Yoda (Part 2)

This remark hurts me not so much for the suggestion that I and my wife are silly or childish for grieving over the death of a cat as for the implication that Yoda’s life was insignificant. I thought, “What if Yoda could hear and actually understand the insensitive remarks from where he is at present?” Whenever I imagine the hurt in Yoda’s innocent big blue eyes occasioned by these hurtful words, it was all I could to do to keep myself from crying.

But whence came the idea about the insignificance of the life of an animal compared to that of a human being? I think there are three possible explanations for the prevalence of this distorted, mistaken belief in the supremacy of human life over those of the other creatures.

First, it may be traced to the Judeo-Christian belief that God created man after His own image, and that He bestowed on him the power and authority to do with all other living creatures as he pleased. This belief places human beings at the center of the grand scheme of things, and asserts that man was the entity for which everything else was brought into existence. Of course, this belief, which has its provenance in the Bible, is stupid, to say the least. It is no better than the old, long-discredited idea—which is also based on the Bible—that the earth was the center of the universe, and that the stars and all the planets are moving around it.

Moreover, if a person asserts that God has a predilection for human beings over the rest of the natural world on the basis of the Bible, he must also be prepared to advocate and defend the murder of people—men, women, children, and animals—who worship other deities than the Biblical God. That is because there are passages in the Bible where God is shown giving explicit instructions to that effect to his people. And one cannot say that something is true because a document says so in some parts, and then assail the very same document for saying something one does not agree with in the other.

The other reason, I think, for the prevalent notion of human supremacy over other creatures is the belief in the inferiority of animals to human beings in terms of intelligence. This argument, when taken to its logical conclusion, is dangerous. For if a person’s worth is derived from his IQ, children born with learning difficulties, such as those with Down’s Syndrome, would be downgraded into something less of a human being than the rest of us. How far would we be from the eugenics policies instituted by the dreaded Nazi regime in the territories it occupied during World War II if that was the case?

Lastly, the belief in the primacy of human lives over those of the other creatures may be attributed to the old, outdated idea that “might is right.” This idea maintains that the strength, or the species’ ability to subdue other species, is the sole determinant of the former’s place in the natural world. We see this every day everywhere--how the stronger, bigger animals prey on the weaker, smaller ones--and regard this as part of the law of nature, of the way how the natural world keeps its balance. And because human beings are part of nature, and by virtue of his ability to subdue all the other animals, many people draw the conclusion that human beings have the right to do with all other creatures as they see fit, and consequently look down on them as their natural inferiors. 

This idea, while certainly not without its merits, is, like the previous one, dangerous beyond belief. For if human beings are indeed supposed to behave according to this so-called law of nature, the rich and the powerful would be justified in exploiting and oppressing the poor and the powerless; and predatory, unscrupulous men could not be faulted for preying on young girls who have barely reached puberty. But these acts we generally consider as immoral although we find instances of them in nature—which makes them “natural”—because, as creatures capable of rational thinking, we set a higher bar for ourselves to live by. Why then should we behave like other animals by treating other creatures less powerful and intelligent than we are as our inferior?

Long time ago, as a young man, I once heard an SVD priest mention a quote by Karl Marx about the difference between man and all other animals. Marx wrote, the priest said, that if man is only capable of looking after the good and welfare of his loved ones, he would be no better than the rest of the animal world. It was one of the most radical things that I had heard up to that point (although for years, I could not find the book where Marx actually uttered those words. I have read Das Kapital and the Communist Manifesto, his two most important, celebrated works, but it wasn’t in any of those). Today, I think that the quote should be revised thus: if man is only capable of taking care of his fellow human beings, he is no better than the rest of the animal world. 

Imagine what kind of world we would have if the day comes when all people start to try to live up that kind of moral standard; when people finally realize that when a creature was born in this world, it means that nature, or God, has endowed him with the right to live--a right that no one has the right to take away; when they learn to be sensitive enough not to dismiss the sufferings or death of an animal as insignificant or unimportant--something that is not worthy of one's tears. That is the day when man shall have truly become superior to the rest of the animal world.   

But until then, I would always choose the company of my cats to that of any human being any day of the week. W