by J M Hemmings
‘We did not pick the moniker “the Antidote” for just any reason. The world is poisoned, you see. The minds of the vast majority of human beings are completely poisoned. Poisoned by all sorts of insidious ideologies in myriad forms.’
‘And that is where we come in,’ the General interrupted. ‘When an organism is poisoned, an antidote must be found to neutralise and cleanse the venom from its system. The mind of every human being is infected with a most vile and heinous form of poison, a poison that begins its scourge from the time that they are brought, screaming and covered in blood and mucous, into this world. From the time each human being draws in their very first breath of this world’s air, they begin to suck in that venom, like dry sponges absorbing a murder victim’s blood. Always sucking it in, always pulling it in, drawing it all in, letting it blacken and congeal inside them as it corrupts everything they are, and destroys everything they could be.’
‘And what is this poison, exactly?’ Margaret asked, now more intrigued than refractory.
‘Human culture,’ the General grunted with a savage snarl. ‘Every single human culture in the world is a toxic cancer, a rapidly spreading poison.’
‘And what do you plan to do about this “poison”?’ she asked, somewhat nervously.
The General flashed her a subtle smile before slowly clasping his ebony hands together on the table and gritting his teeth with a fierce and intense determination.
‘We aim to annihilate it completely,’ he snarled. ‘We will wipe all cultures from the face of this blasted planet.’
26
MARGARET
‘You intend to destroy all cultures?’ Margaret asked, both stupefied and incredulous in the face of this grandiose and abhorrent statement. ‘What you’re saying, essentially, is that you wish to cause the extinction of the human race? Is that seriously what your aim is?’
Dr Ogilvy stepped in with diplomatic haste before the General could answer.
‘Figuratively speaking, Dr Green, figuratively speaking. We do not, of course, plan to literally cause the extinction of human cultures, and by extension, the human race itself. I think the General perhaps used, er, not quite the right phrase to bring his point across. Let us approach his statement with a more, hmm, with a more metaphorical viewpoint, shall we? Now, on the subject of human culture, you must understand that the base addictions found in most modern human cultures are at the forefront of every single one of the major problems facing the world today. You do understand this, do you not?’
Margaret frowned and raised a sceptical eyebrow.
‘Since your implications is that I don’t,’ she muttered sourly, ‘why don’t you just go ahead and explain it to me?’
The corners of Dr Ogilvy’s lips crinkled, moving by a mere fraction of a degree; a flicker of a smile that could have been sympathy, or mockery. Before she could continue, though, the General spoke. As quickly as his gasoline-fire wrath had flared up, it faded away, and once more his bearded face wore an expression of calm geniality.
‘Allow me to explain my views in a little more detail,’ he said to Margaret. ‘So that you do not think me to be some sort of genocidal maniac.’ He paused and chuckled here, but his laughter was far more unsettling than it was reassuring.
‘Uh, okay, go ahead,’ Margaret said, feeling rather uneasy.
‘What is culture anyway?’ the General asked her.
‘It’s what makes us human!’ she quickly responded. ‘It’s learning that’s passed down from generation to generation, and it’s what separates us from animals—’
‘Wrong,’ the General grunted bluntly. ‘Many species of animals have what you have just defined as “culture”, but let’s ignore that for the moment. So tell me, what is culture, distilled to its most essential form?’
‘It’s everything about what makes us human, I guess. It’s the language were raised with, which not only shapes the way we communicate and think, but how we see the world – I remember reading research about that. It’s other things too, like what traditions we follow, what rituals we believe are important, what religion we’re likely to believe in, how we see morality, what we define as right or wrong. It influences what kinda music we like, and what sort of art we appreciate. Pretty much everything about how we see and make sense of the world, I guess, if you want to define it that way. It’s also an accumulation of knowledge and uh, wisdom and learning, passed down from one generation to the next, but, what’s different with us humans, is we accumulate and add to that knowledge with each new generation, in um, in exponential terms, almost.’
