Paradox of Individualism

The "Lone Ranger"

An overly zealous focus on individualism is one of the mechanisms furthering the disconnection between people. Individualism, especially toxic individualism, also plays a role in aiding the disconnection from our own selves. It would seem paradoxical that individualism would do so, as we might intuitively expect that greater attention to the individual would bring us closer to our selves. However, when we explore this in greater depth, we find that individualism, in the way it is expressed in westernised cultures, dislodges us from who we really are.

Individualism, particularly toxic individualism, seems to be more associated with men than with women. Although the term rugged individual is of fairly recent origin, coined by US President Herbert Hoover, stories and myths of this archetype stretch back at least as far as Greek and Roman mythology. Many of us will have heard of, or read of, the exploits of heroes such as Jason, Odysseus, Perseus, Hercules, Romulus, and Remus. Within Norse mythology we know of Odin, Thor, and Hodr. In English mythology we have the rugged individual myths of Beowulf, King Arthur, and Robin Hood. All men. There have been female heroines, although many of us would be hard pressed to name many of them.

More latterly the myth of the rugged individual has been portrayed in Hollywood style Westerns. Butch Cassidy, Wild Bill Hickock, Buffalo Bill, Davy Crockett, the Lone Ranger, and others have all etched their rugged individual heroism onto the minds of young boys growing up in the first half of the 20^th century. Those growing up in the latter half of that century were habituated by male heroes such as James Bond, Indiana Jones, Magnum, Rambo, Jason Bourne, and Neo (hero of the blockbuster movie The Matrix.)

These rugged individuals do not need others to fulfill their destiny, they are highly resilient, and can withstand a hail of bullets, leap from burning buildings, and of course, save the threatened damsel in distress. The hero rises above his pain, is always in control, and never vulnerable. It is one of the most toxic archetypes young men can be exposed to. It is an absurd and unattainable self.

The educator, writer, scholar, and one of the western world’s true Elders, Joanna Macy answered a question during a 1999 interview by saying, ‘The myth of the rugged individual, riding as the Lone Ranger to save our society, is a sure recipe for going crazy.’ The word crazy here may have been used hyperbolically by Macy, yet she was also stating something quite literal. Rugged individualism is often statistically correlated with mental attributes we might label as crazy.

Rugged individualism (akin to toxic individualism) promotes an outlook that views other people as competitors rather than as peers. Accordingly, such an outlook fosters self-promotion and, in its extreme form, narcissism. Furthermore, rugged individualism cultivates a belief that one can, and should, solve one’s own problems, even if the solving involves addictive behaviours, such as alcohol and drug misuse, or gambling. A person entrenched in the mythology of the rugged individual is unlikely to be able to reach out for help, further aggravating the likelihood of resorting to unhealthy behaviours.

The psychologist and grief counsellor, Francis Weller, likens the rugged individual archetype to a prison and says, ‘We are imprisoned by this (hero) image, forced into a fiction of false independence that severs our kinship with the earth, with sensuous reality, and with the myriad wonders of the world. This is a source of grief for many of us.’¹

Sadly, when individuals come to this grief, and crash headfirst into recognising that individualism does not benefit them, the illusion is so firmly entrenched that it becomes extremely difficult to break away from the addictions, habits, and obsessions that have arisen to shore up the false sense of invulnerability.

In a strange twist of ironic proportions, the self-improvement, self-development, and human potential movements of the 1960s and 1970s intensified the myth of individualism. These movements thought that social change would come from individuals improving themselves and this in turn would usher in a new era of improved social conditions. Sadly however, with their emphasis upon the individual these movements inadvertently became the crucible for intensifying the shift towards an individualistic viewpoint. One of the tools utilised in these movements was personal affirmations, which on first glance, look and sound innocuous enough. However, the first item in a recent google search identified a list of 99 affirmations.² Significantly, 67 of these affirmations began with the first-person singular pronoun I and another 10 with the pronoun My. Of the 99 affirmations listed, all but 7 of them included the first-person singular pronouns I, me, mine, and/or myself. That is; 93% of the affirmations were about the individual. What is wrong with this, the reader may ask?

Some researchers at German Universities have the answer to that question. In 2015 they found that their ‘present study unravelled some important insights into the link between first-person singular pronoun use and symptoms of depression and anxiety.’³ Furthermore, such pronoun use ‘is positively related to brooding.’ The researchers defined brooding as referring to the ‘(unceasing) passive comparison of one’s current state with desired but unreached states.’ They were quick to point out that brooding is qualitatively different from reflection which they characterised as a ‘purposeful turning inward to engage in cognitive problem solving to alleviate one’s depressive symptoms.’ The two states are qualitatively different, with reflection being beneficial, whereas brooding is harmful. It may be tempting to claim that the affirmations referred to above are examples of reflection. Sadly, however, those advocating the use of affirmations are often aiming their attention at people ‘who need a little extra daily encouragement.’ Continuing to focus on the use of personal pronouns is akin to attempting to put out a fire by continuing to stoke it with wood.

Of course, as any self-respecting statistician will tell you, correlation is not the same thing as causation. Yet, if we trace the incidence of usage of first-person singular pronouns over time, and the incidence of depression over similar periods of time, the correlation is strong.

The word I in the English language was used approximately 4,000 – 5,000 times in every one million words used between 1800 and 1870. After 1870 the usage of this first-person singular pronoun began to decline to less than 2,500 times per million in the early 1980s. Since then, it’s use has climbed rapidly to around 7,000 times in every one million words today. That is, the word I is used 280% more often today than it was less than 50 years ago. Quite some rise!

Similar increases can be noted in the use of me, myself, and my. All since the early 1980s. Me, for example, is now used four times more often today than it was 50 years ago.

If we track rates of depression over a similar time period, we note a steady increase in depressive symptoms, especially amongst young people.

A focus on me, myself, and I is helping to make us more depressed and anxious. Those 99 affirmations seem in radical need of overhaul.

