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.)