https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/science-article-castigates-human-su
Environmentalism is growing darkly anti-human, a misanthropy that has also seeped into science.
Vivid case in point: Science, one of the world’s most prominent scientific journals, just published an anti-human exceptionalism screed by Eileen Crist. Crist, who has a Ph.D. in sociology and not in any of the natural sciences, writes to warn that the end is nigh — and the reason for the pending catastrophe is “human supremacy.” From “Reimagining the Human:”
This worldview esteems the human as a distinguished entity that is superior to all other life forms and is entitled to use them and the places they live. The belief system of superiority and entitlement—or human supremacy—manifests in a range of anthropocentric commonplace assumptions, linguistic constructs, institutional regimes, and everyday actions of individual, group, nation-state, and corporate actors.
Crist wields the term “human supremacy” to create a mental association in the reader’s mind with the evils of racial supremacists — in much the same way that global-warming activists denigrate skeptics as “climate-change deniers” to associate them with Holocaust doubters.
Crist doesn’t just attack human exceptionalism, but also the West — which she and her publisher seem to forget is the source of so much scientific advancement:
It is crucial to recognize that human supremacy is neither culturally nor individually universal, nor is it derived in any straightforward way from human nature. However, western civilization has elaborated its most forceful, long-standing expression, and through the West’s ascendancy the influence of this worldview has spread across the globe.
And thank goodness for it. Western civilization created unprecedented liberty and general prosperity. The problem in our world is too little of “the West,” not too much.
But nihilism strikes a beat. Crist calls on us to reject “human hegemony” and embrace an “all species commonwealth:”