A further noteworthy word is the word narcissism. Many point to a rise in narcissism in recent decades. Indeed, the word narcissist is now used eight times more often in 2025 than it was in 1980. Eight times!

Hence, although the personal-development and human-potential movements began with worthy intentions they were ultimately flawed because they tended to view the world in a dualistic way – the individual as separate from the wider culture.

The rabbit hole of intense self-absorption was opened up, and many of us have followed the rabbit.

 

Notes:

1. Weller, Francis, The Wild Edge Of Sorrow, North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, CA, 2015

2. 99 Positive Morning Affirmations You Can Use Daily - The Good Trade accessed 12 May 2026

3. Brockmeyer et al., Me, Myself, and I: self-referent word use as an indicator of self-focused attention in relation to depression and anxiety, Frontiers in Psychology, October 2015, Vol 6, article 1564

Arrogant Ape – Book Review

Arrogant! Who? Us (humans)? Never! 

Christine Webb, in The Arrogant Ape,¹ claims that we (Homo sapiens) are indeed arrogant, and this is based on our (often unstated and hidden) belief in human exceptionalism. On page 3 of her book, Webb clearly expresses the tenet of her book. It is ‘that human exceptionalism – a.k.a. anthropocentricism or human supremacy – is at the root of the ecological crisis.’

That is a provocative assertion, yet Webb tackles it with rigour, extensive research, and often with wit and humour.

On the very first page of the book, Webb notes that ‘we’re not the biggest, fastest, or strongest’ beings on the planet. She has countless stories and evidence to back this up. We are not exceptional! We are arrogant to think that we are. In thinking that we are exceptional we have exploited, damaged, and plundered the earth and all her creatures so much that now we, ourselves, are also being harmed. Polluted water, noxious air, climate change, poisoned food sources, and more are all impacting our well-being.

This is no surprise says Webb. It is the natural (sic) outcome of our belief in our supremacy.

Before continuing it is worth pointing out that Webb recognises and acknowledges that not all peoples and cultures of the world share the belief in human exceptionalism. Sadly, however, the culture from within which human exceptionalism arose, has come to dominate the entire world. Additionally, Webb recognises that within this (westernised) culture the drivers of this belief have ‘…long been the dogma of a dominant minority.’

If those of us outside of this dominant minority have been afflicted by the belief in human exceptionalism and internalised it as our own, then The Arrogant Ape is surely one of the best books available to disavow us of this mistaken view. Drawing from her own research and that of many others in her field of primatology, Webb introduces us to many long-held beliefs that once were thought to pertain to humans only, including inter alia, the manufacture and use of tools, language, empathy, and possibly most controversial of all, that of consciousness.

Webb traverses the subject of consciousness from many angles and admits that there remains a lot of dispute and conjecture. Could it be that the belief in human exceptionalism is the reason for doubting, or even refuting, the possibility of consciousness in other-than-human animals? Webb adroitly concludes by asking, ‘Why should we doubt, downplay, or deny something in other species that we barely understand in ourselves?’

One aspect of Webb’s writing that I appreciated was being introduced to a number of concepts I had not previously come across. Many of these concepts are compressed into just one or two words. I will mention just four of them here:

The first word is quite a mouthful – anthropofabulation. Webb does not say where this word originated, but personal research suggests that you won’t find it listed in any dictionary published prior to 2013. Anthropofabulation Webb defines as the ‘tendency to define certain psychological processes by an exaggerated account of typical human performance in order to deny them to other species.’ We humans, via this approach, define standard psychology from a human standpoint, and then measure and judge all other species according to that standard. The flaw in this reasoning should be apparent, yet it is only recently recognised. Thank you, Christine Webb, for pointing out what is right in front of our noses.

The second word from The Arrogant Ape that I have chosen to highlight is a corollary to the belief in human exceptionalism. Human exemptionalism asserts that humans are exempt from the constraints, limits, and boundaries of nature. Our belief in human exceptionalism drives this belief, and results in crazy techno-fixes and other overly optimistic and cornucopian ideas, such as colonising Mars, or placing giant mirrors in space to reflect sunlight away from the earth (known as Solar Radiation Modification – SRM).

Christine Webb, as we might guess, is not a fan of SRM and warns us that ‘…solar geoengineering exacerbates human dominance over Nature precisely when we urgently need to curtail it.’ It is a warning that needs heeding.

The next word is Umwelt. This word and concept, Webb tells us, was coined in the early 1900s by the German biologist Jakob von Uexküll. Umwelt is the world as experienced by a particular organism. For each organism the umwelt is different. I was reminded of the concept of multiverses. Organisms experience the world (whether through sight, hearing, smell, touch, echo-radar, or other non-human sense) in such hugely different ways that we could say that the single world we think it is, is in fact, a plurality of worlds that different creatures experience. Thus ultimately no single world exists, but rather multi-worlds all here on Earth.

The final word I have chosen to highlight is Involution, a term proposed by two anthropologists, Carla Hustak and Natasha Myers. Involution is the flipside of evolution (which literally means to roll outwards), whereas involution means to roll, or curl, inwards. The term recognises how all species intertwine and that symbiosis and co-emergence are important aspects of evolution and the inter-dependence of all phenomena.

Four words, with four profound concepts embedded within them. Two of them indicate how human exceptionalism in the arrogant ape limits our understanding of the complexity and wholeness of the world as well as compelling us towards foolish endeavours. The other two offer us means by which we might better understand the world we are a part of and our unique, but not exceptional, role in it.

The Arrogant Ape is a valuable contribution to not only the environmental movement, but also to understanding our collective psychology. The two are linked, and Webb makes this clear close to the end of her book. She quotes Einstein’s reply² when asked what he would do if he had one hour to save the world, and then follows that reply with this crucial observation:

‘…grappling with the ecological crisis means dismantling not only systems of exploitation and destruction but also the very worldview that makes them possible.’

The Arrogant Ape helps us to recognise the worldview and thus how we can begin dismantling it.

