Respect
According to our traditional use of the term, respect is esteem for or
a sense of the worth of a
person or some personal quality. In other words, respect is
reserved exclusively for people.
One of the things that has made it easy to withhold respect from
non-human entities has been our core dualism —
the one that has allowed us to thoughtlessly ruin our planet and drive
millions of other species toward extinction in the process. This
dualism is the one that sees the world as composed of only two classes
of things: people and resources. In such a bi-polar
world, only humans are deserving of respect, because it's obvious that
iron ore, oil, wheat and cattle only need to be useful. In this
world-view, if a non-human entity is not being used as a resource by
humans at the moment, then there is really no reason for it to even
exist. If we can't remove it to make way for something more
useful to us, it would be best if it stayed out of our way.
Respect doesn't even enter the picture.
Well, as Bob Dylan sang so many years ago, "The times they are
a-changin'."
One of the seditious ideas that is finally creeping back into the
global
consciousness is the notion that perhaps all that other non-human
"stuff" out there isn't just stuff after all. Maybe it's all part
of the matrix in which we live, a web that we are part of in the same
way as whales, honeybees, oak trees and ragweed. Just maybe we
are a part of life rather
than apart from it.
Maybe all that other life out there has its own intrinsic worth and
value, independent of its usefulness to us. Maybe all that life
has a right to the resources it needs to live, just as we do.
Healing that dualistic separation, recognizing the fundamental equality
and interdependence of all life on this fair planet requires a dramatic
change in our use of the word "respect". If we recognize the
worth of non-human life as being commensurate with our own, then we
must extend our respect to it as well. This respect requires that
we give non-human life room to grow, that we honour its need for
life-sustaining resources and habitat, that we not destroy it
unnecessarily, and that we begin to treat it as our partner in the
great dance of existence.
The glory of life is that it is the manifestation of the universe's
creative nature. Together, human and non-human life in all its
uncountable forms co-create the living reality we take for granted
every day. Respect seems like such a small repayment for that
sacred endeavour. Paying respect to other life is a form of
meditation or prayer. Each time we do it, we bring ourselves into
closer alignment with the world we live in, this exuberant and generous
world that nurtures us and gives us a home.
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