To the Editor,
Re: Writer raised valid points on activism, Letters, Aug. 27.
Just before the fall of the Roman Empire, Romans were very man-centred. They lived in cities where a few supported many, they were obsessed with exercise, health and diet and they were prolific consumers who would borrow money to purchase what they could not afford.
They loved travel, entertainment and fame, and wealth was the single measure of success. The Roman Emperor Constantine was instrumental in the formation of the Roman Church.
The Roman Empire fell, in part, because of trade deficits, rampant inflation, and financial hording and over taxation.
Jump forward 1,000 years and the Renaissance revived the idea that man was the centre of all things, a concept with tendrils in the new individualistic religious reform called Protestantism, which has evolved into the very man-centered ideologies seen in modern Western evangelical churches.
Christianity with its often-misrepresented belief that man has a covenant of “dominion” over nature has arguably had a negative role in our attitude with respect to our treatment of the non-human world and our environment.
To entwine this covenant and “god’s law” is to put nature at the feet of man, a belief acceptable for subsistence populations 2,000 years ago, but not in our modern world with indescribable destructive capabilities.
Those who crusade to defend those without a voice understand that ignoring the sufferance and waste of creatures such as dolphins screaming in death throes while suspended in nets is to ignore the “law of nature”, the law of balance and sustainability.
We need to understand; humans are not the centre of everything and that all creatures have significance and a role in the intricate interwoven mosaic called nature that sustains us.
The letter writer may have been well-intentioned, but she should not have pitted animal activism and religious dogma to support Ruth Bard.
Ron Heusen
Nanaimo