‘Correct,’ the General said with a wry smile. Margaret was taken aback; he was actually agreeing with her. This was a most unexpected turn of events. ‘You have listed many admirable aspects of human culture, aspects that I will not try to deny or nullify. However, you must also admit that you’re only looking at one side of the coin that is human culture, no?’
‘Um … I guess so.’
‘So, let’s take that metaphorical coin you have in your hand and flip it over to look at the other side … the tarnished, scratched-up side. All of these things, these sacred traditions, these sacrosanct rituals … why are they so precious? What function do they serve? Almost always they are a method of reinforcing domination. Enforcing power strata, ensuring that a human child’s mind becomes irreversibly closed to any alternative possibilities from an early age. Culture is enforced blindness. Culture is a set of iron shackles and manacles, enslaving minds that should be open to a world of infinite possibilities! Culture is violence; culture is brutality dressed up as sacred ritual. Culture, on this side of the coin, is about maintaining existing power structures, about dominating other groups of humans, dominating animals, dominating the entire natural world – it is an ugly tool of power, of reinforcing toxic “us versus everyone and everything else” views.’
‘May I take over for a while, General?’ Dr Ogilvy asked.
‘Please, go ahead.’
‘Dr Green,’ Dr Ogilvy said, ‘if you look at the total biomass that occupies the surface of the earth – and what I mean by that term is the sum of all living things on this planet – if you analyse it in purely mathematical terms, even with the current human population being around seven billion, which is way out of proportion in terms of our individual specimen size and ecological footprint as large mammals, you will see that our planet does have the ability to provide all living beings with a comfortable and healthy life.’
‘I’ve heard people say that, but it seems kinda … far-fetched,’ Margaret said. ‘A little optimistic.’
‘Far-fetched only to those whose minds are closed to the idea, and who are so steeped in their addictions that they cannot see beyond the limited pale of reality created by these addictions. Most assumptions made by the individual are in fact fictions moulded around the need to serve sensory addictions. However, the uncomfortable but undeniable fact remains that if humankind continues along its current trajectory, the destruction of most life on this planet, the collapse of most major ecosystems and a mass extinction of species – including our own – is the only logical end result. Despite this apparent inevitability, though, a cataclysm of apocalyptic proportions is not as inescapable a fate for us as it would seem. It’s going to require massive change on our part, though, to avoid such a catastrophe, and under the term “our” I include every human being on the planet … particularly those residents of the so-called “First World” nations, whose excessive and wasteful lifestyles currently require the resources of five, six or even seven Earths, rather than the single planet we currently occupy.’
Margaret nodded slowly as she considered the points Dr Ogilvy had just put forward. She leaned forward on her chair and clasped her fingers together, noticing for a brief instant how plump, stubby and pale her freckled limbs were in comparison to those of the General, whose lanky, leanly-muscled and rather menacing forearms were a bluish shade of pitch under the diffuse moonlight.
‘Tell me what addiction
s you’re talking about in specific terms,’ she said eventually. ‘I assume it’s not the literal things that we associate with the word “addiction”, like alcohol and drugs? Fossil fuels? Is that it?’
‘Oh yes. They are part of it, but the true scope of it extends much further. The root of the problem is that – and I believe that this is true for almost every single human culture on every single continent – the human animal does not see itself as an animal. The human animal sees itself as something else, something that is external to the natural world. The human animal thinks that reality begins and ends with the illusory world of cities, commerce and economies it has created, and that nature is a scenic but somehow tangential and inconsequential backdrop to this concrete “reality” … a mere aside to the untouchable, omnipotent, omnipresent and infallible deity the human animal refers to as “the global economy”. You see, over time the human animal has invented all sorts of gods, religions, philosophies and other dogmas … but at the root of all of them is an unshakable conviction that the human animal is above and separate from everything else that exists on this planet.’
‘And how is this related to addictions?’ Margaret asked. ‘I’m sorry, but you can’t just go off on a rant like that without giving me a direct answer to my question.’
Dr Ogilvy smiled and folded her hands together.
