This will be quite short (it won’t) and possibly unstructured (yes) but an interesting thought I just quickly wanted to put into words.

First, what is dualism? It is an anthropological theory and societal narrative that puts humans and our culture apart from nature as two separate spheres which interact but are not dependent on one another. Wholistic theories for which I will be arguing here are the opposite that see humans and our “culture” as a part of nature both being interdependent on each other. Natives and some other individuals and groups showed and are sometimes still showing how such a worldview can be exercised and lived as part of ecosystems that cannot exist without the humans just like the human cannot exist without the ecosystem. I just noticed that I will not explain how dumb a dualistic world view is later so I will just quickly point out here that human well-being and survival are closely linked to nature, which is illustrated by the horrific consequences climate change and the destruction of ecosystems currently have.

Second, with normative classification I mean the classification of living beings by their inherent value. The current main trend goes towards what I will call biological classification. With that I mean the trend in current debates on the ethical status of living things to introduce classification based on biological characteristics and features. The main ones are rationality, social behaviour and a feelings both emotions and pain. This classification is currently world view in all countries and communities that needed and still need excuses to exploit earth – basically all countries and communities that have a capitalistic economic system. It sets humans apart from other living beings since humans have rationality, social behaviour and experience complex emotions and pain. It also creates classification between animals with insects being one of the lowest, lacking the ability to feel as well as between animals and plants. I will argue for an ecological classification but we will get to that later. Dualism and biological classification go hand in hand because only when you see yourself separate and independent can you think of yourself as being above.

In science a biological categorisation makes perfect sense. I want to know which animals share which characteristics and bundle them together in different categories (e.g. mammals) and subcategories (e.g. humans). This does not imply any normative judgement on the value of the different species. From there humans developed biological classifications by loading the biological categories up with normative assumptions. So following this biological classification why is it that I must not kill the human, but I can kill the pig. I must not kill the dog (at least in most western societies) but I can kill the fly? I must not kill the horse, but I can kill a plant?

All this involves normative judgement which has already pointed out is largely derived from a dualistic world view which sets humans apart from other living beings by their characteristics with the general rule: the closer you are to human’s characteristics the better! What is the justification for this? I see it as purely instrumental in the sense that only when we saw nature as something less than ourselves were we able to burn down forests with all its animals and plants for cattle, which we then slaughter for food. There are plenty of these examples and they are only possible if humans conceive nature as beneath them and separate from them. Humans are different from animals and plants I know that, but I do not know what gives us this special role. This becomes even more absurd when we think about the fact that science provides plenty of examples for other species with complex social behaviour and rational thought which contradicts the idea that humans are above nature. I have to mention here all humans had this knowledge ones and we see it still today in the few remaining native communities who still observe the behaviour of animals and see them as an equal part within nature. In the most western societies, we had to forget of (or rather were forced to forget by those who sought and still seek profit above everything) this knowledge since it contradicts the humans status above animals.

We see today that the idea that humans are significantly different or better than other living beings is simply false and relies on homocentric and dualistic view meaning that we apply human standards to all living beings and see ourselves set apart from nature which as I argued are normative claims with no basis. Currently more than ever humans rely on what the earth provides because there are now 8 billion of us. Our mutual contract with earth in which we lived before was, and still is, broken, since we are now using up more resources than earth can recover for us. We are dependent on earth and not separate. Moreover, earth has never been more dependent on human action too, because what we will do in the coming years will decide earths fate too. This leads me to my final point which is the alternative to the clearly flawed world view and the consequent actions we derive.

If I want to conceive the value of all living beings than I cannot take a homocentric world view but rather I must take all beings into consideration. What all beings, except most humans, have in common is that they all contribute by stabilizing their ecosystems and thus making life for thousands of other species possible. I will illustrate this with an uplifting example. Efforts by conservationists who repopulated areas in the east of the USA with otters led to a rapid recovery of the affected ecosystems. They relied heavily on otters for their stability which were then almost hunted to extinction by European colonizers in the 18^th century.  The repopulation did not only lead to a recovery but also to a made the ecosystems more resistant to other outside forces. This example also illustrates well what I want to get at. The value of a being is in my eyes determined by its importance for its ecosystem. For humans this means earth in its entirety because we affect all. In this case both the conservationists and the otter gain value since they contributed to forming and stabilizing the ecosystem which offers life to thousands of species. Before losing myself in details I do not want to make any further normative distinctions but these three:

1. All beings that contribute to the stability of their ecosystem have equal value
2. The ecosystem in its entirety has the value of all its parts and is thus most valuable
3. Those beings who do not contribute or even destroy ecosystems have lesser value.

Yes, I am saying the animal you might be eating right now might have had more right to kill you, than you to kill it. This classification does not mean that no being can be killed or used since at the end if it is done to sustain the ecosystem, which is worth more than any single being within it, it would be fine in my eyes. To illustrate this point: dears eat seedlings of trees and bushes which helps to kill off diseases and prevent overgrowth however if there are too many, they will start to kill off the forest because they eat too many seedlings and fewer new trees grow. Therefore, some dears must be killed by other beings within the ecosystem, including the human, to keep the balance within the ecosystem and with that ensure the survival of all other beings within it.

As humans we are obliterating ecosystems around the world on a scale, I cannot put it into words. This does not even serve the purpose of survival but simply to continue our luxury lives especially in the west. I put a table in I got from the book Less is More by Jason Hickel to illustrate who is using most resources and consequently destroying earth the most – also keep in mind citizens of rich countries do not fight for survival.

Continuing to set humans above and apart from nature is logically flawed and without much normative basis. Rereading this tomorrow, I will find some issue with my approach too, (actually I already have one: what about domesticated animals like dogs or cattle that do not contribute to ecosystems and only currently survive because of humans) but I think I got the idea across quite well.

What does this mean for us? I will end on another example which is about another group of conservationists and scientist. In an attempt to regrow local trees in the Atacama desert in Chile they encountered some issues. After some research into the native communities (before colonialization) were easily explained. In the past natives fed the fruits of the trees to domesticated alpacas and llamas – as we toady know the only animals that will actually eat these fruits – who digested the seeds and, in that process, removed an outer skin. Only then the seeds could grow. When large parts of the natives were killed by colonizers their domesticated animals disappeared too and so the trees started to disappear (this is only part of the story most were destroyed by colonizers and later exploitative economic practices). Only because the natives fed the berries of the trees to their llamas and alpacas did the tree species survive and in turn it offered food for the animal and shade for all beings including the natives. This kind of integration into nature is what we need because until now we only alienated ourselves further from it. Finding our role within ecosystems has vast implications for our lives, which I do not want to get into, because this is already much longer then expected and went into a completely different direction than I anticipated. I will say only this: I think earth and our lives will be much richer, if we manage this reintegration into nature and start to become part of our ecosystems again.

-Just a quick heads up the example of the natives and the alpacas and the one of the otters are not from myself but from the book “The Solutions Are Already Here” by Peter Gelderloos. I have not figured out how to do the citation here yet especially cause many thoughts are inspired by but not from some author also I do not want to create some form of Bibliography every time although this probably would be best. I will figure it out until then it might be a bit all over the place.-

-Also I just realized now that both “uplifting” examples include colonialization and destruction of native communities and ecosystems so they aren’t actually all that uplifting, sorry.-