Notes:

1. Christine Webb, The Arrogant Ape: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism and Why It Matters, Avery, New York, 2025

2. Albert Einstein replied to this question that he would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem and then five minutes solving it. 

Insulting Apes

In 2013 the highly regarded Australian Football League (AFL) player Adam Goodes was playing for his team, the Sydney Swans, when a 13 year old supporter of the opposing club yelled at him – “Ape!” Goodes, whose mother was of Adnyamathanha and Narungga (Australian Aboriginal nations) descent, heard the shout and pointed at the girl. She was escorted from the stadium.

In a display of reconciliation and courage from both Goodes and the young girl, the young girl apologised to Adam Goodes and Goodes called upon people to support her and not blame her. The President of the opposing club also apologised to Goodes and said that the young girl did not know that what she had said was a racial slur.

Following this incident Adam Goodes was often booed by supporters of the team the Swans were playing at the time. Owing to the stress of the booing and the attention he was receiving, Goodes retired from the game in 2015. All 18 AFL clubs (including Goodes’ own “Swannies”) issued an unreserved apology to Goodes for the racism he was subjected to.

The use of the word “Ape” as a racial insult has its origins in the 19^th century with the Theory of Evolution. Many people including other scientists, interpreted evolution to mean that human beings were the pinnacle of the tree of life. Some went further to assert that those of European heritage were superior to those from other nations, particularly humans from Africa. This prejudiced view enabled the trans-Atlantic slave trade to gain pseudo-scientific credibility. The view espoused at the time was that “white” people were ‘closer to the angels’ (who were depicted dressed all in white), and that “black and brown” people were ‘closer to the apes’ (arrayed in black or brown fur). People with black or brown skin were labelled as savages, primitive, and of lesser status and worth to people with whitish skin.

To call someone “Ape” had, and still has, clear racist overtones.

“Ape” is not the only racist slur that depicts people with black or brown skin as being ‘closer to the apes.’ We also hear (inter alia) the terms “monkey” and “knuckle-dragger.” The latter of these phrases has come to take on the additional slur that someone is unintelligent and/or unsophisticated. Lately, the term “knuckle-dragger” has been used as an insult to the perceived lack of intelligence of anyone, whether of black, brown, white, or other coloured skin.

What all these insults and slurs have in common is that they all refer to animals from the Hominidae family. This family includes orangutangs, gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos. Note that monkeys are not members of this family, although many people think they are.

There is one further species that is a member of the Hominidae family. It is us – Homo sapiens. We are part of the Great Ape family.

Consequently, the use of the terms “Ape,” “Monkey,” or “Knuckle-dragger” as insults is also an insult to those apes. The use displays human exceptionalism at its worst.

Human exceptionalism (a.k.a. anthropocentrism or human supremacy) is the belief that humans are distinct from, and superior to, all other forms of life on this planet. The primatologist Christine Webb states that, ‘human exceptionalism is at the root of the ecological crisis.’¹ It could also be argued, through the use of insulting words such as ape, monkey, and knuckle-dragger, that human exceptionalism is also at the root of the interpersonal and social crisis.

Use of these words as insults displays an appalling lack of biological knowledge.

When the word “Ape!” was yelled at Adam Goodes, we cannot pretend that it was shouted at him to indicate that he, along with every other member of Homo sapiens, was a member of the family of Great Apes.

No! It was shouted as a racial slur and an insult.

It wasn’t shouted to bring into question, or to criticise, human exceptionalism.

It was shouted because of human exceptionalism.

Note:

1. Christine Webb, The Arrogant Ape, Avery, New York, 2025

Arriving at Compassion

In 1971 the British symphonic rock group, The Moody Blues, released their seventh album – Every Good Boy Deserves Favour. The band’s guitarist, Justin Hayward, described it as a ‘a kind of searching, seeking record.’ There are songs on the album that ask questions of themselves as band members, and also of the world around them.

One of those songs that asks questions of the world around them is the John Lodge penned One More Time To Live.¹ The lyrics of the song begin with the lines, ‘Look out of my window/See the world passing by.’ The impression given is that this is a song in which the writer observes the world outside them and tries to make sense of the desolation, annihilation, and pollution they see. The solution this observer finds is to go on an inner journey and find the riches within.

Another way of hearing the lyrics may be as a commentary on the history of the world from the beginning of time through to the present moment. When this song was written the knowledge of environmental damage was only just beginning to be recognised. The world’s first environmental political party was not formed until the following year. The song was highly prescient then and remains relevant today.

In the song Justin Hayward (the vocalist) recites a total of 21 words, all with a ‘…tion’ or ‘…sion’ suffix.

The words begin with Desolation, the state in which the Universe emerged from, followed by Creation and Evolution.

This new world then descends towards environmental destruction, presumably with the appearance of Homo sapiens, and Hayward sorrowfully sings of Pollution, Saturation, Population (growth), and Annihilation.

Next, we hear of how humanity attempts to fix this mess. Humanity tries Revolution (which fails to fix it) resulting in Confusion and Illusion. The Conclusion to this is Starvation, Degradation, and Humiliation.

But this Conclusion is not the future that the songwriter John Lodge wishes to see. So we hear Justin Hayward inspiring us towards Contemplation and Inspiration. If we take this inner journey, then there may be a chance that we realise an inner Elation which can be our Salvation.

Via the process of Communication, the Moody Blues finally arrive at…

Compassion…

which is the Solution.

John Lodge, Justin Hayward, and the other band members were correct more than half a century ago, and they are no less so today.

Compassion is the Solution. Compassion towards ourselves, compassion towards other humans, compassions to other life forms, and compassion towards Mother Earth.

Note:

1. A beautiful Youtube clip of this song can be heard here.

Caged In - Part 2

Last week’s blog considered whether drug addiction (as well as other addictions) was, in part, triggered by urbanisation. This week the possibility that our brains are changed (for the worse) and that violence is intensified under caged conditions.

