What can we learn from the advanced cooperation among the exquisite variety of species of creation? For humanists, the lesson may serve as a blueprint of sorts for building societies based on the notion of the common good. When a common predator or environmental danger threatens the whole group, their strength is in their communication, cooperation and union. In other words, they are masters at the art of collaboration much more than in the realm of competition, which is admittedly harsh and brutal, as we humans know from our own species. The strongest, indeed the “fittest” among them, evolve to include skills for inter-dependence and cooperation precisely because such skills enable them to survive and thrive where other species fail. Creatures communicate and cooperate at a fantastically complex level, allowing them to adapt and thrive in less-than-hospitable environments and among natural predators, and that consistent practice actually alters their course of evolution. Darwin’s theory of natural selection highlighted cooperation and interdependence among species and noted how they play a prominent role in species evolution, significantly more than competition and dominance. Johnson dismantles the oft-cited dictum of Darwinian enthusiasts, the notion of “survival of the fittest” as incongruous with Darwin’s main contribution to understanding the process of evolution. We must learn from them that we are all part of one comprehensive whole, that we need each other in a fiercely inter-connected way. theologian Elizabeth Johnson challenges another prevailing interpretation in evolutionary theory that humans are in some way superior and “lords of the jungle,” instead insisting that we humans must reverence, protect, and learn from the creature-kin with whom we share creation, not dominate and “own” them. In her book, Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love. The all-important shift in perspective can help us understand and relate with greater compassion and awareness for the “other’s” way of seeing and being. What shifted was that I started seeing her from her wolf-mama’s vantage point, rather than exclusively with my dog-mom’s eyes. She also did this with Albie, the white Husky puppy who was the omega-male of our pack for 3 1/2 years. As a member of her “pack” in which she considered herself the alpha, Wolfie may have been ensuring that I received the water from her mouth, a sign of her care-taking of me. ![]() I had interpreted Wolf’s kisses as gratitude and affection, but the wolf aficionados had observed wolf mamas in the wild giving their (and other pack’s!) babies a drink after they themselves had their fill of water. ![]() ![]() For about 10 years, I was thinking that she was offering a quid-pro-quo affectionate acknowledgment of my forethought in being a good dog-mom! It was not until encountering a wolf biologist and his photographer in the back country while hiking in Glacier National Park that I learned something else might be going on with our daily exchange. Each time after she would lap up what seemed like gallons of water to slake her thirst, she would make a beeline to me to give me a kiss. She was among my greatest and most beloved teachers in life. ( ) Since she required daily walks in the trees for her sustenance, I always carried water with us for the journey, especially in the hotter months. Many Prairiewoods friends know about my Siberian Husky, Wolfie, who was nearly 18 years old when she died. Some of what we are learning by going deeper into the topic is a matter of shifting our perspective from anthropocentric (human-centered) ways of seeing to other-centered ways. ( ) We looked at our perception of other-than-human kin in their own integrity, rather than who they are solely in relationship to us humans. Now we shift our attention to our ethics, our practical ways of relating with our creature-kin in light of what we’re learning. On last Sunday’s blog, we began exploring the wild world of our creature-kin.
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