Bollocks 11/30/2010 11:31:00 AM
Far be it from me to suggest anyone get a life. However, reading up on a subject and finding out more about it makes one better informed to resist casting the first stone. For those think they know it all, read this. As a political prisoner within the U.S. federal prison system, I am asked
from time to time what my "cause" is. After all, the very definition of a
political prisoner is that they are imprisoned as a result of their
political opinions or activities. And, while it's simple to see that I'm
imprisoned as a result of my opinions and activism, it's less easy to say
in a short phrase what exactly my activism, academic research, and
political outreach entails. Thus, I'm seeking to outline the basics.
Right off the bat, it is clear that the central organizing focus of my
political activities doesn't really fit into any pre-defined "cause" that's
well-known (and already conveniently labeled). This doesn't just reflect a
lack of comfort on my part in identifying with some existing "cause" or
"movement" - rather, it's a direct result of the multi-disciplinary,
multi-sourced, multi-constituent nature of my work and activism. While I
know I'm not the only person working on these issues worldwide - far from
it - I also don't know of any convenient banner under which I can
comfortably stand. Hopefully, in due course, such a banner will manifest
itself - though I don't think it's for me to float convenient identifying
phrases or catchy "marketing slogans," I'm also not against settling into a
chosen nomenclature if it presents itself.
In the event, the shortest form I can come up with is as follows: my
activist work is aimed squarely at dismantling the Solipsistic Fallacy (as
I've labeled it). Further, my activist work supports the celebration of
true diversity of sentient experience - with no specific centrality given
to exclusively human concerns, perspectives, or assumptions relative to
larger questions of general sentience. Indeed, the core of my academic work
lies in finding the surprising - and central - role that cross-species
empathetic social bonding has played throughout the history of the
evolution of the human species. To be human is to be able to form
empathetic bonds with the "Other" - there was no time in the existence of
the species H. sapiens during which we've not been intimately bonded with
our symbiotic partner species (i.e. canines).
What is the Solipsistic Fallacy? Simply put, it's the near-universal
assumption that the human perspective is the central, sole, or most
privileged perspective on all questions of fundamental intellectual
importance. It's the knee-jerk assumption that human needs are the only
really important needs, that humans are the only species that "really
matters," and that human sentience is the pinnacle of evolutionary history
on our planet - and likely anywhere in the universe. Basically, it's the
all-too-human tendency to gaze lovingly at our navels (or our reflections
in the mirror) and, entranced, tell ourselves stories about how wonderful,
wise, smart, and courageous we are. It's a recursive logical fallacy of the
worst sort: we're human, and since we are defining our own terms, we'll
just define "what matters" as the things that matter on a human
scale... then we turn around, ask ourselves to cast our minds out into the
deeper questions which surround us, and - not surprisingly - find that our
very defintions of "what matters" have already been, a priori, structured
to emphasize human centrality, privilege human concerns, and reinforce the
assumption that humans are the apex of existence.
The Solipsistic Fallacy has deep roots, particularly within Western
historical traditions. It traces back through religious threads, economic
threads, political threads, academic threads, and cultural
threads... indeed it's sometimes hard to find anywhere within Western
discourse that the Fallacy isn't all but omnipresent. Irrespective of it's
near-ubiquity, it's still the shoddiest form of intellectual vacuity. It's
dumb, it's pathetic, it's counter-scientific, and indeed it's entirely
counter-factual. So, at that level it is the Fallacy against which my
academic and activist work is targeted.
On a personal level, my engagement with these questions goes back to my
earliest recollections. Always, in my life, it's been self-evident to me
that the human perspective is merely ONE amongst many. As a young child,
the things I learned from - and relationships I built with - sentient
critters of other species were as important to me (and often, more
important to me) than those I developed with my fellow 2-leggers. I never
questioned whether these nonhuman colleagues of mine "had feelings," or
"could think," or "were conscious" - even the most rudimentary observations
of them, and interactions with them on a social basis, showed that they
differ from us 2-leggers in degree, not in kind, at the most fundamental
level. They think. They feel. They plan. They remember. They love. They
learn. They are not "like" us - we all have differences; but, they are
alike enough to be part of our social world, and that was always both true
for me personally, and obvious to me in terms of empirical reality. Who
could really argue this point?
Into my teenage years, I was deeply moved by Dr. Peter Singer's writing in
"Animal Liberation" - here was someone (and later a movement, i.e. Animal
Rights) which respected the rest of the sentient living world on its own
merits. It challenged the basis that humans are entitled to "use" other
living things, free of any care or concern for their well-being in the
process. Animal Rights opened my eyes to the injustices all around me, and
forced me to see how I fit into those larger societal processes of
subjugation and horrific mistreatment of nonhumans. I joined PETA before I
turned 16, and I still consider myself - proudly so - to be a member in
good standing of the Animal Rights movement.
{part 3 of 4}
From there, I expanded into concepts of deep ecology. If embracing the
"agency rights" of other living critters was a first step forward for me,
then recognizing the centrality of ecological-level considerations was a
natural next step forward. The human ability to utterly devastate entire
ecosystems - to cause permanent species extinctions, to destroy entire webs
of interconnected life, wholly and forever - is a terrible thing. The fact
that our species has been blithely comfortable engaging in such wanton
destruction - helped along enormously by our cleverness with technology, at
an ever-accelerating rate - has continued to both surprise and disgust
me. It's such a basic concept, if only out of pure self-interest: foul your
own nest, and you sleep in shit. How can humans not recognize this simple
wisdom, which any other species seems unable to ignore even if they
desired? From these experiences and considerations, I moved into the fold
of the Earth First! community in the late 1980s, doing my part - via direct
action, in the field - to help tip the scales in the Old Growth Wars of the
Pacific Northwest. During those years, I dove deep into the literature of
environmentalism, saw what worked and what didn't, and participated in
events and gatherings that exposed me to a broad swath of environmental
thought. I consider myself, again, to be a member of the environmental
movement - proudly so. I've continued to support the hands-on activism of
today's young generations of Earth First!ers - via cash donations,
assistance with technology tools, and organizational support.