When animals are kept in cages they will suffer from zoochosis – a psychotic condition whereby animals display uncharacteristic behaviours, such as monotonous, obsessive, and/or repetitive actions that serve no purpose. Polar bears will swim in circles for hours, lions and tigers will pace back-and-forth nonstop, and elephants will sway to-and-fro. These are all signs of zoochosis.

In some animals, zoochosis can result in self-harm, and in big cats especially, the harm may be taken out on others of their species. In the wild, big cats are normally solitary and territorial by nature. Put into cages conflict and violence can escalate quickly and dangerously.

Zoochosis has been studied and shows that the brains of animals are changed (for the worse) when kept in captivity. A 2024 article¹ notes the following:

‘The chronic stress of living in captivity without any control over their environment leads to learned helplessness, a trauma response that affects the hippocampus, which handles memory functions, and the amygdala, which processes emotions. As a result, a captive animal’s memory and emotions are irregular, and some animals have been shown to become emotionally unpredictable. Prolonged stress also disrupts the balance of serotonin and dopamine in an animal’s brain, which can lead to repetitive and often damaging behaviour.’

Just as we saw last week, human response to being caged in is comparable to the response of caged animals; humans are animals after all!

Neurological research shows that ‘…urbanization represents an evolutionary mismatch between contemporary brains and the neural systems of our human ancestors, an increased vulnerability for psychiatric illness may represent an escalating medical threat as urban populations are projected to rise in future years.’²

So it is then: the brains of we humans too, are changed for the worse when in caged conditions.

Does this changed brain result in greater violence? It appears it might.

A 2012 article on the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance (ALNAP) website³ urgently claims that ‘Cities have increasingly become the battlefield of recent conflicts as they serve as the seats of power and gateways to resources.’

Alarmingly, the correlation between violence and urbanisation may not be contained within one or two generations. Transgenerational effects of violence and its related trauma (including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – PTSD) has been shown to exacerbate the harmful effects of caged living.

Breaking the cycle of violence and its associated PTSD may not be easy, especially as we humans continue to cage ourselves in.

Can we re-wild ourselves in time, before we descend into total inter-tribal, inter-generational, and inter-cultural warfare?

Only through re-wiring our brains and cutting the bars of our cages it would seem.

Notes:

1. https://www.worldanimalprotection.us/latest/blogs/heres-how-captivity-affects-mammals-brains/  Accessed 12 April 2026

2. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4774049/  Accessed 12 April 2026

3. https://alnap.org/help-library/resources/rapid-urbanization-and-the-growing-threat-of-violence-and-conflict-a-21st-century/ Accessed 12 April 2026

Caged In (Part 1)

In the late 1970s the Canadian psychologist, Bruce Alexander (and others), conducted a number of famous experiments with rats. Known as the Rat Park experiments these experiments organised rats into four distinct groups, each with eight rats in a group. Each group consisted of rats weaned on their 22^nd day of life.

Group CC were kept in laboratory cages until the age of 80 days, i.e. 58 days.

Group PP were housed in Rat Park: an area 200 times larger than a laboratory cage, and provided with food, balls, and wheels for play, and plenty of space to mate.

Group CP were initially located in laboratory cages and then transferred to Rat Park at 65 days old (i.e. 43 days later).

Group PC started off in Rat Park and then moved to laboratory cages at 65 days old.

Each group had a choice of two drinking dispensers. One dispenser contained sweetened morphine, and the other plain tap water.

So, what happened? What did the rats in each group drink?

The caged rats (Groups CC and PC) took to the sweetened morphine immediately, drinking it nineteen times more often than those in the other two groups (Groups PP and PC). The rats in these other two groups (PP and PC) did try the water with morphine in it occasionally but showed a distinct preference for the tap water.

The difference between the groups was not the choices they had. It was not their cultural background. It was not their family history.

The difference was that caged rats opted for the sweetened morphine at a significantly higher degree than those not caged.

Are We Human Rats?

A question quickly forms when we learn of this research. Might the same be going on in human society? Is drug addiction a symptom of being caged in?

Research indicates a correlation. Research reported in May 2025 noted that: ‘Urban environmental risk factors of economic disparity, marginalization and barriers in accessing healthcare and negative individual characteristics of low education, low income and comorbid diagnosis of mental illness significantly increased risk of drug use.’¹

In 2023 (the year of most recent data) 316 million people worldwide (6% of the population aged 15-64) had used drugs in the previous year. The incidence of drug use had increased over the previous decade, outstripping the increase in population (indicating that per capita use had swelled), with the synthetic drug market having expanded rapidly.

As an example of this increase, consider the production of cocaine. In 2014 the global production of this drug was 869 tonnes, by 2023 the production of cocaine had more than quadrupled to 3,708 tonnes.

Some researchers and psychologists go further than simply urbanisation, suggesting that civilisation itself is a factor in addiction. And not just drug addiction, but most addictions; gambling, sex, alcohol, shopping and consumption, and technology to name a few. The eco-psychologist, Chellis Glendinning, writes of this brilliantly in her 1994 book My Name Is Chellis & I’m in Recovery from Western Civilization.²

For Glendinning and others, the cage we are in may not be a physical one, we may not be able to see it or touch it. But, it is there, nevertheless. And, like the rats in cages, we opt for addictive substances or experiences.

It is a sobering thought, isn’t it? Our addictions may be a natural (albeit unhealthily so) response to being caged in.

As we know, too, the manufacture, transport, and trafficking of illicit drugs have an association with violence. Next weeks blog (Part 2) will consider whether (as with drugs) there is a correlation between violence and being caged in.

Notes:

1. https://journals.lww.com/co-psychiatry/fulltext/2025/05000/drug_addiction_and_impact_of_urbanization__a.13.aspx  Accessed 7 April 2026

2. Chellis Glendinning, My Name Is Chellis & I’m in Recovery from Western Civilization, Shambhala Publications, Boston, Massachusetts, 1994.

What Does The Sorcerer See?

