Why the desire to feel superior?

In our culture humans will go to great lengths to claim their superiority over each other, other animals, and even Nature. Why is it a norm in this culture to constantly try to prove and reiterate the idea that humans are unique and superior.

I can understand the obvious, that by claiming others to be inferior and yourself to be superior, it provides an excuse for dominating, gaining privilege, and taking advantage of the other. But I think it goes even deeper than that.

There is a deep need in some (not all) to feel superior.  What is the need? Why is it even a concern?

I feel this goes far beyond the desire for privilege, to the basic sense of identity.

Inferior / superior

One aspect could be those individuals who actually feel inadequate, inferior, insecure. Do they have a need make themselves feel superior to compensate? Does this tell us something about our culture?

Culture tells us we are lesser if we are not rich, or beautiful, or the right age or color. It tends to tell us that the true nature of humans is aggressive, selfish, predatory, competitive, and detached.

There are many prejudices that further diminish us. Some religious, political and commercial messages further attack us. In the middle ages some religions told us we were innately sinful. Some religions demonize anyone who does not believe as they do, even today. We are told that flesh is bad and spirit is good.

Science tells us that we are nothing more than molecular machines. We are told we are not a part of Nature, we have lost our connection to Nature, we are cut off and alone.

Is it any wonder some people tend to feel diminished, empty, frightened, inferior?

Then someone comes along and tells us we are the superior species. If someone feels inferior,  and is told they are superior, then they will be dependent on the person who tells them they are superior, so they can feel good about themselves. It can be a way to manipulate people.

If we feel superior it’s not real, and deep down we know that, so we become afraid we are really  inferior. Then we go to great lengths to defend our superiority.

We need not consider ourselves either superior or inferior. The reality is we just are, a part of the living web of life, with intrinsic value just as all life has.

Peaceable or predatory.

Humans can be empathetic, connected, nourishing, cooperative, peaceable or predatory, cruel, detached, aggressive and competitive.

The natural tendency of humans is empathy, connection to other humans other animals and nature.

Recent scientific studies have shown that babies naturally have empathy and respond to helpfulness. Peaceable cooperation is shown in ancient ruins, one of the first cities existed for 800 years in peace, with no hierarchy or warfare,  ( no superiority / inferiority ).

If people are abused, neglected or given the wrong messages at a young age, these positive qualities can be repressed.

The predator mentality is not served by empathy. Empathy is often strongly discouraged in our culture. Cruel, competitive, detached, aggressive, predatory behavior is often promoted.

The endlessly violent video games and movies, glorification of war, prejudice in all it’s forms, the divisiveness and hate speech that passes for dialogue, are a few examples. All discourage empathy and connection.

Often groups with agendas or commercial interests will further exploit this circumstance, offering a false “connection”. We are so often invited to identify with a group, if we will just buy the product or adhere to the agenda.

Our innate tendency toward empathy is often eclipsed by cultural influences. When empathy is lost and one no longer feels connected to others, it leaves a void and the concept of inferiority / superiority can seep in to fill it.

Control

All life is fragile. It is understandable that we would want to have control over our circumstance to keep us safe. But the desire for control can be distorted by the desire to be superior.

We are told humans are the superior species, that our natural state is to dominate, to be in total control.  However the reality is that we are not in total control, and deep down we know this. In order to suppress this we claim superiority even more, to convince ourselves we are in control and superior.

Look at the gulf oil disaster. The most powerful government, the best minds and technology

in the world could not control it before it caused massive and lasting devastation. It was and the devastation still is, completely out of human control.

Even though our safety is involved, up to this point we have not been able to control the cultural stories we tell ourselves that involve superiority and that are so destructive to our ability to live sustainably on this planet.

Some of the stories are those of denial, or “we didn’t cause it, its all natural it all happened before”, or “we have to kill all of nature so the world can end and god can come down to save us” or “we can grow forever”, or “technology can fix it”, or “be fruitful and multiply” etc.

