Respect for all Life

             I don’t think I have consistently emphasized this foundation enough in my books, and in these web page blogs. Since this concept is an integral part of all my thinking concerning how we manage our lives in all other ways, and how we react to all other humans, it is integral to all my thoughts about health care. This year’s series on health care issues will not be complete without emphasizing once again the major philosophy that is behind everything that is said in these pages: all of life is precious. The human race has abysmally failed to understand how totally it is tied to all other things that live, plants and animals, in oceans and swamps, on land and on mountains. We tend to become totally fixated on the fact that all our lives are a fight for survival. There is always something or someone out there to get us or take everything away from us we have worked for all our lives. We have to be constantly vigilant in order to defend ourselves against attacks on our lives and our health. It is so easy to only think of life as us against all others, cooperating only when we need to do so to survive. And all of that is very true. Each of us is pitted against all other life in the struggle to survive. What we lose in our single minded devotion to self-survival is appreciation for the other side of that coin; all of life has just as much right to survive as we do; and all of life is totally integrated. The proof of this statement is everywhere around us.

Viruses, bacteria, fungi, bugs, tigers and sharks are very unemotional about it when they maim, destroy and eat parts of our bodies, or take our lives. It is simply a part of their attempt to survive, the same as us. HIV, Polio, Influenza and Yellow fever viruses kill millions of us just because that is what they do. Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Vibrio coma, Pasturella pestis and Plasmodium vivax cause millions of deaths from pneumonia, explosive diarrhea and dehydration, black swollen limbs and chilling anemia. They are all happy to do so. Fungi are most eager to destroy our lungs or create suppurative, weeping rashes. Mosquitos, ticks and flies love to suck our blood, then leave us with salivary gifts of devastating diseases in return. Tigers and sharks don’t really care what kind of meat they eat, as long as it tastes good and sustains them in their own lives. And after we are dead, worms are not hesitant to munch on whatever is left of us that keeps their own lives going. It is true. Unless we defend ourselves in any way we can, we are going to be someone else’s victim or meal, earlier than we wish. Of course, that is our eventual end no matter how long we survive.

There is an interesting article in the December, 2012 issue of Discover magazine. It addresses the question of why humans cooperate. It does so from a mathematical point of view, using the Prisoner’s Dilemma as the basis for deciding whether selfish decisions or cooperative decisions will lead to an increase in population growth, based on the expression of those responses. The conclusion from that mathematical investigation is, once again, that Darwin was right. Those human populations which co-operate the most are those that have the greatest chance of survival. It is not a matter of protecting certain genes. It is not a matter of just tit for tat. It is a matter of realizing that if we use our combined skills and combined efforts, we have a better chance for each of us to survive. In doing so, we take the first step toward understanding that our lives are interrelated and interdependent. Without each other, neither of us will survive very long. We need to give to others and they need to give to us, in order for us, as a group, to live to another day.

That is well and good. We are learning. What we have not as yet learned, in the majority of the human race, is that we are completely dependent on all those other forms of life, for our own lives. Each of us has a huge population of bacteria in our gut, without which we would not survive. These bacteria break down foods in ways that we cannot, preparing those foods for our digestion and assimilation in our livers for protein and vitamin, mineral parts that can be used to build, repair and maintain our bodies. These same bacteria present a remarkable barrier to pathogenic organisms of all types who would like to enter our bodies and cause various forms of destruction. If these symbiotic bacteria were not there, we could not survive. Bacteria and fungi coexist with all the other foods which we use, in symbiotic relationships, allowing them to survive, and allowing us to use them for our own sustenance. We are completely dependent on the bee population for pollination of 40% of the foods that we use. All these other forms of life are not just there trying to kill us; they are also there as essential parts of our existence. We cannot live without them. We are all interrelated, interdependent, each of us trying to survive, and each of us totally dependent on all other forms of life for our survival. We are all bound together, each of doing our own little part, in this giant organism called “life”.

This means that we should not be trying to kill all other forms of life in order to defend and maintain ourselves. That is a horrible mistake. We should have the greatest respect for all other forms of life, because we are all dependent upon each other. We should use antibiotics sparingly. We should not be hunting anything for sport. We should not be consuming wantonly, but only as needed. No animal should be killed unless absolutely necessary for our own survival. We should not be polluting everywhere just because it is easier, or provides greater profit. We should all be vegetarians, in all ways we can do so, without taking other prescient life. We need to take this next and great step in the maturation of the human mind. It is not just other humans with whom we must cooperate, in order to survive. We must cooperate with and have the greatest respect for all forms of life, plant and animal, because we are all one body, which is called life.

If we do not develop the deepest respect for all forms of life, then we are the cancer that overgrows and destroys that entire body of life – and all humans with it. If we do not learn to respect all other forms of life, our near future, as the human species, is death.