The
Narcissism of Small Difference (with apologies to H.L. Mencken)
Oct
27 2019
When
I see animal friends
of
different species,
or
the cat who mothered ducklings
when
they should have been a meal,
I
feel a poignant sense of commonality.
That
we are all warm-blooded creatures.
That
we are blank slates
who
imprint easily.
That
we thrive through play
and
attachment,
needing
to be touched
and
longing to be loved
and
who cannot navigate life alone.
And
yet how preoccupied we are
by
difference;
between
Christian and humanist
the
hierarchies of pigment,
the
exotic smells
seeping
out from under the door
of
the apartment down the hall.
Evolution
might explain this,
that
potential threat
requires
attention
while
the familiar can wait.
But
we know better
and
H.L. Mencken said it best
that
“the narcissism of small difference”
will
be the death of us.
I
watch the donkey and the pig
frolicking
in a field,
the
dolphin and the Labrador
swim
together at sea.
Its
water, the same salt as the blood
in
all of us,
our
mammalian bodies
variations
on a theme.
Too
bad our intelligence
isolates
us,
living
in our heads
over-thinking
things.
So
much so that scientists once decreed
dogs
are instrumental
and
do not feel,
which,
of course, none of us believes.
And
not only this
but
that elephants grieve
and
pilgrimage to bone-yards,
while
even hyenas can die
from
loneliness.
We
privilege ourselves
and
feel closer to God,
yet
as stewards of His creation
are
laying it waste.
Such
mastery of facts
yet
so lacking in humility.
So
knowing and smart
yet
so stubbornly blind
to
our essential sameness,
to
the destiny
we're
all fated to share.
I've
wanted for a long time to write this poem, this tendency to focus on
difference rather than our commonality. Waited
to write, because I knew it would be so much harder to write in
poetry than in prose. And wanted to write for a few reasons.
Partly because it really will
be the death of us! But also because I find myself recalling that
quote more often than any other. And also because I've always
wondered why I am so emotionally affected by a silly show about
inter-species friendships I often watch on one of the many “nature”
channels I get, called Unlikely
Animal Friends.
Within
our own species, of course, the differences become even smaller and
even more inconsequential. I understand how evolutionary biology
neatly explains their salience. But that doesn't mean we have no
choice in our thinking and feeling. One can learn to process
difference, and then discount it. Or to focus on the commonalities:
the half full glass, as it were.
Another
implication of this is “speciesism”: our tendency to privilege
our own, to privilege our version of intelligence, and to submit to a
worldview that is very anthropocentric. Religion, especially, does
this: that we are favoured by God, created in His image, and given
dominion; that is, the world bestowed on us by Him. (The capitals out
of respect, even though it offends this fundamentalist atheist's
basic non-belief!) Which I find particularly odd, since isn't
humility one of the prime tenets of most religions? And what could be
less humble than humanity elevating itself in this way?
There
is, as there often inevitably is in anything I write these days, a
message of environmental despair in the final two stanzas: “
...laying it waste”, which is about as distilled down as I could
get! At the risk of bashing religion once again, I am alluding here
to the fundamentalists' equanimity about climate change (when they're
not denying it, that is), anchored in their belief that salvation
imminently awaits; that God is orchestrating everything, so we can
afford to be fatalistic, to demur and defer; and that anyway, a
rational God would never permit his creation to be destroyed. So why
worry?
(Which
I maintain is a terrible misnomer, btw. Because the last thing they
are is “fundamentalists”. They're literalists, not
fundamentalists.; oblivious to the spirit of allegory and myth, not
to mention the specific historical context, in which scripture is
written. Because aren't the fundamental tenets of the Bible things
like justice, peace, tolerance, charity, and love? While it appears
to me these Bible-thumpers and advocates of the “prosperity gospel”
are far more about social judgment than social justice, far more
about self-justification than self-awareness and humility. ...And
which may be one reason I so enjoy appropriating the term, calling
myself a “fundamentalist atheist”: I think the cognitive
dissonance of hearing those two terms together, taken from opposing
magisteriums of thought, renders that self-description all the more
evocative.)
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