Global warming, overpopulation and mass extinctions are upon us and it seems our cultural stories are out of control, we seem to be unable to change them to meet changing challenges.

Fear of Death

It is natural to want to continue living and not want to die. But a culture that perpetrates the fear of death and makes it the underpinning for it’s basic stories is not healthy.

One big way we feel out of control is we don’t have control over death. So we make up stories of superiority / inferiority like the Adam and Eve story, which blames death on women (because they give birth) and so claims women are inferior and men are superior. 

Of course we still don’t have control over death, but I guess blaming some group and claiming superiority for yourself, offers power over others as well as a distraction and gives some people the illusion that they have some control.

The scapegoat effect is to blame another and distract attention from the real cause, for instance blaming witches, other religions, other races etc.

The fear of death, hatred of Nature and desire for total control /superiority goes to bizarre and horrific lengths. Some scientists want to do away with our bodies and put our brains into a computer, thus attaining “immortality “. Some religionists want all of nature to be killed along with every creature and person (except them) so their God can appear and make them “immortal”.

You can see to what bizarre and violent extremes some people will go to to attain the illusion of control and superiority, and avoid coming to terms with the fact of death.

The superiority even carries over into the afterlife. One description of heaven was you sit up there with the angels ( feeling superior ) and take pleasure in looking down at the people being tortured in hell. At the funeral of a man whose main interest was golf, it was said that “ he is up there now riding around with the angels deciding the fates of nations. “

Issues about control, fear of death, and lack of empathy can result in a superiority / inferiority that has tragic results.

People have many views of what if anything happens after death. Since we have freedom of religion people are entitled to choose whatever view they like. I would hope however that one’s view of death would not include the demonizing of others, advocating the destruction of lives, or the destruction of nature, the common good. When this happens the responsible thing to do is point it out and condemn it.

One way of viewing death could be that it’s just a part of the natural cycles and one returns one’s energy to be recycled into other life.

War against Nature. Jealousy of reproduction.

In our culture Nature is either reduced to random unrelated particles (reductionism) by science, demonized as corrupt matter by some religions, described as an unreal illusion by others,  or destroyed by the greed of some commercial and governmental interests.

Why is nature demonized? Some religions claim it is corrupt apparently because part of the natural process is dying. It is also viewed as competition because it creates and nourishes all life, a power that some religions want to claim for themselves. There is a jealousy of its birth giving powers, as there is with women.

Both women and Nature are birth givers. Our culture has been shaped by patriarchy. Some men, influenced by the superior / inferior model, view woman’s (and Nature’s) birth giving capacity as women being ”superior” to them. (Without the superiority thinking there would be no problem.)

They then concoct a way to make themselves superior by claiming sole access to spirit. Women and Nature, (flesh or matter) are both birth givers  and are claimed to be inferior.

Some religions go to great lengths to put creation and reproduction solely in the hands of the their particular religion, and the male.

This sets up the matter vs spirit dichotomy. Women and Nature considered “flesh /matter” are subjugated, dominated and abused.

Women are subjugated and denied places in religions. No female priests etc. 

Nature is routinely abused and destroyed. 

Some religions actually want the total destruction of the Natural world and the end of all life, to fulfill what they consider a superior human goal. 

It is a suicidal path that  exists only because superior / inferior thinking is present.

Some scientists go to great lengths to “create life” (which they cannot do), but only end up creating destruction when they do not work within nature and do not take the relationships within nature into account. Reductionism denies any relationship therefore has no responsibility.

Some scientists have more than once risked killing all life on Earth, considering their human pursuit to be superior to all the life on the planet and even the process of life itself. They feel they can do anything they want to, even to the point of putting life on earth in danger of destruction.

Some commercial interests take advantage of these attitudes by using them as an excuse to plunder nature beyond its capacity to regenerate.

Some also destroy nature’s free gifts, so they can own and profit from products they claim ownership of. Things like the purposeful destruction of biodiversity and GMOs are a direct assault on the reproduction capacities of Nature. Intense overuse, pollution and outright destruction damage Nature beyond repair.

