Dominion vs. Domination
“Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Genesis 1:26
Dominion is a godlike concept, so it even says in Genesis whereby we are made in God’s image and supposedly given Dominion over the animals. Yet in the exercise of that tremendous power, we greatly fail time and again. We fail to extend to the animals the Mercy, the Compassion, the Stewardship that we enjoy for ourselves. Put another way, how would you like it if God treated us exactly like we treat animals? Surely God has Dominion over us, if there is a God, right? So if we are created in “His Image” does that only apply to our ape-like looks or is it meant to be that we are in some measure godlike with respect to the animals? If it is the latter, then we are ugly mini-gods indeed, unworthy of our position and a real disappointment to the Grantor of our Dominion!
Nowhere in the concept of Dominion should be found disregard, disrespect, cruelty or exploitation. Yet it is the human way to rudely encroach upon, overrun, kick out, poach, hunt for sport, torture and in many ways harm animals and their habitats even to the point of extinction. We are currently in the middle of a mass extinction where millions of species are being written out of the Book of Life. Some Dominion! Nowhere in Dominion does it say that animals are unfeeling, unthinking beasts worthy of suffering or that they are even inferior, except in the matter of Dominion itself. No, we have gravely mistaken compassionate Dominion for uncaring Domination.
We have become heartless overlords to the innocent and helpless animals of the world using them as we see fit, most often without even doing it directly, done at our behest. Be it the greedy little ivory traders, the disgusting rainforest burners, the endless mountains of meat and fish humans consume, the land developers, the agro-conglomerates, the careless pesticide makers and users, animal testers in thousands of labs, you name it, it usually involves cruelty to animals. It’s on such a colossal scale that essentially each day that goes by brings another hidden animal Holocaust.
We pretend to like animals and many, many people truly love them. We put them in our noble emblems of power such as Eagles, Bears and Lions. We name our sports teams after them in honor of their power and agility. We certainly love our pets. But God forbid you are not a pet and are just a regular creature out there. Even if you are an animal that is critical the the health of the entire Ecosystem, such as our great pollinators, the Bees, watch out for our latest Domination technique! We will have you dying off in no time, like the rest. We are the Dominion Dominators and we shall vanquish you animals, you pests!
In the midst of all this Domination, we are also learning about our Earthly Cohabitants. They are much smarter than we once thought. They communicate. They remember. They have families. They care for each other and they even often care for other animals and live in harmony. They are playful and cooperative. They are unassuming, honest and true to themselves. They are beautiful and perfect. They are simple and humble. They are incredibly skilled at survival and never use more resources than they need. They are efficient. They often are astounding in what they can do. They see further, hear and smell things we can’t imagine. They make life work. They are miraculous.
A world without animals is a dead world, bereft of meaning, a dull rock hurdling though space. A world with animals is teeming with interconnected webs of life, each playing its part perfectly in an Eternal Dance along with the plants. The Earth is now in a highly compromised situation because of our relentless and reckless Domination. The Earth could become a dead rock under our Dominion. On our watch.
Let’s be real. Animals are our cousins on the Tree of Life. We know from carbon dating of fossils that they can be traced back to simplest forms and over billions of years, billions! For 3 billion years life was microbial and then exploded into a rainbow of wild, complex creatures in the Cambrian period. They evolved and we branched off of them and we ARE them. They are literally our cousins because you and I can be traced back to a common set of parents to almost any animal on Earth. Sure, we took a sharp turn with our big brains (way smaller than Whales) and our opposable thumbs. We got good with rocks and sticks and learned how to sharpen them. We figured fire out and we were off to the races, leaving our cousins in the dust. But they kept evolving too, they kept surviving and feeding us and themselves and we had a pretty honest relationship for thousands of years. There was a mutual respect of a fellow creature.
I would be remiss in my defense of animals without saying a bit about what they have given us, these cousins of ours. The list is as endless as life itself. First and foremost they gave us archetypes of consciousness. By this I mean they represent different spirit types, the things that we incorporate into our thinking and dreams. They represent all aspirations and fears on a subconscious level. The Chinese Calendar and Zodiac are deep cultural artifacts of this fact. After all, we were hunted by and taught by animals for millions of years before getting our Dominion.
Then they gave us companionship as a species, populating the world with a variety of wondrous interconnected life. And they gave close companionships as well with the compatible tame animals. They have given us billions of themselves to eat, clothe and shelter ourselves and make tools from, and generally allowed us to live well and grow smarter. They have given us their milk and eggs to eat. They have given us rides around on their backs, greatly increasing our range. They have pulled our plows and carts, greatly increasing our crops. They have protected and warned us, such as when birds go silent or a dog barks. They have given us songs. They have given us soft beds and pillows. And they have given us stories, lots and lots of stories. We owe animals so much that can never be repaid but certainly earns them much kinder and more respectful, and grateful treatment.
But what of the Plants? If we Dominate animals, then we Decimate plants, the creators of fresh oxygen, the purifiers of the water and air, the source of all manner of beauty, foods, herbs and medicines. They are often seen as “in the way” for our purposes and so the world is becoming deforested at an alarming rate, often at the expense of animals but most certainly at the expense of life itself. Plants are the lowest on the Totem Pole when it comes to respect. It might be a 10,000 year old Bristlecone Pine, but I could find someone willing to come at it with a chainsaw for firewood. Many great and noble ancient trees have been felled in the name of progress.
Plants deserve utmost respect too and must be protected for our own good and in order for us to fulfill our mission of stewardship of Mother Earth. We can’t go on blindly chopping them down or killing their symbiotic partners and not expect some grave consequence. They are some of the oldest inhabitants of Earth dating back some 600 million years, evolving all the way, to be more efficient at converting sunlight, more attractive and more useful to animals who have eaten them, eaten their fruits and berries and helped the plants in turn. Plants and animals are a match made in Heaven.