And yet...
From the perspective of both the environmental community, and the Animal
Rights community... something's missing, for me. At one edge of the
spectrum, AR shades off into a self-forced rejection of the kinds of bonds
between humans and nonhumans that have always been the centrepiece of my
own life. "Domesticated species" (a term whose very snootiness belies its
rotten intellectual roots) are denounced as mere echoes of human
domination, despite ever-increasing evidence that the symbiotic bonds
between humans and canines (as well as, more recently, equines) are
co-evolutionary in nature, reciprocal in form, and far more complex than
some simplistic dominance/submission model could ever capture.
Environmentalism runs the risk of sliding down slippery slopes
towards a repudation of, for example, ownership of horses because of their
"environmental impact" - missing the deeper point of how essential it is
for our species to keep every available bond with the rest of the living
world, lest we lose ourselves entirely in our self-absorbed fascination
with our navels. I don't reject either movement, not at all. I support
them, and always will. I simply know that something's missing.
That's where my own work has evolved, over the last 20 years or so. I've
dug into fields as diverse as cognitive ethology, systems science, cultural
anthropology, computer science/artificial intelligence, neurophysiology,
forensic archaeology, and cross-species psychology in my search for new,
more-integrated, more-wholistic ways to see humanity as part of the larger
web of living, breathing, feeling, thinking critters who share our Earth
(and perhaps other planets - and other substrates, e.g. silicon-based - in
due course). In this research, I've come to the conclusion that there's a
deep genetic reservoir within human beings, a reservoir of capacity for
empathetic social bonding with the "Other."
Some of us - and yes I'm quite sure I am part of this group - manifest this latent genetic capacity in what I've come to call "Deep Symbiosis." Deep Symbionts are engaged in the creation of reciprocal, mutually-beneficial, emotionally integrated relationships that span across the mammalian species. These relationships, I argue, are qualitatively different from that to be found when humans interact with "domesticated livestock," or indeed "pets" in the conventional uses of that word. Relationships built on a foundation of Deep Symbiosis resonate with a fundamentally bi-directional, reciprocal respect; neither one nor the other partner in the relationship is "superior" or "primary" - indeed the use of such slavery-based terms in discussing "pets" is certainly indicative of the presence of deeply-held assumptions about human superiority, viz. the Solipsistic Fallacy. A Deep Symbiont opens herself up to a genuine and intentional intertwining with "the Other" - with someone who is alike, but not like us... who can bond empathetically with us, but who is not merely a reflection of our own self-assumptions.
Whatever percentage of us manifest our genetic heritage through a primary bonding with non-human partners - and, again, I'm certainly part of that percentage - it's entirely clear from all available data that we're to be found in every human society, in ever human culture, and throughout all recorded human history. Indeed, I have concluded that there is no such thing as "Homo sapiens" without this empathetic capacity; our very capabilities with technological tools, our complex social
arrangements within-species, and our proclivity for scientific inquiry that forces us to expand our perspective beyond our own little worldviews (however limited we may be in generalizing those perspective shifts, and thus overcoming the Solipsistic Fallacy for good)... these are all deeply connected, at a neurophysical level, with the same genetic components that
make Old Blood who we are.
In the course of these investigations, explorations, and often-blind perigrinations through all manner of subcultures, groups, movements, and cliques, I have come into contact with individuals (and communities) who have helped me enormously to define my questions, expand my assumptions, correct errors in expectation, and overall to successfully pull on the
right strings to continue forward in my explorations. Some of those communities are shrouded in controversy and subject to massive persecution: I'd say that's common to Deep Symbionts in general, and dates back through centuries of witch-burnings and mob rejection of those of us who are just different enough (and misunderstood enough) to be frightening to conventional society. The zoophile community is certainly another example - and an example that I have concluded is, in fact, a subset of the larger category of Deep Symbionts (to use my chosen nomenclature). I've not been afraid to interface with such communities, to learn from them, to earn their trust by being trustworthy, and to take their wisdom as what it is: unique, genuine, and powerful. I've also, to be clear, never shied away from aiming criticism where I feel criticism is due; anyone in the larger Deep Symbiosis community who knows of me, and my involvement with same, over the past 15 or so years will certainly attest to that fact. Any time I've come across abusive practices, attitudes, or assumptions by humans against nonhumans, I have acted to the best of my ability to halt those abuses. I always will. Conversely, I haven't been conned into fake claims of "abuse" that have nothing to do with actual harm to actual nonhumans - and are, ironically, merely reflective of the rot that comes from knee-jerk assumptions of human centrality.
A good friend of mine once commented on how bizarre it is to see such sanctimonious rantings from people who are quite happy to kill and eat (or have others do the killing; same thing) living, feeling, breathing fellow sentient critters; hypocrisy of the most pure sort. He speaks true, and his wisdom speaks to the deep fractures amongst these competing worldviews. For
me, I stand utterly firmly on one side of that line: I see the beauty, promise, power, and joy in the human species as a whole (and in individual 2-leggers); at the same time, I see other beauties, other wisdoms, other lessons, other joys OUTSIDE our species. I embrace that otherness, and I know that it is a central part of humanity to seek that embrace - Deep Symbiont, or Normal, alike.
What is this "cause" called? I don't know - but I do know it's my life's work.
/s/ Douglas Bryan LeConte-Spink
co-founder, Baneki Privacy Computing, Inc.
founder, Deep Symbiosis Institute
founder, Exitpoint Stallions Limitee