‘Patience please; I’m getting to my point. Tell me, what happens when it is absolutely ingrained into a person’s psyche that they are superior beings, superior to the extent that they in fact consider themselves godlike in comparison to every other life form with which they share this earth? When they are indoctrinated from birth to believe that their reason for existence itself is to dominate, to revel in their perceived superiority, and to perpetuate a dogma that sees the rest of all life – and the ecosystems of the planet – as mere resources to be plundered, torn up and converted into products, products to be traded in a system that requires constant and essentially infinite expansion to continue to exist? Tell me, how does the human animal behave within the framework of such a paradigm?’
Margaret scratched at her chin and swallowed slowly before replying.
‘I-, well … I suppose that, um, the human “animal”, as you seem to enjoy calling us, would behave, as, I don’t know, a conqueror? Coloniser?’
‘Worse than that,’ Dr Ogilvy said dryly. ‘As a virus, Dr Green, a virus. A virus addicted to the act of consumption. Consuming endlessly, voraciously – this is the core addiction that catalyses and fuels all others.’
The General began to speak again, jumping in before Dr Ogilvy could continue. Dusting off the front of his uniform with his elegant ebony fingers, despite its state of spotlessness, he stood up and strolled with measured grace over to the end of the Moon Chamber, where a large window was located. This crystal-wrought portal provided a panoramic view of both the horizon-stretched expanse of the jungle and the deep, star-spattered sky that crowned it.
‘Out there, there is balance,’ he said, sweeping an arm out in the direction of the jungle. ‘Do you understand the term? Can you comprehend what true balance is?’
‘I—’
The General was quick to silence her.
‘No, I’m afraid that you do not understand, and, furthermore, that you cannot, despite whatever pretensions to the contrary your addiction-riddled mind may entertain. Not yet, at least. You see, out there in the unconquered wilds, there is a perfect balance. It fluctuates continually and is never static, and while the waxing of some will temporarily cause the waning of others and vice versa, no one species dominates at the expense of thousands or even millions of others. That vast rainforest you’re looking at, it has been there for millions of years, existing in this perpetual state of ebbing and flowing balance. And I’m not just talking about a mere five or ten million years – which itself is an eternity in comparison to the mere two hundred thousand years that homo sapiens sapiens has been around – no, this rainforest has been here for over a hundred million years.
The life forms who call it home have all been there for countless aeons as well, from the greatest of the large mammals down to the tiniest insects. Their populations fluctuate over the millennia, their numbers rise or dwindle alternately, but always they survive, they go on, they exist in relative harmony with their surroundings. The fact that the forest is still there, as it has been for countless millennia, and that those organisms still thrive in populations great or small, is testament to this fact. That, that right there is balance.’
Margaret nodded and masticated on this information. When the General and Dr Ogilvy put forth their views in such a manner it was difficult to argue with them. Out there, beyond the reach of mankind, there was indeed an ancient symmetry at work, and a greater communal symbiosis than she could even begin to wrap her head around. She wondered, at that moment, why she had never thought of it in such terms. After all, back home she and Ting lived by an old-growth forest. That too was a primeval system of balance like this one, yet she had never considered it to be anything more than mere background scenery – something pretty to look at while making idle conversation and sipping on a glass of dry red on the porch.
‘Balance is something that started crumbling when human beings harnessed fire and tools, and then when they became even more greedy, and hunted many species to extinction with these newfound tools. This wanton destruction began to accelerate at an alarming rate when they started implementing their first systems of agriculture ten thousand years ago,’ the General continued. ‘Observe the behaviour of the great apes who are the closest “animal” relatives of the human primate. Bonobos are biologically like you humans, but their nature is not as close to yours as that of chimpanzees. Chimpanzees, who are closest to humans genetically, live in small groups of around fifty individuals. And, like humans, they too seem to have a predisposition toward violence and domination. There are strict hierarchies within the group, with an alpha male – a chief, or even king, if you will – who governs the rest, sometimes by mere violence and intimidation, but often more by cooperation and political alliances. Does that sound familiar to you? Like men, chimpanzees appear to have a need to make war on other groups of chimpanzees who are external to their group, and sometimes even members of their own bands. And again, like the human primate, they sometimes go as far as engaging in what we may call genocidal behaviour … yet beyond all this violence, they still manage to live in a semblance of harmony with their surroundings. They are part of the great circle of life. A circle, Dr Green, not a pyramid with human beings crowned as infallible emperors upon its lofty pinnacle.