"The Sorcerer"

Around 15,000 years ago someone painted upon the walls of a cave in France a puzzling image of a creature made up of part horse, part lion, part stag, part owl, bear feet and hands that look human. This famous cave art became known as The Sorcerer. The image is found in the Cave of the Trois Frères (Three Brothers) named after the three brothers (Max, Jacques, and Louis Begouën) who, along with their father, discovered the cave in 1912.

The Sorcerer (see graphic) was reproduced by Henri Breuil, who studied cave art and was well versed in archaeology, anthropology, and ethnology. Since Breuil’s rendition other scholars have questioned whether the antlers are truly part of the painting or just appear so because of the rock the painting is situated on. Alternatively, it may be that the paleolithic painter deliberately included cracks in the rock as part of the image.

The painting has been surmised to depict shamanic ritual and as evidence of a Horned God in paleolithic times.

If the Sorcerer was meant to depict a shaman when painted, then it would be unusual for it to have been so, as most paintings in the cave, and other caves in the area, do not depict humans at all, although human form does seem to exist in a few places, for instance in the form of a man-bison.

Thus, the painting is interpreted through the eyes of the beholder. When you look at the painting, what do you see? A shaman? The various animals? A blend of all the animals?

Perhaps the most striking facet that you see is the eyes.

The eyes are looking directly at you. They look out of the wall of the cave, straight at the viewer. The eyes are not looking at other animals or objects on the cave walls. They are looking clearly at us (the viewer). The painter is interacting with us.

Why?

What was the painter of The Sorcerer looking at through those eyes? Was the painter so immersed in the painting that they were painting as if they were The Sorcerer? Were they painting as if it was their own eyes looking out at us (now viewing the painting 15,000 years later)?

If so, then what were they looking at? What did they see?

We don’t know how long these caves had been hidden from human view since the time the art was painted.

Yet, eerily, and perhaps unnervingly, those eyes seem to peer across the centuries and regard the viewer with disdain. It is as if the paleolithic painter 15,000 years ago was peering at us, and asking, what have you done?

Since the painting of The Sorcerer global human population has exploded from an estimated 1 – 10 million people to 8.3 billion this year (2026). That is an increase of 8,000 to 80,000 percent!

Since the painting of The Sorcerer, woolly mammoths, sabre-toothed cats, giant sloths, and cave bears have all gone extinct. Plant biomass has been halved, and wild mammals have been reduced by 85%. 15,000 years ago the Earth’s ecosystems were characterised by high density and a wide diversity. This density and diversity no longer exist, except in parts of Africa.

Is The Sorcerer scrutinising us with an accusatory look?

You be the judge. In this case, culpability may be in the eyes of the beholder.

Fierce Vulnerability – Book Review

What would it happen if our meditation cushions were taken out of the meditation hall and placed in the middle of a sit-in demonstration? What would happen if the blare of megaphones were replaced by Tibetan chimes? What if we listened instead of shouting?

Kazu Haga has asked himself these sorts of questions (and dozens more) of those who wish to change the world for the better. In his book, Fierce Vulnerability,¹ he offers these sorts of questions for the reader to ponder.

Kazu Haga is a trainer in nonviolence and restorative justice, and practices what he preaches. His work in these areas, along with his spiritual path, means that he is able to ask one of the most important questions that those seeking a better, healthier, and more socially just world need to be asking.

Simply put, that question is this: What would a movement that combines individual salvation with social direct action look like? Very few seem to be asking this sort of question, and Kazu Haga is one of only a handful who have attempted to pose it and offer some possible answers.

Yes, Haga does suggest some answers, but they may not be what the reader expects. Haga’s answers are closer to suggesting what to let go, rather than proposing new forms of organising.

Haga’s observations and proposals arise out of understandings and knowledge that was not generally known, let alone available, to previous generations of activists. Nor were these known to those seeking personal salvation. Furthermore, traditional styles of social activism are no longer sufficient in today’s world, because the crises facing us today are ones we have never had to face in our human journey before. Crises are no longer discreet; they are intimately entwined and entangled. So interconnected are the multitude of issues that solving one on its own may worsen another.

All this, says Haga, requires a much broader understanding of the personal, political, and planetary. We must, asserts Haga, let go of our sense of individuality and oppositional dualities.

Holding on to an us/them worldview is at odds with this entanglement and is at the heart of all that is destroying the planet, whether that be the “us” of one nation vs another nation, one person vs another, or humans vs non-humans.

Separation and isolation are at the core of trauma, a crucial element in Haga’s thesis. When most of us think of trauma we often think of acute trauma – i.e. an incident in one’s life that causes deep distress, but that is usually limited in time. We might, beyond this form of trauma, recognise chronic trauma – trauma that remains with the traumatised person indefinitely. However, Haga identifies at least six other manifestations of trauma: insidious, complex, indirect, vicarious, inter-generational, and collective.

In today’s world all of us can be exposed to any of these forms of trauma, whether we recognise it or not. This is why Haga tells us that those searching for personal salvation or enlightenment or those seeking social justice must recognise that what is needed is healing. Not opposition, and not self-absorption – but healing.

In turn, healing requires an ability to grieve. Many of us are traumatised because of loss of connection and belonging, whether we know it intellectually or not. Our bodies, however, do know, and that trauma gets displayed in mental and emotional ways, as well as collectively in warfare, xenophobia, misogyny, destruction of forests, or the extinction of species.

Haga introduces a useful model of how we show up in the world. Developed by a pioneer of adventure education, Karl Rohnke, the model outlines three zones; comfort, stretch, and panic zones. Most of our time is spent in our comfort zone, and this is where we breathe easily, are unstressed, can solve problems, and are deeply connected with others. Our stretch zone is where we get challenged and can grow. We get stretched, yet remain open to new information and perspectives. Every so often, however, we get pushed or pulled into a panic zone. In this zone, our evolutionary survival instincts kick in. We go into fight, flight, or freeze mode. In this zone, Haga (and Rohnke) tell us, we are unable to take in new information, and we are unwilling to listen to differing perspectives.

