Culling humans?

[Guest guest]

*The BBC debate on culling elephants raised some questions on culling humans

to reduce the human overpopulation. I am attaching an article by the founder

of Howletts Zoo, John Aspinall on the issue. I don't agree with it since I

think it is misanthropic but feel it is well worth reading in the context of

the issue being debated.*

**

 

*http://www.totallywild.net/includes/about/ANIMALSb.pdf*<http://www.totallywild.\

net/includes/about/ANIMALSb.pdf>

 

*ANIMALS'RIGHTS – A SYMPOSIUM*

 

*TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, 1977*

 

*MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE JOHN ASPINALL*

 

*Of the 27 papers read at the meeting, only Mr John Aspinall's was*

 

*spontaneous and without notes.*

 

*HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL PERSPECTIVES*

 

*Richard D. Ryder*

 

*THE STRUGGLE AGAINST SPECIESISM*

 

*John Aspinall*

 

*MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE*

 

*RELIGIOUS AND THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES*

 

*Rev. J. Austin*

 

*BUDDHIST ATTITUDES TOWARDS ANIMAL LIFE*

 

*Rev. A. Linzey*

 

*ANIMALS AND MORAL THEOLOGY (1)*

 

*Canon E. Turnbull*

 

*ANIMALS AND MORAL THEOLOGY (2)*

 

*Dr. M.W. Fox*

 

*ANIMAL RIGHTS AND NATURE LIBERATION*

 

*PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES*

 

*Brigid Brophy*

 

*THE DARWINIST'S DILEMMA*

 

*Professor Tom Regan*

 

*EXPLORING THE IDEA OF ANIMAL RIGHTS*

 

*Dr. T.L.S. Sprigge*

 

*THE ANIMAL WELFARE MOVEMENT AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF*

 

*ETHICS*

 

*Dr. Stephen R.B. Clark*

 

*HOW TO CALCULATE THE GREATER GOOD*

 

*Professor R. G. Frey*

 

*WHAT HAS SENTIENCY TO DO WITH THE POSSESSION OF RIGHTS?*

 

*Maureen Duffy*

 

*LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS *

 

*THE THREE MAJOR AREAS OF CONCERN*

 

*I. FARMING*

 

*John Harris*

 

*KILLING FOR FOOD*

 

*Ruth Harrison*

 

*ETHICAL QUESTIONS CONCERNING MODERN LIVESTOCK FARMING*

 

*Peter Roberts*

 

*THE EXPERTS SAY THIS IS NOT CRUEL*

 

*Jon Wynne-Tyson*

 

*DIETETHICS: ITS INFLUENCE ON FUTURE FARMING PATTERNS*

 

*D.A. Paterson*

 

*HUMANE EDUCATION*

 

*II. WILDLIFE*

 

*W.J. Jordon*

 

*ALTRUISM AND AGGRESSION IN ANIMALS*

 

*J.M. Bryant*

 

*ANIMAL EXPLOITATION IN HUMAN RECREATION*

 

*Dr. David L. MacDonald and L. Boitani*

 

*THE MANAGEMENT AND CONSERVATION OF CARNIVORES:*

 

*A PLEA FOR ECOLOGICAL ETHIC*

 

*III EXPERIMENTATION*

 

*Dr. Bernard Dixon*

 

*ANIMAL EXPERIMENTS: TIME FOR A NEW APPROACH*

 

*Dr. Louis Goldman*

 

*CONTROVERSIAL ASPECTS OF CURRENT ANIMAL EXPERIMENTATION*

 

*Dr. Jenny Remfry*

 

*RESEARCH*

 

*Dr. David Sperlinger*

 

*SCIENTISTS AND THEIR EXPERIMENTAL ANIMALS*

 

*POLITICAL AND LEGAL PERSPECTIVES*

 

*Clive Hollands*

 

*ANIMAL WELFARE IN RETROSPECT*

 

*The Rt. Hon. Lord Houghton of Sowerby CH*

 

*ANIMALS AND THE LAW: MORAL AND POLITICAL ISSUES*

 

*Bill Brown*

 

*POLITICAL PERSPECTIVES: THE NATIONAL PETITION FOR THE*

 

*PROTECTION OF ANIMALS*

 

*MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE John Aspinall *

 

