Loving humanity, but hating people. . . .

That's an old line about persons who in principle think human beings ought to be valued, but who find it difficult to care about the individual persons they encounter with all of their messiness and their unsavory behavior. Well, environmentalists (of a certain stripe) are spewing a similar swill.

Delroy Murdock tells us about it here

"We're no better than bacteria!" University of Texas biologist Eric Pianka recently announced. "Things are gonna get better after the collapse because we won't be able to decimate the Earth so much," he added. "And, I actually think the world will be much better when there's only 10 or 20 percent of us left." Pianka dreamed that disease "will control the scourge of humanity." He celebrated the potential of Ebola Reston, an airborne strain of the killer virus, to make Earth nearly human-free. "We've got airborne 90 percent mortality in humans. Killing humans. Think about that. . . .

Finnish environmentalist Pentti Linkola calls humanity a sinking ship with 100 passengers and a lifeboat for 10. "Those who hate life try to pull more people on board and drown everybody. Those who love and respect life use axes to chop off the extra hands hanging on the gunwale."


Me: It is really interesting to read of Linkola speak of loving and respecting "life." What an abstract way of thinking. There is no such thing as life, except as one finds it in particular living beings. If "life" is found only in particular living beings (which it is), then the only way to care about "life" is to care for each and every living thing. Furthermore, if one cares about life in its highest form, then the only way to care about "life" in its highest form is to care for each and every individual (at least in someway). (Those environmentalist such as the Texas University biologist Pianka who suggest that there is no difference between forms of life suffer from a profound cognitive defect. The question is not whether or not humans are better than bacteria. Human life is a much more complex and developed and richer form of life. Unless the good Dr. Pianka thinks that the capacity to care about other forms of life is itself not that valuable. The capacity to care is human == bacteria don't care at all about us)

Such silliness is hard to take seriously, but alas some will.....