Traditional forms of activism often push or pull both activists and those opposed into this zone. In previous times these forms of activism have brought benefits and gains. However, today we are ‘trying to call forth a level of transformation we have never experienced,’ claims Haga. We need new forms of activism and new models, and the comfort-stretch-panic model is one of those. It is foundational to Kazu Haga’s notion of fierce vulnerability. It also helps to explain why traditional oppositional activist organising is insufficient for today’s world.

Haga does not fall into the trap of claiming that change happens through personal transformation on the one hand, or systemic change on the other. Both are necessary. In a chapter entitled Healing Is Not Enough he clearly articulates his thoughts.

‘The pain of collective violence isn’t felt in fancy retreat centers and workshop spaces. Those are places where we can build up our capacity to go into the places of hurt, but they’re not ultimately where the pain is felt.’

Yet, as he makes clear through the rest of the book, if we do not ‘build up our capacity’ then it is likely that we will be adding to the pain of the world rather than reducing it.

Throughout the book, Haga offers simple exercises that one can do (either alone or collectively) to train in the ideas he presents.

Fierce Vulnerability is a vital book that those seeking a better world should read. It may not provide you with all of the answers, but it will get you thinking about the crucial questions to be asking.

Notes:

1. Haga, Kazu, Fierce Vulnerability, Parallax Press, Berkeley, California, 2025

First, Do No Harm

Hippocrates

This phrase – First, do no harm – is a translation of the Latin Primum non nocere and is often thought to be part of the medical Hippocratic Oath. The phrase does not appear explicitly in the Hippocratic Oath. The Greek philosopher and physician, Hippocrates, writing in the 5^th – 4^th centuries BCE did include phrases that come close to the famous phrase. In his collection of works he exhorted physicians to ‘do good, or to do no harm.’ In early versions of the Hippocratic Oath he asked the physician to promise ‘to abstain from doing harm.’

While the precise source of the phrase, First, do no harm, is lost to history, students of bioethics will recognise it as a fundamental principle found throughout the world.

Although the phrase is primarily found in bioethics and perhaps hanging on the wall of your family doctor, the phrase could be applied to other areas of our lives, especially to environmental ethics.

If there is a primary and essential principle in how we behave towards the environment, that principle should be First, do no harm.

Sadly, it doesn’t seem to be applied. Two possible, inter-locking, reasons for this might be the following:

1. Much environmental harm takes place far from our gaze, so that the harm is out-of-sight and out-of-mind.
2. Our cultural conditioning tries to steer us clear of uncomfortable images and experiences, so that we often do not look beyond our immediate comfort and convenience.

The author and cultural critic, Vanessa Machado de Oliviera, summarises this second reason explicitly in her outstanding book, Hospicing Modernity. She writes that, ‘Modernity conditions us to … gravitate toward what validates our ego-logical desires for the 6 “Cs” of comfort, convenience, consumption, certainty, control, and coherence.’¹

When environmental harms are out-of-sight, out-of-mind then our ego-logical desires are satisfied and we do not have to face discomfort.

Perhaps two examples will help to clarify these ideas. The first example is straight-forward and the harm is out-of-sight after the product has been used. The second example is controversial and the harm is out-of-sight before the product is used.

Example 1: Plastic pollution. We all know that non-recycled plastic harms the environment. A lot of this plastic ends up in the oceans – out-of-sight, out-of-mind. Around 11-12 million tonnes of plastic end up in our oceans every year and the amount is growing. That’s approximately 2,000 garbage truckloads per day! Most of it is single-use packaging, abandoned fishing gear, or synthetic textiles.

One of the regions where a lot of plastic ends up is in what is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an area in the middle of the Pacific Ocean roughly twice the size of Texas, containing 1.8 trillion² pieces of plastic.

Plastic pollution is an ever-increasing problem. In 1950 about 2 million tonnes of plastic was produced. Nowadays more than 450 million tonnes are produced annually, and growing. In the first two decades of this century the amount of plastic produced per year more than doubled.

We use plastic for our convenience and comfort (as Machado notes) and then when finished with it is discarded and the harm to the oceans occurs away from our gaze.

Example 2: Electric Vehicles (EVs). This example is more controversial because many (even within the environmental movement) promote EVs as one of ways in which carbon dioxide emissions can be reduced, thus helping to “solve” the climate crisis.

However, the climate crisis is not the environmental crisis. Climate change is a symptom of the much broader environmental crisis. The production of EVs require the mining of rare earths and other elements, such as lithium and cobalt. The mining of these takes place well away from the gaze of those purchasing EVs.

Although out-of-sight and out-of-mind, the mining of these elements does major harm to the ecosystems in which the mines are located. Admittedly, the harm done on a world-wide scale may not be as significant as the harm wrought by carbon emissions.

But, that is not the point. The harm done to local ecosystems can be significant, and often is. The harm perpetuated is out-of-sight and out-of-mind and thus does not disturb our westernised comfort and/or convenience.

Just one of those elements – lithium – is mined mostly in sensitive ecosystems and on or near the lands of indigenous people.

The production of one tonne of lithium (enough for 100 batteries) requires approximately 2 million litres of water – water that is crucial to the ecosystem that it is extracted from. Chile holds more than 50% of the world’s deposits of lithium has seen up to 65% of the region’s water used for lithium extraction.

Zulema Mancilla, a member of an indigenous community living in northern Chile has been opposing lithium mining in the area and says that ‘We have serious problems with water’ because of mining companies. She goes on to say, ‘We will never be happy about people coming to pollute and extract the natural resources of our territory.’³

If flamingos could speak to us, they would no doubt concur with Mancilla. A 2022 study found that flamingos were slowly dying as a result of lithium mining in Chile.⁴

Whether in Chile, or elsewhere in the Lithium Triangle, or in the Australian outback, or Thacker Pass in Nevada, the extraction of lithium does immense harm to the flora and fauna of ecosystems, and greatly disrupts indigenous communities.

But, this harm is out-of-sight and out-of-mind.