*I come before you without any qualifications at all – no degrees, no

diplomas,*

 

*no baccalaureates, nothing. All I have, perhaps, are some credentials. I

have*

 

*been described as a fanatic and an amateur, and I willingly admit to being*

 

*both. A fanatic, in its original derivation, means a man inspired by the

gods,*

 

*and an amateur means somebody who loves what he is doing, and I willingly*

 

*submit to that. It has also been suggested that I am a neurotic

trail-blazer, but*

 

*I am uncertain whether I would admit to that description!*

 

* " Man's Place in Nature " is the subject of this talk; I think we have to

consider*

 

*what place man has arrogated to himself in Nature's pantheon and what is

the*

 

*reality of this place, for obviously these are two different things.*

 

*Man has deified himself: he has made his own species 'god'. He believes in*

 

*this, which is often fatal if one recollects certain great Emperors and

rulers*

 

*who decided, for religio-political reasons, to make themselves gods – of*

 

*course Augustus and Alexander never fell for this, but Caligula believed

that*

 

*he was a god. Mankind as a species is now at about the same mental stage*

 

*as Caligula at his maddest. He fights phony battles, he wins crazy

victories.*

 

*Do you recollect that Caligula insisted on his legions attacking the

channel*

 

*with their short-swords and claimed a triumph of the first order when he*

 

*returned to Rome for having conquered Neptune? Well, those are the sort of*

 

*victories that mankind has had. Most of his victories are false victories,*

 

*because as he declares himself a triumph he declares his own ruin – as *

 

*indeed Caligula had a brief, albeit spectacular, life.*

 

*So we have the place that man gives himself, deifying himself. In this*

 

*particular sophistry the idea is that he is a god as a species. All faiths

except*

 

*Buddhism seem to combine to further this belief: Judaeo-Christianity,*

 

*Marxism, Islam: a troika for one passenger only – man. Curiously enough, it

*

 

*is the main theme and the one common factor of these disparate faiths.*

 

*Buddhism stands back from this dogma. I think Gautama Buddha was wiser*

 

*than the three other prophets Jesus, Mohammed and Marx. Unfortunately his*

 

*teachings, possibly because they gave a place to all living things in his*

 

*philosophy of 'ahisma', were rejected by man. Only Asoka, 200 years after*

 

*Buddha's death, made a brave attempt to implement his teachings. He was*

 

*the world's only ecocrat, the greatest ruler, probably, who has ever lived,

*

 

*whose example we could watch today; but he is discarded and his life is*

 

*seldom taught in Western Schools. I certainly never heard of Asoka until I*

 

*quit my formal education. He was a man of colossal vision.*

 

*So therefore all of us inwardly believe that we are gods. We have deified*

 

*ourselves as a species. I almost believe it myself, because it has been*

 

*drummed into me from my earliest years that man is different from and*

 

*superior to all other living things. It is very hard to discard what has

been*

 

*instilled into our race for over two thousand years. It is very difficult,

but some*

 

*of us still make stumbling attempts to shed this sophistry.*

 

*One can accept, I think man's mastery, which is a different thing. I think

it is *

 

*quite possible that evolution intended us to be at the apex of the faunal

scale.*

 

*I think that we could take our place – we could have primacy – we could be*

 

*the first. Whether evolution intended us to be dictators, to be absolute*

 

*overlords of such vast regions of earth and sea is, I think, doubtful. I

cannot*

 

*believe that evolution has, in the past, blundered. A palaeontologist would

*

 

*agree, I am sure, that the trilobites and ammonites were probably prolonged

*

 

*disasters because they delayed the evolutionary process for 50 million

years*

 

*or more.*

 

*Humboldt, when he was in the Columbian forests 150 years ago, wrote that*

 

*the aim of the natural process was that the optimum variety and volume of*

 

*living things should subsist in a given area without resultant

environmental*

 

*deterioration and depletion of natural resources. That is evolution's aim –

*

 

*that, in a forest like the Columbian rain forests, an area of immense*

 

*generosity, a great variety and volume of different organisms can live in*

 

*symbiosis. A system in which man can keep his primacy as indeed he did in*

 

*Humboldt's time, when the Amerindians were still number-one in the faunal*

 

*scale. In contrast, at the North Pole, comparatively few species can live

in a*

 

*given square mile because of the inclemency of the conditions.*

 

*Humboldt saw this too as he, even in those days, witnessed the forests

being*

 

*hacked down and the extraordinary complexity which had taken 40 million*

 

*years to evolve being swept away and replaced with a monoculture of rubber*

 

*trees and coffee plants, where once was Arcady, even Paradise. All this has

*

 

*been described as progress and is described as progress even today. To me,*

 

*it is a regress. Most of the story of the planet, since the domestication

of the*

 

*barley plant 14,000 years ago, has been the march of regress. I think that*

 

*man's dictatorship has been retrogressive in the terms of Humboldt's*

 

*philosophy. I think that man has been the greatest curst which this planet

has*

 

*ever known: his sins are so great that they are probably irremediable. I am

*

 

*the extreme pessimist and I can offer you nothing but misery for

yourselves.*

 

*We seem not to be able to learn anything form Nature's fully-evolved*

 

*overlords – such as the tiger is in his natural wilderness. My own

ancestors*

 

*were in India for 150 years and I have read the early memoirs of my family*

 

*who were most of them hunters and shikaris.*

 

*When they went into stronghold tiger country (the tiger being here the

overlord*

 

*and beneficial predator) they noted the fertility, the variety and volume

of ife*

 

*there. Here you have a natural ruler, for these great mammals are superior

to*

 

*us in what matters. WE hae, I am sure, greater guile, ingenuity,

intellectuality,*

 

*intelligence and cunning. I would say that most of these abilities are infact

*

 

*dark sanctuaries of incapacity, because what we fail to have is wisdom and*

 

*judgement without which all else is worthless. Everything that we have done

*

 

*is meaningless unless we have wisdom, and the best of all wisdom is not*

 

*wisdom arrived at through academic toil – indeed that is a poor way to*

 

*wisdom – it is behavioural wisdom. Wisdom is in what one does and what*

 

*one does not do – that is wisdom, and on this basis the great mammals are *

 

*wiser that we are.*

 

*Seneca said no amount of intelligence can add up to wisdom. Konrad Lorenz*

 

*said the other day that if our species disappears from the face of the

earth,*

 

*which he thinks it will quite shortly, it will be from a surfeit of

knowledge that it*

 

*cannot apply, let alone digest: I side with Konrad Lorenz completely. What

is*

 

*knowledge? The most over-rated nonsense that ever existed. Remember*

 

*what Goethe said of knowledge: that the only thing more dangerous than*

 

*knowledge was more knowledge still. Think of all the excitement when they*

 

*split the atom – is there a man today who does not regret the splitting of

the*

 

*atom about which we know nothing, and about which wise men could foretell*

 

*the consequences? Yet, now they want to split the gene in America! Millions

*

 

*of dollars have been put aside for this attempt to split the gene. They

attack*

 

*the gene; they manufacture strange viruses, rare strains, with which they*

 

*bombard the gene. One of these strains is believed to have escaped and*

 

*dozens of people died for no known cause. Yet this is described as*

 

*knowledge for the sake of knowledge! In an American university half the*

 

*professors walked out on these experiments and said that they did not

believe*

 

*the human being had enough grandeur, had enough wisdom to handle the*

 

*sort of knowledge that might come.*

 

*I look at it another way – what insanity is this, that we, miserable

parvenus,*

 

*pinchbeck upstarts that we are as a species, whose catastrophic overlord

has*

 

*lasted a mere 15,000 years, even seek to handle such knowledge? How can*

 

*we say what these knowledge-seekers are saying, that evolution got it wrong

*

 

*when she evolved the gene after 400 million years of field work and so let

us*

 

*investigate it and improve it? When we seek to split the atom to gain the*

 

*secrets of energy, we are saying that nature got it wrong, that she

stupidly*

 

*locked energy up in the atom, so let us split it open. This is the

overweening*

 

*god-like hubris that is in most of our heads: we really believe that we are

*

 

*gods: we have sanctified ourselves.*

 

*I remember once I was in Calcutta and I visited a death-house a mile long,

in*

 

*which the Indians were 'horizontalised'. They were so ill they could not

sit up,*

 

*let alone stand, and they were being fed a pabulum of squash and lentils

with*

 

*spices – some 300 or 400 calories a day. There must have been thousands*

 

*in this house. It was so long it was unbelievable. Here I found a group of*

 

