’t easy sitting through King Kong (2005). The movie’s too damn long and many of its scenes stretch credulity far past the breaking point. I can suspend disbelief long enough to accept the existence of an island populated by monstrous apes and dinosaurs, but, try as I might, I can’t accept that a teenager could use a 1930s machine gun to pick giant insects off of a colleague without killing the man in the process. To be fair, it’s possible that my dislike of the film comes from my vulnerability to vertigo, and my consequent nausea during Kong’s skyscraper crescendo.

Still, the movie got me thinking about the relationship between animals and humans. But perhaps this sets up a false dichotomy, as humans are themselves an animal species. Let me say instead, then, that the movie got me thinking about our identity with animals, and what the ethical implications of such identity might be.

This identity is most clearly perceived in the great apes. Our ancestors speciated from the ancestors of gorillas only ten million years ago, and from the ancestors of chimps five million years later than that. We share over 95% of our DNA with gorillas and chimps. Some scholars argue that because of these apes’ similarity to us, they should be included in the Homo genus, making them part of the human species. Given that our actions have reduced the global population of wild chimpanzees to 200,000 and of wild gorillas to 50,000, placing both species at risk of imminent extinction, this would make us guilty of genocides of unprecedented magnitude—assuming, of course, that we didn't wipe out the Neanderthals. This inclusion would also force us to recognize the similarity between the medical experiments that we inflict upon thousands of these creatures and the ones conducted by Mengele on the inmates of the German concentration camps. 

It isn't just their genetic similarity that establishes the apes’ kinship with human beings, however. There's over-whelming evidence that, just like us, the great apes have rich inner worlds. It's well-known that gorillas and chimps are tool-users and that some have learned rudimentary sign-language. These apes will occasionally use sign language to communicate with each another. Jeffrey Mussaieff Mason and Susan McCarthy, the authors of When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals (Dell Publishing, 1996), describe a gorilla who was repeatedly observed playing and signing with her dolls, though she would stop in apparent embarrassment whenever she realized she was being watched. In displays of cross-species camaraderie, wild chimps have been known to develop friendships with baboons. The apes even demonstrate aesthetic sensibilities. Chimpanzees have been seen climbing trees solely to watch the sunset, and some chimps enjoy painting pictures that vary in composition depending upon the subject matter.

The apes aren't the only animals that demonstrate such seemingly "human" qualities. Elephants, for example, will regularly visit the bones of their ancestors, treating them with care and curiosity they never show to the bones of other species. An elephant in captivity was observed drawing patterns in the ground with a branch; she was overjoyed when she received paper, a brush, and paints, and would thereafter spend her time producing brilliantly coloured designs. On the other end of the size scale, female rats will adopt and tenderly care for orphaned young, even the young of different species. Mason and McCarthy recount an experiment where a female rat enthusiastically adopted abandoned kittens. Apes don't even have a monopoly on language. At least one parrot has demonstrated that he not only mimics human language, but actually knows the meaning of select phrases. Without ever being taught to do so, he’s learned how to say "I'm sorry" after he bites someone and "Come back here" when people leave the room.

If we're to grant apes some measure of personhood, and thereby deplore our crimes against them, then what of other animals who, despite sharing fewer genes with us, have inner worlds comparable in some ways to our own? Human beings are causing our planet's sixth mass extinction, an event many scientists refer to as a "biotic holocaust." If animals have inner worlds, what must those worlds be like, given what we're doing to them? If we had divine sight, and could see the suffering of all species as clearly as we see shapes and colours, we'd probably gouge our eyes out. In a certain sense, it's possible that we already have.

A number of theorists believe that human beings have an innate capacity to empathize with animals. Biologist Edward O Wilson defines "biophilia" as the biologically- determined connections that human beings seek with the rest of life. Wilson believes that since human beings evolved in a world teeming with other organisms, we have a natural disposition to understand and appreciate other forms of life, and that we suffer psychologically when we're isolated from the natural world. Historian Theodore Roszak coined the term "ecopsychology" to refer to the study of humankind's psychological relationship with nature, a relationship that he believes structures our innermost consciousness. Roszak suspects that we've repressed our psychological connections with the biosphere, and that this is taking a dreadful toll upon our hearts. He argues that on a deep emotional level we're well aware of the biotic holocaust, but that we've forgotten how to make sense of this awareness. By repressing biophilia, we avoid the full force of horror that would befall us if we were to look clearly upon the world we're destroying. Roszak believes that only through a collective resurgence of ecological consciousness, of biophilia, will we be able to salvage both the natural world and our own sanity.

Wilson and Roszak both make compelling arguments, but I fear that even a resurgent biophilia won't be sufficient to undo the disaster we're producing. To understand why, it's useful to recall Hannah Arendt's perspective on the question of human rights.

Arendt believed that the fundamental human right is the right to a political community—that is, to a community that can advance one's collective interests in the hierarchies of human power. She developed this theory in the wake of World War Two, when millions had been denied this right. Jews, Gypsies, and multitudes of refugees learned that once the right to a political community was gone, no other human right remained. If this holds for human beings, then what of animals, who can never hope to form a political community? If love isn’t strong enough to stop us from butchering each other, then how can it possibly stop us from butchering the wild?

Biophilia, like all other forms of love, is simply too easy to manage. By focusing our love solely on those close to us or similar to us in some way, we can easily disregard the claims the rest of humanity has upon our affections. Similarly, by channeling our biophilia into beloved pets we can ignore the cries of all other animals; we can happily pamper our dogs while savouring the taste of cows raised and slaughtered in conditions of unspeakable cruelty.

If our political sensibilities condemn the animal world, then they condemn us, too. It seems that we only respect those living things, human or otherwise, that can defend themselves. With the defenseless, we do as we please. Though this may bring us temporary gratification, it also severs the ecological relationships supporting our ultimately ephemeral form of life. If Wilson and Roszak are correct, then this is already causing us profound psychological harm. In the end, it may ruin the planet’s ability to sustain our civilization, and perhaps even our species. The metropolis may well topple Kong, but I’m afraid that when he falls, he won’t fall alone.

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