Tragically too, the production of EVs has not decreased the amount of carbon emissions in the private vehicle sector. The only event to reduce emissions came in the form of the coronavirus, but following that emissions bounced back quickly, and are now at higher levels than before the pandemic.

The principle of First do no harm is not being applied.

If we truly do want to first do no harm, then we must cast our gaze much wider so that we are looking at what is out-of-sight. Plus, we must overcome our westernised, Euro-centric, desires for convenience and comfort. Other communities (both human and non-human) suffer harm because of these desires.

Notes:

1. Vanessa Machado de Oliveira, Hospicing Modernity, North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, California, 2021

2. A trillion is 1,000 billion. Thus 1.8 trillion pieces is 1,800,000,000,000 pieces.

3. https://www.ohchr.org/en/stories/2026/02/resisting-age-lithium-right-healthy-environment-indigenous-territories-chile  accessed 18 March 2026

4. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article/289/1970/20212388/79366/Climate-change-and-lithium-mining-influence  accessed 18 March 2026

The Air That I Breathe

In 1974 the British pop-rock group The Hollies released their last major hit. The song The Air That I Breathe reached number 2 on the UK singles chart and number 6 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. It charted high in many countries, including number 1 in New Zealand, the Netherlands, and South Africa.

Written by Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood, the song was a love song declaring that all the singer needed was ‘the air that I breathe, and to love you.’

There can be no dispute that we all need the air that we breathe.

When the single was released the air that we breathe contained 330 parts per million (ppm) of CO₂ (carbon dioxide). This level (330ppm) was the highest level the Earth had experienced for at least 800,000 years. Around 320,000 years ago atmospheric carbon dioxide levels peaked at 300ppm, and then settled back to around 200ppm. Two more peaks, around 250,000 years ago and 120,000 years ago saw CO₂ levels reach approximately 280ppm.

Thus, at no time during the existence of us (Homo sapiens) upon the Earth had the atmosphere contained more than 300ppm of carbon dioxide.

Until the 20^th century! The proportion of CO₂ contained in the Earth’s atmosphere reached more than 300ppm in 1911 and continued to rise continuously thereafter.

By the time the Hollies were stating that ‘all that I need is the air that I breathe’ carbon dioxide levels were around 10% higher than at any time in the evolutionary history of Homo sapiens.

The levels were to go higher, and higher still.

Today (in March 2026), the proportion of CO₂ in the atmosphere is 430ppm. 100ppm greater than it was when the song was released. In just over fifty years – two generations!

That may not sound much. 430ppm is 0.043%. Not much, some may claim. And, only an increase of 0.01% between 1974 and 2026. What’s to get concerned about?

We could ask the same of arsenic. Our bodies require arsenic – in tiny quantities. Yet, a very tiny increase in that quantity and the arsenic in our bodies becomes toxic, even fatal. Tiny differences can have significant outcomes. As it is with arsenic in our bodies, so it is with carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.

Most of us know that higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have a direct bearing on the Earth’s climate systems. We do get concerned about that, although there are still large numbers of sceptics.

We could also get concerned about how increasing CO₂ levels in the atmosphere have a direct impact upon our health.

A paper published in January this year stated that, ‘There is mounting experimental evidence that lifetime exposure to these increasing atmospheric CO₂ levels can negatively impact the normal physiology of organisms.’¹

In typical scientific caution, the authors noted that ‘directly assessing this in humans is very difficult.’

They did, however, warn that if trends in increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere continued then our ‘blood bicarbonate levels could be at the limit of the accepted healthy range in half a century.’

Half a century. That is the same length of time that has elapsed since the Hollies sang that ‘all I need is the air that I breathe.’

There is little to no indication that the proportion of CO₂ in the atmosphere is likely to decrease within the next half a century.

Let us keep singing, ‘all I need is the air that I breathe.’

Politicians, captains of industry, economists, and others need to hear us singing this song.

 

Note:

1. Alexander Larcombe & Phil Bierwirth, Carbon dioxide overload, detected in human blood, suggests a potentially toxic atmosphere within 50 years, Air Quality, Atmosphere & Health, 13 January 2026. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11869-026-01918-5 accessed 8 March 2026

Terra Nullius and Abel

Cain murdering Abel. Painting by
Peter Rubens, 1600.

The claim that land could be taken for use by one people because it was classed as unoccupied has been used by many nations since the late 15^th century. Terra nullius is the term by which this is known. Terra being the Latin word for land, and nullius meaning of no one, or nobody’s. The term has been used notably by European colonisers to give legitimacy to their occupation, even though people were already living on the land.

The antecedents of the term and of European colonisation can be traced to a specific time, place, and almost to one person. The date is 14 June 1452, and the place is the Vatican. The person is Pope Nicholas V and his advisors. Pope Nicholas V issued a papal bull (a public decree or similar document issued by a pope of the Catholic Church) known as the Dum Diversas. This bull authorised King Alfonso V of Portugal to conquer and subjugate ‘those rising against the Catholic faith…(namely) the Saracens and pagans’ in the Ottoman Empire. 

A further papal bull (Romanus Pontifex) in 1455 was full of praise for King Alfonso V’s victories and instructed him to capture all Saracens, Turks, and other non-Christians and place them into perpetual slavery. These two papal bulls later became the justification for the Atlantic slave trade.

Christopher Colombus, in attempting to find a route to China and India that did not have to contend with the Ottoman Empire, chanced instead upon the Americas. Colombus’ report back to Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand in Barcelona during March 1493 kick-started the so-called Age of Discovery (more accurately the Age of Colonisation and Conquest.) It also resulted in a flurry of new papal bulls by Pope Alexander VI which divided the newly ‘discovered’ lands between Portugal and the Catholic Monarchs of Spain (Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand.)

Collectively these papal bulls became known as the Doctrine of Discovery. Essentially, they decreed that the Americas were open to “discovery” because the inhabitants were non-Christian and therefore of no significance in the European mind.

