Beyond Dominionism

How to undo the dominionist mind-set? The greatest obstacle, in my opinion, is the well settled perception that it is "the natural order of things". Recall that this has been the perception for a very long time. Aristotle, the biblical scribes, the Romans, and St Thomas Aquinas all thought that human dominion over the earth was perfectly well and good. Bacon, Descartes, and other strengthened the view; indeed, they turned it up a few notches by stressing its material rewards and moral imperatives.

So today we have a dominionism that is not only very old, but very aggressive. Given the deteriorating conditions around us, it is likely to grow even more aggressive as its staunchest advocates continue to use it as a means of addressing the human/environmental/social crisis.

It will be necessary, then, to persuade most human beings that the dominionist ethos is not the natural order of things. However old and well settled it may it may be, it had a beginning; and thus it can have an end.

It will be helpful to know that its beginning was not exactly freely chosen, that many people resisted it, and that many people took other directions. There are many, many other human views of life and the world, so dominionism cannot be "the natural order of things," for if it were, all peoples in all places in all ages would have subscribed to it.

It will be helpful to know how and why dominionism began, to see how it caught on as a way of justifying and furthering efforts to intensify human production. It was just one cultural strategy for coping with growing human numbers, needs, and wants.

In retrospect, and in light of what we know today, there are better strategies.

Jim Mason, An Unnatural Order - the roots of our destruction of nature - Lantern Books, 2005, New York