Big optimism: Everything is going to be OK
“There is an infinite amount of hope in the universe ... but not for us.”
― Franz Kafka
The poet T. S. Eliot famously told us that the world will end “not with a bang, but with a whimper.” The passage gets a lot of press, but from what we’re seeing today, it’s becoming increasingly clear that Eliot was wrong. What we’re experiencing today is neither a bang nor a whimper, but a spasm of confusion and anxiety as we try to navigate a confluence of systemic crises–viral, economic, social and above all, ecological. If you’re anything like a normal person, you’re probably feeling some pretty trying emotions right now. In fact, you might well be at the end of your psycho-spiritual rope.
The virus is the most obvious challenge, but there’s a lot more to our predicament than contagion, social disruption and economic calamity. Even before the pandemic we were already suffering from mismatch, the evolutionary discordance between our deep aboriginal bodies and the alien qualities of the natural world. Add to the mix climate grief, eco-grief, and Trump-grief, all mixed up with free-floating anxiety, anger, and fear. In short, our near-term future looks uncertain, ambiguous and quite possibly, apocalyptic.
To make matters worse, the commonly suggested remedies really aren’t much help. To be sure, it makes sense to talk about our feelings, stay engaged in the world, connect with people, get some exercise and plenty of sleep. We try these things, but they fail to satisfy and after awhile, the recommendations start to sound redundant, pale and then, annoying. What we really need to do is get to the heart of the matter and that means questioning the philosophy and orientation that makes us so vulnerable to despair in the first place. Maybe if we framed our predicament a little differently, we’d feel better about our lives and the trajectory of the world.
As always, the central question is this: how do we position ourselves in relationship to the cosmos? Modern humans like to stake out a claim to the top of an imaginary pyramid; we like to think of ourselves as the alpha organism, the peak of evolutionary progress. It feels good to be in such a glorified place, but some of us are now beginning to realize that much of our grief comes directly from this anthropocentric, human-centered point of view. We feel the shock and dismay of our looming demise from our human-centric perspective. Civilization is circling the drain and because our primary focus is human-centric, we feel an impending, all-pervasive sense of doom. But if you’re biocentrically-oriented, it turns out that there’s really not that much to worry about. The planet is going to be just fine.
Our problem is our overwhelming preoccupation with all things human, a condition we might describe as homo hypnosis. As hyper-social animals, we have a powerful tendency to focus and obsess over all the things that people are doing–human dramas, human problems, human experiences. And not surprisingly, most of our modern media is devoted exclusively to this homo-centric narrative. Cormac Cullinan, author of Wild Law: A Manifesto for Earth Justice, describes this psycho-cultural space as “the homosphere,” an isolated, insulated club for humans only.
For modern Westerners, this homo-centric view seems perfectly natural, but it’s also a death trap. As our consciousness narrows to the activity and desires of this single species, we leave the rest of the world behind; in effect, we go blind to the immense forces and processes that sustain us. The natural world becomes little more than a backdrop, pretty scenery for the human drama. As we focus ever more consciousness on humanity, the rest of the world fades into insignificance.
This preoccupation with all things human no doubt stems from our intrinsic, hyper-social nature, but was made a million times worse by agriculture, especially the modern industrial form. Suddenly free from having to think about hunting, gathering and our relationship to the natural world, millions of people could focus even more intently on the homosphere. In turn, this became a kind of “anthro-mania,” locking us into an incestuous social bubble, isolated and insulated. The larger living world became a distant, occasional curiosity.
This maniacal focus on human affairs is often celebrated as virtuous, ethical and moral, but it’s exceedingly dangerous, and paradoxically, it’s really bad for humans themselves. Just as with personal self-absorption and narcissism, anthropocentrism ultimately defeats itself. By building isolation and disconnection, it drives a wedge between people and the natural world and compromises our ability to see and appreciate our life supporting systems.
But when we take a biocentric perspective, the damage inflicted by humans no longer feels quite so onerous. To be sure, the carnage of habitat destruction and the toxification of the planet is still plenty regrettable, but now another perspective comes into focus. We still feel the wounds, but now the resilience of the larger biosphere comes into view. Yes, humanity is persistent and ingenious in its destruction of living systems, but the living world remains immensely powerful, ancient, robust, creative and yes, enduring. The natural world is wounded, but she will rebound, just as she has so many times before.
Life has a proven track record on this score. Numerous extinction events, both minor and catastrophic have come and gone over the last several billion years. Asteroid strikes, rising and falling sea levels, oxygen holocausts, deep-ocean anoxia, tectonic shifts and massive volcanic activity. Not only has she weathered extreme planetary scale destruction, she’s bounced back with powerful waves of species diversity. Nothing– not even clever/ignorant humans–can extinguish her creative capacity or her extraordinary resilience. From this point of view, we have nothing whatsoever to worry about.
All of this may sound like a fancy work-around for the problems that are now facing humanity. Just re-frame the problem in a new way and presto! human problems and suffering are no longer important. But this shift in perspective is not a rejection of human concerns or interests. Rather, it’s an acknowledgement of the immensity of the biosphere and its dominance over every living thing. Like it or not, the living world is bigger and ultimately, yes, more important than any one single species.
In turn, this implies a course of action and a path forward. That is, the fundamental challenge of our time is to replace the pyramid of human glorification with the circle of biological and social equality. Hierarchy–that toxic product of agricultural civilization–has poisoned our minds and our societies. Even worse, it’s in direct violation of everything we know about biological life. The circle not only feels better, it’s also a more accurate reflection of the way that life actually works. Native and indigenous people have known this fact for many thousands of years.
To put it another way, humanity is simply one leaf on an immense and ancient tree. Each leaf the tree is beautiful in its own way and each has a part to play. But in the end, the tree is what’s important. Individual leaves will come and go, but the roots go deep and the biosphere will live on. Life will persist and the biosphere will bounce back The future, in other words, looks bright.