The fact that other peoples were already living on these lands did not, in the coloniser’s minds, constitute possession by them. More often than not the notion of res nullius (Latin, meaning nobody’s thing) was invoked, although some theologians at the time questioned this. The idea that lands could be possessed and occupied by colonisation, notwithstanding people already living there, became entrenched in the western mind. Res nullius morphed into terra nullius (nobody’s land) and was applied most famously by the colonisers of Australia, where (notwithstanding that they had been living on the continent for some 65,000 years or more) the indigenous people of Australia were not counted in censuses until 1971, following a referendum in 1967. It was not until 1992 that the notion of terra nullius was overturned by the Australian courts.

Even though res nullius and terra nullius were coined and used extensively from the late 15^th century onwards, the concept of nobody’s land is an age-old one. It can be found in the very first book of the Bible. Many Biblical passages refer to a wilderness and most of these references do indeed indicate land in which no-one else is living. However, there is one very famous story in the Bible in which nobody’s land is invoked notwithstanding others living there.

The story of Cain and Abel is one that many people know. Let us look into this story.

Cain and Abel are twin brothers, and the children of Adam and Eve, with Cain being the older. ‘Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground’ (Genesis 4.2). The Bible tells us that as grown men the brothers bring offerings ‘to the Lord.’ Cain brings fruit of the ground and Abel brings the firstborn of his flock and their fat. The Lord accepts Abel’s offering but not Cain’s. Genesis 4.5 tells us that ‘Cain was very angry and his countenance fell.’ Cain entices Abel into the fields and in a fit of envy kills him. We then read one of the most famous passages from the Bible in Genesis 4.9: ‘Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel, your brother?” He said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper.”’

Let’s stop here and look beneath the surface. First, their names. Cain is a translation (via Greek) of the Hebrew qayin meaning to acquire, take, or possess something. Abel’s name derives from the Hebrew word havel meaning to be empty, as well as vapor, breath, and foolishness.  

As with many myths, allegories, and legends the characters in them tend to be representations of categories of people or their traits and behaviours. In this story Cain represents the agricultural societies of the Levant area, and Abel the nomadic herders to the south.

Read as allegory, the murder of Abel by Cain is a depiction of the agriculturally based settler cultures raiding and slaughtering the nomadic peoples so that they can acquire (there’s Cain’s name) more land to plant crops and feed a growing settler population. For those doing the raiding and slaughtering these lands were viewed as empty (there’s Abel’s name) and ripe for taking. The fact that people did inhabit the area simply meant that they had to be exterminated: they were, after all, simply nomads, roaming around an otherwise empty land.

Can we recognise the similarities between terra nullius and havel (Abel)? Both mean empty, owned by no-one.

Can we also see the arrogant superiority shown by the colonisers and the qayin (Cain)? Both mean to take and acquire unlawfully (in both cases.)

The sense of entitlement has been inherent within western/European cultures for centuries. The hundreds of indigenous and nature-based cultures who have lived as hunters, gatherers, and as nomads have suffered because of this sense of superiority and entitlement for centuries.

But I’m Dr Jekyll

Sometimes in conversations where the topic is that of some horrific, brutal, and/or cruel act, someone will declare that “it just shows the inhumanity of people,” or words to that effect. Statements such as this suggest that our human nature is basically nasty and brutish. It is a dismal verdict for the human race.

Statements like this one are tantamount to justifying the brutal acts; in fact, these statements come very close to defending them, on the basis that brutality is simply the base nature of the human race.

This miserable view of humanity’s innateness is akin to characterising humanity as Mr Hyde in the Robert Louis Stevenson classic, The Stange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.¹  Stevenson’s horror story, published in 1886, follows two characters (Jekyll and Hyde) through London streets and houses with one of them (Dr Jekyll) being of upright and gentlemanly manner, and the other (Edward Hyde) a murderer and person of low morals. As the story progresses, the reader comes to realise that the two are one-and-the-same. An elixir transforms the one into the other.

Yet, if the person pronouncing this morbid baseness is questioned about their own character, most are likely to say something like, ‘But I’m Dr Jekyll.’ The innate wickedness just attributed to the whole human species is rejected as not applying to them.

Both of course – Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – are found in all of us. Thinking of oneself as a Dr Jekyll and not as Mr Hyde is an easy way to absolve oneself of any guilt, or participation in any of the atrocities of the world.

Stevenson was well aware of this tendency and its effect. In the final chapter of The Stange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – titled Henry Jekyll’s Full Statement of the Case – Henry Jekyll maintains that,

‘It was Hyde, after all, and Hyde alone, that was guilty. Jekyll was no worse; he woke again to his good qualities seemingly unimpaired; he would even make haste, where it was possible, to undo the evil done by Hyde. And thus his conscience slumbered.’

“And thus his conscience slumbered” is an illuminating sentence. It tells us that if we can attribute nastiness to some other and not ourselves then we can slumber on in innocence and ignore the brutality that occurs in the world.

It was this slumber and innocence that Nazi war criminals claimed at the Nuremberg trials. Many argued that they were simply doing their job. Hannah Arendt, who wrote much about totalitarianism and Nazism attended some of those trials.

In particular Arendt attended the trial of Adolf Eichmann, an official in the Schutzstaffel (the SS) and one of the major organisers of the Holocaust. She wrote a book - Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (published in 1963) – outlining her observations and analysis of Eichmann and others.

What Arendt found to be truly terrifying about Eichmann was that he was not psychopathic, he was a common man. Almost anyone could have become a war criminal. But Arendt does not offer this up as justification for Eichmann’s actions. She does not excuse him. He still had choice, even in a totalitarian state. The consequences of making that choice are political, she said, even if the person is powerless in that state.

Robert Louis Stevenson was writing about just such situations fifty years before the rise of Hitler and the Nazis.

Reading The Stange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde one hundred and forty years after its first publication there are at least two major lessons we can take from it.

1. All of us can find a Dr Jekyll and a Mr Hyde inside us.
2. We must not allow our conscience to slumber.

 

Notes:

1. Stevenson, Robert Louis, The Stange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, p 60. Penguin Books, London, 2002. First published 1886.