Posted: Sunday, July 1, 2001
LETTER
Publication Date: July 1, 2001
Hard on Anthropocentrism
In " Environmentalism, Animal Rights Activism, and Eco-Nazism" [PfH, Vol. 13, No. 2, 2001, p. 7], Thomas DeGregori stated:
Like present-day champions of postmodernism, many influential Nazis were opposed to anthropocentrism. Olsen states: "According to national socialist ideology, an anthropocentric view of nature—that man stands above nature, rather than being simply one, non-privileged part of nature—was to be decisively rejected." He quotes Himmler: " . . . [M]an is nothing special, only a piece of nature." According to the SS training manual, "the concept of humanity is biological nonsense."
That DeGregori was describing anthropocentrism as a scientific standpoint is reasonably inferable from this passage, especially in the light of its context, though I doubt that he deliberately implied this.
Of course, at least a measure of anthropocentrism is unavoidable in any human perspective or system of values. Even many seemingly non-anthropocentric points of view have an anthropocentric basis or aspect—for example, an animal lover's favoring pets, many of which have a sensory system identical to the human sensory system, over plants, which lack sense organs. In my opinion, however, hard anthropocentrism—i.e., anthropocentrism exemplified by the gist of such statements as "Humans are the most important part of the universe"—is plain unscientific. Beliefs of this sort are fertile ground for pseudoscientific and even anti-science convictions. I suspect that DeGregori would concur.
Perhaps DeGregori intended to convey a similarity between "present-day champions of postmodernism" and "many influential Nazis" without implying any judgment of anthropocentrism. But the drift of his paper—i.e., that some high Nazis approved notions that are, at least in essence, among the major dubious tenets of environmental and medical alternativists—demanded stating that opposition to hard anthropocentrism is not dubious, particularly in science.
C. Viswanathan, M.B.B.S., D.Orth.
Palghat, Kerala, India
viswanc@md4.vsnl.net.in
viswan@sancharnet.in
drcviswanathan@vsnl.com
Dr. DeGregori responds:
Dr. Viswanathan's comments are valid and interesting, but they misinterpret the point at issue. It is standard in postmodern rhetoric to charge modern science with the sin of anthropocentrism. Presumably, advocates of postmodernism believe that anthropocentrism, like ethnocentrism, reveals narrow-mindedness and, therefore, fundamental error. How the Nazis handled anthropocentrism is similar to how postmodern thinkers deal with it. Perhaps I should have placed "anthropocentrism" within quotation marks in the paragraph Dr. Viswanathan has cited.
Whether or not modern science is in any sense anthropocentric does not interest me. What does interest me about anthropocentrism is how this question ties in with postmodern or ecofeminist rhetoric linking modern science and sexism, homophobia, racism, speciesism, nationalism, and fascism. For example, in The Science Question in Feminism (Cornell University Press, 1986), ecofeminist Sandra G. Harding stated that it would be as "illuminating and honest to refer to Newton's Laws as 'Newton's rape manual' as it is to call them 'Newton's mechanics.'"
Good Vibrations?
Thanks for an extensive dictionary of alternative approaches to health. I knew alternative health care was a broad field—I didn't realize how amazingly inclusive it could be.
As a producer of nature and flower essences, I was dismayed to see only Dr. Bach and the Flower Essence Society included in your information about flower essence therapy. There are dozens of companies producing essences now, and the field has expanded far beyond the traditional flowers of Dr. Bach and FES to include gems and minerals, animals, sacred geometry, and more.
While I wouldn't expect a listing of companies, it would be helpful to include these other essence sources, perhaps under a heading of "nature essences" or "vibrational essences."
Thanks for listening. And thank you for a great resource.
Thanks for an extensive dictionary of alternative approaches to health [http://www.acsh.org/ dictionary/index.html].
Nanci
nanci@featherhawk.com
(From Priorities, Vol. 13, No. 3)