Economics and some government, are destructive to Nature when they are based on human superiority and valuing only growth and profit.

You would think these monstrous attitudes and actions would cause outrage, but in our culture which takes human superiority for granted, they are ignored.

So some science, religion, and commerce coming from different points of view, all claim nature to be inferior and humans to be superior and make war on Nature, with disastrous consequences.

Forms of superiority - other animals.

We claim superiority in so may ways, sexism, racism, speciesism, ageism, religious discrimination, reductionism, war against nature and reproduction, to name a few. ( see separations )

All domination is related.  With speciesism  If we take it for granted that we are superior to animals and their only value is what they can do for us, then it is easy to feel that way about groups of humans that are different from us. In order to kill any animal, one must suppress empathy.

Speciesism, superiority over animals is crucial. We do not think of ourselves as animals but we are.

We don’t even know all the species that are on the planet, and we don’t understand even the species we are familiar with. Yet we claim we are superior to all of them.

We claim we have souls and they do not.  We claim a lot of things, the pope claimed the indigenous populations of the Americas were animals and should be slain, or enslaved and their lands taken. It has been  claimed that women and blacks are only part of a person, that babies could not feel.  A lot of things are claimed, that does not mean they are true.

All animals are both similar and different. All animals have similar  traits in that we all want to survive, eat, breed, be safe, be comfortable, to have natural habitat. We all live, reproduce, die, get recycled and are interdependent. We are all dependent on Nature and Earth for life.

There are also differences in how we experience life. We consider ourselves the superior species but we actually have limited senses. We are the youngest species. Our senses are limited, we do not see, hear, smell, or taste, as well as some other species. We cannot fly or live underwater, run as fast, climb as high or live as long, as some species.

One of the “senses” humans seem to have in short supply at times is “common sense”, in that we consciously destroying not only other species by extinction but our own life support system as well.

Among different animals, and even within groups of animals there are various ways to communicate with various consciousness and social sensibilities. Many animals demonstrate empathy.

We make pronouncements that only humans have consciousness of this or that, and that is proof that we are superior. Unless a person could actually become a particular animal and experience their consciousness for themselves, it is impossible for us to know what a different animal is conscious of or feels. 

Our experience of life can be different and our senses are so limited, yet we frame our judgement of other creatures from those limits .

How can a cat travel thousands of miles  to a place its never been, to reunite with its human family, or butterflies, birds, whales migrate thousands of miles? How can we possibly know what it is like to have the consciousness  of a different creature?

We can communicate with many animals, as we have shared feelings with them of love, empathy, play, and so many shared interactions. But we cannot know completely how it is to be them. Since we cannot know, our claims of innate superiority are without foundation.

Many times we are unaware of what we ourselves feel, or the reality of another human. Our consciousness is often strongly formed by and sometimes just an echo chamber of the culture we are part of.

It is possible that consciousness may differ in different animals, but that would be difference not superiority. An increased ability of an animal to do one thing or another, does not mean they are innately superior and others inferior. It just means that along will all the similarities we share, there are also differences.

Each being has innate value and rights, all belong. Each has a valuable place in the web of life on which we are all a part and all depend on for our very lives.

Scientists created a biosphere, a sealed space that was supposed to mimic nature and be sustainable. The project failed. They neglected to put in worms.

Every creature has immanent value and a place in the web of life. Respect for all life, humans of course included, could lead to a sustainable and harmonious future.

Reality

Superiority gives us permission to distract ourselves from reality and to demean, abuse and kill others.

We have a big brain which can be an aid, but without planetary consciousness and when we consider ourselves superior it can become  a curse . We then use it to divide ourselves from Nature, and become killers of  biodiversity, of each other, of ourselves and even of that which supports all life.

The wonderful reality is we are neither superior nor inferior. We are simply a part of the awe inspiring web of life, along with countless other beings, all of us interdependent on each other.

To act from that position with the goal of mutual benefit could lead to a sustainable future for us all on this beautiful planet.