Man's Desire

Man’s desire to achieve a sense of satisfaction and superiority in the world has led to countless rash thoughts, decisions, and actions. With the enforcement of the current social hierarchy, the only path to success is through the failure and destruction of others. This may be a result of an ingrained survivalist behavior and killer instinct deep within the human psyche. The progression of technology and scientific knowledge has led man to channel this instinct into hyper modernization, imperialism, and industrialism. These significant advancements have improved many aspects in life but at a significant cost. The natural world around man has been salvaged and stripped down for any resource corporate society deems valuable. Charles Seibert examines how the “fabric of elephant society…has been frayed by years of habitat loss and poaching, along with systematic culling by government agencies” in “An Elephant Crackup?” (Seibert 325). While these actions may bring one closer to the elusive concept of monetary satisfaction, they lead the soul to stray away from purity and enlightenment. In “Homo Religiosus”, Karen Armstrong reflects on how mankind turns to non-classical religion in order to find solace from any feelings of guilt or remorse. She argues submerging oneself in hateful scripture and materialistic pleasures causes the soul to be unable to transcend the sorrows of life. The reality is that the ever-morphing religious beliefs of the current highlight anthropocentricity and stress the forgiveness of man’s sins while disregarding the necessity of healing and maintaining the relationship between man and nature. Seibert argues that in order to reestablish this lost connection with nature; mankind must abandon shallow ideals of big business and adopt a new consciousness to the world around. A new paradigm must be taken on by human society that emphasizes treating nature as an equal while disregarding any desire to maintain forms of authority over the physical world.

A society built upon roles of power raises individuals who gather accomplishment from asserting reckless authority on their surroundings. This link can be aptly analyzed in the case of evolving interactions between man and elephants. In the Neolithic ages, humans respected all natural entities as sacred resources given to them by a greater power. Although slaughter of life became inherently crucial for the continuity of human life, it was done with the utmost appreciation for the gift of life. Somewhere in the history of human psychological development, the reverence for life was lost. The coexistence of man and beast was sacrificed in order to quench man’s thirst for dominance. “For centuries humans and elephants lived in relative peaceful coexistence, there is now hostility and violence,” that shakes the serenity of the environment (Seibert 322). By destroying thousands years of genetic knowledge and hereditary information stored by the elephants,