Modern man does not experience himself as a part of nature but as an outside force destined to dominate and conquer it. He even talks of a battle with nature, forgetting that, if he won the battle, he would find himself on the losing side.
― Ernst F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Ma... See more
“Man is the most insane species. He worships an invisible God and destroys a visible Nature. Unaware that this Nature he’s destroying is this God he’s worshiping.”
― Hubert Reeves
Today, there is perhaps no animal we are more unmoored from than ourselves. ‘The world is now dominated by an animal that doesn’t think it’s an animal,’ writes the natural philosopher Melanie Challenger in How to Be Animal (2021) . ‘ And the future is being imagined by an animal that doesn’t want to be an animal.’
Erica Berry • ‘Playing animal’ reflects back our yearnings and repulsions | Aeon Essays
Humans are part of the animal kingdom, and we have also come to dominate that kingdom. Denying either reality will prevent us from ever taking full responsibility to care for it.