What If My Dog Wrote This Post?

So I know I'm not the first to ever have these thoughts, but I have them anyway. And so . . . .

Why is it that a large portion of Americans (and maybe others too, I just happen to know mostly Americans since I live in Kentucky, which I understand to be very near this "America") seem to be so down on anything that is American or even human, as opposed to anything from another culture or the animal kingdom?

Let's start with the American cultural thing. Surely you've heard any number of the following statements, or at least variations/correlates: "You know the Native Americans treasured the elderly for their great wisdom!" "Our founding fathers would surely blush if they could see where our society is today!" "In African culture [fill in the blank with some random positive element from African culture]!"

These are all well and good, of course. Elderly people are awesome. There are some terrible elements of contemporary society. African culture surely has some great facets from which we could all learn. That said, it seems to me the underlying message whenever I hear something of similar nature is "Everything American and modern is bad, and everything old or foreign is WAY better!" Now obviously that's ridiculously over-stated, but you get it, right? If it's "other" it HAS to be superior!

There's trouble brewing, though. Because you know what? Native Americans slept in tee-pees, many of our founding fathers were genocide-promoting racists, and African culture is (like any other) surely as riddled with bad as it is good. Really, who wants to trade?

There are a million things I would change about contemporary American culture. We're incredibly materialistic, insoluably hedonistic, and in practice if not in word, completely atheistic. Equally, there are surely a million things we can learn from other cultures and times, but ultimately I don't think I can call them qualitatively "better" than our own. Please, then, can we escape the charge of ethnocentrism because we live in the world in which we have been born?


The animal thing is almost the same deal. My dog killed a rodent this week, and I don't think anybody could fault her for it. She's a dog. It's "natural"! I actually saw it happen, and she didn't think, calculate, or consider -- she just attacked. BAM! And it was over just that fast. No second thoughts, no regret, no room for re-consideration. What if I had done the killing, however? Are there not those among us who would critisize me harshly? It would have been scarecely less natural for me. To reference the above portion of this post, our ancestors or those in other cultures would surely have no issue with a routine take-down. Yet somehow, because I'm human, my actions are outside the realm of "nature." How is this? How am I less "natural" then my dog? Why is it beautiful when a beaver builds a dam, but environmental rape when a human does? Nobody condemns the leopard for hunting the gazelle, but for a human "meat is murder!" How did "nature" come to be defined as "anything and everything not human?" Did we create ourselves?

Look, I'm not trying to be overly critical of my culturally aware, naturalistic or extra-sensitive friends here. Take the good from other cultures, definitely. Have you chosen to eat texured soy protein rather than bacon? Ok! All I'm saying is this -- in our zeal to criticize that which may legitimately deserve another critic, let's not forget to examine some of our pre-suppositions and find the real root of the issue. After all, the Chinese proverb says "Have a mouth as sharp as a dagger but a heart as soft as tofu."

(I have no idea what that means.)