(Ezekiel Loseke, Headline USA) In a telling essay from the New York Times, mankind was compared to an unidentifiable blue sea-blob for the purpose of developing “radical empathy.”
The essay was entitled, “Are You Really So Different From the Blue Sea Blob?”
This summer, scientists found an unidentifiable, but living, blue sea blob attached to “brown sludge” that was more than 1,300 feet below the surface of the ocean.
The author of the essay, Sabrina Imbler, said she penned the piece to establish “radical empathy.” She wished her reader to “try [this method] in your everyday life.” If one does, she argued the practice “offer[s] openness, wonder and care toward other creatures’ incomprehensibility.”
We are to do this, of course, by not noticing that we are not animals. Imbler notes that we can easily identify with animals that look like us, like bonobos, or animals that act like us, animals with families, mates, friends and children.
But, this does not cover the phenomena of the blue sea blob.
“Instead of gawking at such creatures as bizarre, I find it more fulfilling to seek connection with them across and because of our differences,” she said, and instructed readers, “When you encounter a life-form so unfamiliar that you find it uninteresting or repulsive, reach inward to find glimmers of resonance.”
Fortunately, she attempted to clarify what she meant by giving a few examples of how we can identify with these critters who neither look nor act as we do.
“Maybe … like a city pigeon, you can trace your presence in the United States back to colonialism,” she offered.
Radical empathy is, apparently, possible by adopting radical racial politics.
Envy is another form of radical empathy, according to Imbler, who wrote that, “maybe appreciation comes through your differences, such as the mystical ease with which a sea star regenerates an arm or an amoeba engulfs its prey.” She concludes, “Who wouldn’t envy such bodily freedom?”
The strange article was on a well-trodden path for Imbler. Her writings focus on a range of subjects relating humans and animals in heterodox ways. This includes oceanic pollution being described as snow, a description of sea creatures “steering” a sunken ship and an essay entitled “If You Haven’t Thought About Corona Virus in Animals, You Should.” Perhaps her writing is clearer there.
What was abundantly clear from this strange essay is that Imbler wants us to lose sight of the uniqueness and dignity of man. Man’s answer to the question, “Are You Really So Different From the Blue Sea Blob?” is, “Yes.”
But the real question is, why does the mainstream media want you to forget humans are unique and bear a unique dignity? Maybe it’s the same impulse that led Cracker Barell to offer vegetarian options.
Whatever the reason, as the viral meme argues, “I will not live in a pod and I will not eat the bugs.”
