human superiority

I read this over at my friend's mother's blog:

"The more technology allows us to prop ourselves up by putting everyone else down, the more we'll level our blunderbusses at every passing ant."
This idea of "better than vs less than" caught my attention this morning. The image of feeling superior and separate from nature is inviting. Human superiority over the animals, the belief that we are in control of animals and that we are free to exercise power over them, bending their natural instincts to our will at whim.


And it got me thinking. I remember the first time I had a conversation about why we humans act as if we are superior to nature and animals. It was over a cold glass of red wine while I was looking out my flat window, talking with a friend I had travelled to Edinburgh, Scotland with. She was an anthropology major and was working at the natural history museum and I had just graduated in Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature. To say the least, my friend opened my eyes to this invitation spoken about above. It dismantled a lot of what I had studied in cultural studies and I was angry at the time, but in the last couple of years I have realized that I was completely not in tune with the natural world. I always thought consciousness, language, social movement-that these were the driving force in this world. I was so wrong. I mean, culturally these work in conjunction with the natural world. I think I may have rolled seven ciggarettes in this one sitting and maybe even drank the whole bottle of wine. I remember focusing on the moss and the viney green leaves that climbed the building, almost swallowing it, as my friend explained to me that homosexuals are still partaking in the evolutionary drive to reproduce because they are looking for a mate and they are having sex-it's just that they happen not to reproduce. At the time, I was caught up in social construction and I hadn't fit into my world view, how I, as a queer woman, fit into this picture of natural history. The idea that humans had only been around for a teeny bit in the large scale of history blew my mind. It is funny how you don't feel yourself changing until you look back and acknowledge where you were then and where you are at now. And all of a sudden, BAM. Here you are. Thank you mam.

Also, I have been reflecting on what triggers me to control my immediate surroundings, whether it is in nature, another human, or my writing. Asserting control over any situation is the easiest way to affirm to the self that it will prevail. However, in most cases, when I am asserting control-the kind that intrudes on the natural rhythms in nature, relationships, even creative spirit-I feel that I am the furthest I can be from growth.

What drives people to feel/act as superior over others? Does this tie into instinctual evolutionary drives? I know it has everything to do with power and control, but on the level of-where does this come from, why?

Did I mention that living with Early made me realize that the most spiritual experiences are often the animal warm kind? The kind that are so close to the ground, so far from right or wrong, the kind that are locked in the instinctual. Poetry is held here, I think. Maybe right above instinct- where the skin of consciousness covers and cases it.