Raphael ThysTop highlight
Rethinking Human Exceptionalism
Research increasingly suggests other animals share far more with us than previously assumed, which makes me think it’s time to redefine what it means to be Human.
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Published in
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9 min read
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2 days ago
Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash
For thousands of years, but especially in the last few centuries, we humans have crowned ourselves superior to all other species. So much so that for a long time, especially in Western cultures, we saw, and see, ourselves as separate from the animal kingdom and, really, the natural world as a whole. Our perspectives morphed into viewing Nature as something for us to do with what we wish — that we’re entitled to it. That the entire planet exists for us.
Now we’re learning that regardless of how tall our cities grow into the sky or how far they spread across the land, it doesn’t matter what we build to separate ourselves from the natural world. It is inescapable. We are not superior to Nature but part of it. Growing climate catastrophes show us this, but so does research into other animals. Many scientific fields are undergoing incredible advancements, and in the process, evidence is piling up that we, Homo sapiens, might not be quite as extraordinary as we think.
How Things Were
One look at the world shows why we Homo sapiens came to believe we’re better than all other living things — I mean, common, technology, cities, flying?? But before all of that, we lived in peaceful coexistence with Nature for hundreds of thousands of years — significantly longer if you count our pre-Homo sapiens ancestors. Then, for one reason or another, we decided to break the cycle (the first of many) and set out on our own curious adventure.
We formed ways to pass knowledge throughout time using language and telling stories. We learned math and how to farm and build. We created religions and invented economies, and as time went on, we transformed the concept of our planet from something we share with everything else to something we own.
Ancient French mathematician and philosopher René Descartes’ 17th-century declaration, interpreted as saying animals don’t have souls, added fuel to our human exceptionalist arrogance. Standford’s Philosophical Encyclopedia states: