Excerpt from The Culture of Make Believe

Human and Inhuman (p. 382)

From chapter "False Contracts"

There is a difference between that which is natural and that which is not. I have heard people—usually, but not always, those with an antienvironmental ax to grind—suggest that because humans are natural that everything humans do or create is natural. Chainsaws are natural. Nuclear bombs are natural. Our economics is natural. Sex slavery is natural. Asphalt is natural. Cars are natural. Polluted water is natural. A devastated world is natural. A devastated psyche is natural. Unbridled exploitation is natural. Pure objectification is natural. This is, of course, nonsense. We are embedded in the natural world. We evolved as social creatures in this natural world. We require clean water to drink, or we die. We require clean air to breathe, or we die. We require food, or we die. We require love, affection, social contact in order to become our full selves. It is part of our evolutionary legacy as social creatures. Anything that helps us to understand all of this is natural: Any ritual, artifact, process, action is natural, to the degree that it reinforces our understanding of our embeddedness in the natural world, and any ritual, artifact, process, action is unnatural, to the degree that it does not.

We can make the same distinction for our humanity. We are human creatures. Those humans around us are human creatures. These are undeniable statements. Those around us are not resources. They are not there to be used. They have lives as valuable to them as ours are to us. These are undeniable statements. Any ritual, artifact, process, action is human and humane, to the degree that it reinforces our perception of ourselves and those around us as human beings, and any ritual, artifact, process, action is unnatural, to the degree that it hinders that perception. Our economics is inhuman and it is inhumane: It hinders—or more precisely renders impossible—our perception of others as humans. It is possible to have an economics which is not inhuman but human and humane. It would be a face-to-face, nonindustrial economy. Our war is inhuman and inhumane, as it springs from the same mind- and heart-set as our economics, and is predicated on the same preconceptions. It is possible to have a war that is human and humane. It would be a face-to-face, nonindustrial war. Our hate is inhuman and inhumane. It does not see the other as an individual but as an object, insofar as the other is seen at all. It is possible to have a hate that is human and humane: I can hate another because of who he or she is: This hatred is, as true for everything else, face-to-face. And, as Dina Chan makes clear, as the millions of hits at porn sites make clear, as the one woman out of four who is raped in our culture makes clear, as the 565,000 American children who are killed or injured by their parents or guardians each year make clear, as the wretched state of so many relationships—romantic and otherwise—makes clear, love itself is inhuman and inhumane. It is possible to have a love that is humane, and that is human.