772
If we discount reproductive capacity between like organisms, humanistic progress is not biochemically measurable. A more compelling argument exists were we
to shed the taxonomy and consider individuals of widely differing behavioral tendencies to be their own species. Earlier, we referenced the concept of an individual
comprising countless populations, an obvious truth that deserves to be respected.
Diversity escalates, not by millions of species, but trillions of individuals. To the
extent it may undermine the power of numbers, such a linguistic and conceptual
shift only elevates the traction and profundity of individual beauty and prowess, the
prospect of insightful relativity.
87.3 Hope Among Individuals
While it is crucial to recognize the extinction of populations (at least “237,000 populations” of the “515 species of terrestrial vertebrates… on the brink of extinction”)
3
,
the more crucial lesson bears upon the number of individuals caught up in such
exterminations. In northern Kenya and southern Somalia, everyone is related to the
swarming locusts. Without accounting for the individuals themselves, the genetic
and demographic facts exist only relatively; they are confined to theory. Theory is
hypothetical. Hypotheses are alluded to. Allusions are enveloped, by turns, in a
chain of being—or chains of being, wherein blurred degrees of sentience and sensitivity overtake all of the natural sciences. We call upon differences and similarities
(agricultural chaos, family loss, community devastation, or re-birth), but ultimately,
our human subjectivism stands in the way of any clear perspective, overwhelmed by
an implacable point of view. A subjectivism that is tantamount to a critical admission: Nothing is real, not by our accounting, save for pain, hunger, suffering. The
photoreceptors in our macula admit to the otherwise sedate brain a certain amount
of optical information. That same brain may be predetermined in its interpretation,
though clearly, with time and degrees of impact, our view changes. Ultimately, we
even succumb to pain, which is of certain consolation to the individual concerned.
We ascertain degrees of Being we had previously missed. The sum total of their
meaning, aggregated in a sojourn after dusk, leaves no record of footsteps. As sure
as Shakespeare, whose own record of having been here can only be divined by that
lexicon of meaning, meaningful only to that tribe of disciples whose own lives are
passing so quickly as to lend some collective poignancy to the great passing of lives.
All the burial grounds, where any such meaning commingles in a suffusion of so
many silences upon the face of the earth. That is the issue. How does an unconditional non-violence grasp locust eco-dynamics?
3 See “Loss of land-based vertebrates is accelerating, according to Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich
and others,” by Lindsay Filgas, Stanford News Service, June 1, 2020; See also, “Global Extinction
Rates: Why Do Estimates Vary So Wildly?” by Fred Pearce, YaleEnvironment 360, August 17,
2015, https://e360.yale.edu/features/global_extinction_rates_why_do_estimates_vary_so_wildly,
Accessed July 22, 2020.
87 Forgiveness
If we discount reproductive capacity between like organisms, humanistic progress is not biochemically measurable. A more compelling argument exists were we
to shed the taxonomy and consider individuals of widely differing behavioral tendencies to be their own species. Earlier, we referenced the concept of an individual
comprising countless populations, an obvious truth that deserves to be respected.
Diversity escalates, not by millions of species, but trillions of individuals. To the
extent it may undermine the power of numbers, such a linguistic and conceptual
shift only elevates the traction and profundity of individual beauty and prowess, the
prospect of insightful relativity.
87.3 Hope Among Individuals
While it is crucial to recognize the extinction of populations (at least “237,000 populations” of the “515 species of terrestrial vertebrates… on the brink of extinction”)
3
,
the more crucial lesson bears upon the number of individuals caught up in such
exterminations. In northern Kenya and southern Somalia, everyone is related to the
swarming locusts. Without accounting for the individuals themselves, the genetic
and demographic facts exist only relatively; they are confined to theory. Theory is
hypothetical. Hypotheses are alluded to. Allusions are enveloped, by turns, in a
chain of being—or chains of being, wherein blurred degrees of sentience and sensitivity overtake all of the natural sciences. We call upon differences and similarities
(agricultural chaos, family loss, community devastation, or re-birth), but ultimately,
our human subjectivism stands in the way of any clear perspective, overwhelmed by
an implacable point of view. A subjectivism that is tantamount to a critical admission: Nothing is real, not by our accounting, save for pain, hunger, suffering. The
photoreceptors in our macula admit to the otherwise sedate brain a certain amount
of optical information. That same brain may be predetermined in its interpretation,
though clearly, with time and degrees of impact, our view changes. Ultimately, we
even succumb to pain, which is of certain consolation to the individual concerned.
We ascertain degrees of Being we had previously missed. The sum total of their
meaning, aggregated in a sojourn after dusk, leaves no record of footsteps. As sure
as Shakespeare, whose own record of having been here can only be divined by that
lexicon of meaning, meaningful only to that tribe of disciples whose own lives are
passing so quickly as to lend some collective poignancy to the great passing of lives.
All the burial grounds, where any such meaning commingles in a suffusion of so
many silences upon the face of the earth. That is the issue. How does an unconditional non-violence grasp locust eco-dynamics?
3 See “Loss of land-based vertebrates is accelerating, according to Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich
and others,” by Lindsay Filgas, Stanford News Service, June 1, 2020; See also, “Global Extinction
Rates: Why Do Estimates Vary So Wildly?” by Fred Pearce, YaleEnvironment 360, August 17,
2015, https://e360.yale.edu/features/global_extinction_rates_why_do_estimates_vary_so_wildly,
Accessed July 22, 2020.
87 Forgiveness