*young Americans from WHO and one or two Englishmen from OXFAM, very*

 

*well-educated – mostly from Harvard or Yale – really delightful young men

in*

 

*their twenties: eager, compassionate, keen, they showed me this terrible

thing*

 

*– humans dying in rows, being fed on just enough nutrients to maintain life

*

 

*and no more. Living/dying vegetables. They pointed out their problems, they

*

 

*showed me everything, and they said: " What do you think of the work we are*

 

*doing, Mr. Aspinall? " And I said: " You are wasting your time " . They said:*

 

* " What do you mean, we are wasting our time? " I said: " " Why do you keep*

 

*these people? My answer is to let them die. " They said: " We cannot let them

*

 

*die, they are human beings. " Then the spokesman for this group said: " The*

 

*trouble is, there are 360 million sacred cows in India " (they are very good

at*

 

*statistics, the Americans) " and each cow represents 2.7 human consumption*

 

*units. There are 55 million buffaloes in India and each buffalo represents

3.4*

 

*human consumption units. And there are 11 million camels and 94 million*

 

*sheep. Etc… so therefore the subcontinent has to support not only 670*

 

*million humans but the equivalent of another 1,000 million in the form of*

 

*animals, most of whom are sacred. " They said: " It is the fault of their

stupid*

 

*religion, their crazy religion has gone and sanctified the cow. " I answered

that*

 

*I was aware of this and agreed that it was a distortion of history that one

*

 

*animal should be isolated and sanctified. But I also turned on them and

said:*

 

* " But have not you made a bigger error yourselves? My friends, come closer*

 

*to me. " So they came closer and I said: " You have made an error so vast,*

 

*and so much greater than did these poor human beings -–you have sanctified*

 

*yourselves. You have literally deified and sanctified your own species, of*

 

*which there are 4 billion on the earth, a blunder so far-reaching that one

is*

 

*breathless at the thought of it. " " Oh my God, " they said, Mr Aspinall, you

think*

 

*we are not sacred? The sanctity of human life is the only thing that keeps

us*

 

*going. " I said: " the sanctity of human life is the most dangerous sophistry

ever*

 

*propagated by philosophy and it is all too well rooted. Because if it means

*

 

*anything it means the in-sanctity of species which are not human. " *

 

*Now, perhaps sanctity is not a word a naturalist or an evolutionist would

use *

 

*about organisms. If I came towards you, with my well-known love of wild*

 

*beasts, and said: " I believe in the sanctity of the rhinoceroses, " you

would*

 

*think I was crazy and I would indeed be mad if I put forward this

suggestion.*

 

*Yet any politician can get to his feet, or any priest, and talk of the

sanctity of*

 

*human life, and everyone claps. Now such a remark is equally inane; it is*

 

*meaningless, you see, and yet it is believed by everybody – this is the*

 

*greatest of problems which faces us all.*

 

*Mankind has caused such terrible destruction. He has de-natured himself –*

 

*he has half-domesticated himself. He is obviously unfit for the imperium*

 

*which he has grasped from the world and I am filled with nothing but*

 

*foreboding for the future. I must say that I am among that group of people*

 

*who, to borrow an expression from Teddy Goldsmith, would regard a

democatastrophe*

 

*as an eco-bonanza. I other words, I would be very happy to see*

 

*3.5 billion humans wiped out from the face of the earth within the next 150

or*

 

*200 years and I am quite prepared to go myself with this majority. Most of*

 

*you sitting here are redundant in every possible sense of the word. Even*

 

*though you may be the vanguard of the youth politik of the " rights of

animals " ,*

 

*you are as redundant and unnecessary as are most other human beings,*

 

*when you come to it.*

 

*I would just remind you of Professor Revie's famous article in the

Scientific*

 

*American in which he described the increase of man's population from one*

 

*million years ago, when he estimated the world population of human beings

at*

 

*100,000 (which is a third of the population of Nottingham) to a time after

the *

 

*discovery of fire, when the figures started to soar to today's four

billion. If this*

 

*is not redundancy, if that is not a burden of unnecessary bio-mass, then I*

 

*don't know what is!*

 

*Let us all look forward to the day when the catastrophe strikes us down!

With*

 

*what resounding applause would the rest of nature greet our demise!*

 

*This speech was spontaneous.*