Don’t get me started on trees! No, do. They are true marvels and have given us more that perhaps any other of Life’s plethora. We have come from the trees where at first they were literally our homes and now our homes are mostly made of trees. Of course, they are still homes to countless species of birds, bugs and other creatures. They add beauty to any landscape and in sufficient numbers become forests filled with all sorts of intertwined life. They give us shade and oxygen by means of “inhaling” what we exhale (CO2) and turning it back into what we inhale to live (O2). It’s a perfect partnership. They even control weather by redirecting winds upwards to seed clouds with their pollen in a hidden way that goes largely unappreciated. They come in so many varieties, sizes and shapes. They’ve provided us wood for building and wood for fuel for millennia. Perhaps our favorite thing the provide us are fruits and nuts. Billions of people start every day with that complex delight of brown tree juice we call coffee but few think of the trees that made it possible. They are the Actual Trees of Life!
Both plants and animals should be the perfect renewable resource but because we have the model of Domination instead of Stewardship, we greatly outpace their ability to renew. We throw away nearly half the food we grow but because we are so damn efficient, we can make up for it and so keep doing it, stressing the land, cramming more animals into smaller and more pens, feeding them with fertilizers and growth hormones to speed them up, grabbing more land from forests and more animals to keep it all going.
We send great ships into the ocean with miles and miles of nets, scooping sea life up with abandon, rapidly depleting what were not long ago rich, teeming oceans. We have ships dedicated to removing just the fins of sharks and chucking them suffering to die back into the red waters, all so we can have a rather bland soup recipe. We place military equipment that blares incomprehensibly loud sounds in the water to communicate while driving whales, dolphins and other creature that rely on hearing completely mad. No wonder they beach themselves and just give up. Barbaric Dominion!
Of course, like the ultimate bully, we never have a fair fight with an animal. When we do, we usually lose. Bullfighters are famous for vanquishing the much larger creature and toying with them as they bleed out in anguish to the cheering mob. Of course, the bull has been highly incapacitated by use of picadors to insure an unfair fight and the matador hides his estoque behind his taunting red cape before finishing off the innocent bull. But matadors are almost quaint on their scale of activity compared to large-scale industrial processing of animals which is worthy of another (disturbing) essay on its own. Detroit alone eats 27,000 chickens per hour! Hunters have gone from somewhat challenged in bagging their prey to outfitted with the latest laser scopes, camouflage and gear to where it’s pretty much all been reduced to shooting fish in a barrel. Fisherman use sonar and high tech to chase down even the most clever and elusive schools of fish.
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, The lion shall eat straw like the ox, And dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain,” Says the LORD. Isaiah 65:25
You see, this is the True Dominion, the way of the Merciful, the Goal. We are not meant to dominate and gravely harm the animals. Whoever thought that up is a filthy liar and anathema to Humanity and Life itself. Dominion means Stewardship, helpfulness, respect, admiration and Love. Dominion requires us to be Protectors of the Earth and its Life and to seek maximum harmony and minimum suffering. That is what you expect and desire from your God, right? Who would worship a God bent on torturing and killing that which They had brought forth?
When one understand one’s role in the Web of Life, one becomes Whole. When one is outside the Web of Life, one becomes Hole. If anything is, Life is Holy. All life. All creatures. All plants. You know what I mean if you’ve been lucky enough to have a pet such as a dog. They love you unconditionally. And yes, we still rely on breaking the Circle of Life to continue the Circle of Life. We feed our pets foods made from other animals as we feed ourselves. One must become aware of the Circle of Life to be in it. One must have great respect for the foods one eats, and gratefulness. Otherwise, you are empty, though you be full.
Some cultures have enshrined at least a modicum of respect into food preparation and animal husbandry. Indeed, throughout the Old Testament much instruction is given as to how to raise and prepare animals for sacrifice and consumption, leading to modern codes of Kosher and Halal. Natives throughout the America’s perhaps win the respect game as they lived much more in touch with their animal cousins and had great respect for them, often to the point of worship and reverence. They would name themselves after animals with names such as Sitting Bull or Little Bear.
There are many more creatures that we even know and most of them are quite tiny and they are everywhere, going about their business and doing their small part in the network of life. Some we have labeled as pests and even mortal enemies and yes, we do have a right to exercise Dominion and protect ourselves when they intrude uninvited. We can’t easily relate to many creatures who are so vastly different than us. But we should still appreciate and learn from them and wish them well where they belong, out in Nature and not stigmatize them for simply being what they are.
Yes, even they are our distant cousins and they are way more important to our existence than most will ever care to find out or look into. They deserve respect and are innocent critters (except for wasps who will sting you for the hell of it). The quadrillions of ants on Earth, placed end to end, could stretch to Jupiter and back four times! Respect. Some seem loathsome and may give us the heebie jeebies and some are downright primordial and scary but all have a right to some role, somewhere in the Ecosystem. They are life’s hidden workers, enriching the soil, feeding the birds and keeping things in balance and in the case of honeybees, doing wonderful things for everybody.
Mindfulness of our solemn role and having Dominion in a Merciful, respectful way that maximizes harmony and minimizes suffering, not only for ourselves but our cousins, the animals, will make us happier, more complete and worthy of our great powers. Most important perhaps, is to cultivate a sense of connection to our Earth Family and not to entirely separate ourselves from our common ancestors and cousins. To lose sight of this connection is not only immoral, but it will lead to our own demise, I assure you.