Take in these great swathes of rainforest that stretch out from horizon to horizon! Really try to fully comprehend its true vastness, in terms beyond the infantile and limited scope of the immediate and ever-shifting present! Millions of years, tens of millions of years are what we’re talking about here! Even these war-mongering chimpanzees have managed to maintain a modicum of peace and balance with their environment and their neighbouring species here for millions of years. Yet look at you humans, who have been here for a mere fraction of that time. In the short era in which the human animal established the beginnings of what you call “civilisation”, you have wiped two thirds of the ancient rainforests from the face of the planet. Two thirds, Dr Green, two thirds!
From your humble beginnings as a tiny fraction of a percent of the vast and multifaceted conglomerate that constitutes the biomass of mammals on this planet, you humans – and the animals you imprison, breed and slaughter on farms – have become almost ninety-six percent of that biomass now. The chickens you humans raise to eat, and exploit with such cruelty as little egg and meat factories, constitute three times the biomass of all other birds on this planet! Many species are becoming extinct at a rate that is over a thousand times the rate that that of the pre-human era was. Indeed, around a million species around the globe are staring extinction in the face … extinction, yes, that eternal death of deaths.
Think about it. R
eally think about it! I want you to really engage with this information! These places, these organisms that have evolved over hundreds of millions of years to exist in sustained systems of balance and regeneration and renewal – now almost all of them have been cut down, slaughtered, hunted, driven out, annihilated and burned to nothing, and they have been replaced, by the human primate in all of his arrogance, with dead things. With concrete, with steel, with plastic. Things that the earth itself has to be torn-up and decimated to produce. Things that do not breathe, that do not generate life, that do not produce the oxygen we need to breathe, that drain instead of refill aquifers, that foul instead of filter the water we need, the liquid that is the very quintessence and primary requirement of life itself!
You humans, with your “godlike intellect”, pour endless pollutants into the natural systems that do perform those very functions, and have performed them since time immemorial. You corrupt and destroy these systems without the slightest knowledge of how intricately connected everything is, from the massive whales in the ocean whose movements affect the very climate of the planet, to the smallest rodents whose burrows in the soil allow precious aquifers to be refilled so that streams can flow, and all life forms can have access to water! The very things that are unarguably essential for life, those are the things that your kind abuses, destroys, kills and befouls, for no reason but short-term, fleeting gain. And what do you replace them with when you have destroyed them? With things that are the antithesis of life! You humans foul the air with noxious gases from factories, from the endless belching exhausts of automobiles, trucks, ships and aeroplanes, not to mention the massively destructive methane which all of the billions of imprisoned animals on farms emit, whose brutalised corpses feed the insatiable appetites of the zombie-addicts – your kind, Dr Green, your kind – who slave their lives away in a mass slough of mindless, brainwashed toil, in unquestioning and pitiful servitude to this system that is slowly obliterating everything. Everything that exists on this rock, hurtling through space – everything – the human primate is annihilating it all. You dump plastic and oil into the oceans, along with other vile poisons, which all work their way back through the food chain into your own bloodstreams, and you pour into the waters pollutants from factory farms and industry, which turn vast tracts of the oceans into dead zones, kills ancient coral, and renders the waters devoid of any life whatsoever, those same waters that your supertrawlers have already mostly emptied of life to feed your voracious hunger for fish and seafood … and this in turn sets in motion catastrophic changes to the earth’s climate. You bury radioactive waste, you pump chemical poisons into rivers, into the bosom of the earth, into the air that you have to breathe…’
