‘Playing animal’ reflects back our yearnings and repulsions | Aeon Essays
The idea of “reconnecting with nature” is a human-supremacist construct. We are nature. We are nothing but nature. We are embodied psyches living in vulnerable flesh-blood-and-bones vessels. We’re born, we live, we die, we decompose. We’re animals—wildlife indigenous to Earth. And like other wild species, without freedom we fall apart. We are able
... See moreJulie Holland • How Psychedelics Can Help Save the World: Visionary and Indigenous Voices Speak Out
we need a worldview that acknowledges that humans, for the foreseeable future, will always be the powerful party, deciding what needs to be done. We need a narrative that brings together two seemingly contradictory facts. The first is that we are part of the animal kingdom: our evolutionary ancestors were nonhumans; we care about other animals; we... See more
Human dominance is a fact, not a debate | Aeon Essays
Through thousands of years of anthropocentric conditioning […] we have inherited shallow, fictitious selves, and created a pervasive illusion of separation from nature. […] As long as the environment is ‘out there,’ we may leave it to some special interest group like environmentalists to protect while we look after our ‘selves.’ The matter changes
... See moreHuman beings are a part of the animal kingdom, not apart from it. The separation of ‘us’ from ‘them’ creates a false picture and is responsible for much suffering.It is part of the in-group/out-group mentality that leads to human oppression of the weak by the strong as in ethnic, religious, political, and social conflicts. Let us open our hearts to... See more