3---tyranny turns their impact.

Humanity’s capacity for tyranny, and its tendency to emerge —bringing with it a devouring and insatiable appetite for suffering — appears universal throughout human societies and across time. Yet the more I try to isolate its origins and understand its psychological contours, the more I’ve come to see this demonic element of our species as inextricably entwined with elements of humanity — typically portrayed positively — like love, compassion, and safety. Tyranny isn’t devoid of such ideals; it’s a strategy for pursuing them in the face of uncertainty. In fact it may represent humanity’s oldest strategy for doing so. Yet it’s an incomplete strategy, and one accompanied by a host of undesirable — often murderous — side-effects. So how do we avoid it? It’s my belief that by understanding and controlling the emergence of tyranny within ourselves, we build a world absent the fertile soil in which tyranny’s “evil spirits” plant their strangling vines at larger scales. To that end, I’d like to address the following questions: What forces precipitate the psychological roots of tyranny? Why does tyrannical behavior emerge at increasing scales of human behavior? How can one combat these self — and world — destroying tendencies? To understand and act upon the following is to take responsibility for one’s own life and to spare the lives of those one might otherwise tyrannize; it’s to fully own one’s personal responsibility for tyranny’s emergence, and to play one’s part in freeing our world from its clutches. The Psychological Roots of Tyranny For our purposes, let’s define tyranny as: “The cruel, unreasonable, or arbitrary use of power or control.” From where does this tendency emerge? It’s easy to imagine those who exercise such methods of power or control as a breed apart from the rest; unlike us, they are heartless monsters out to impose their tyrannical will upon the innocent. But of course that’s a caricature. It’s a caricature we create — as a shield — to protect ourselves from the nagging suspicion that the tendency toward tyranny lurks deep within our own soul. But unfortunately for all, lurk it does. Given the often disastrous repercussions of exercising such a tendency, why would it exist within us all? The theory I find most compelling, explored at length in Dr. Jordan Peterson’s seminal work Maps of Meaning, posits that the capacity for tyranny resides within us as a strategy for preventing the intrusion of uncertainty into our otherwise stable psychological environment. In other words, tyranny is a psychological shield we use to protect ourselves from unwanted exposure to negative emotional states, a tool for preempting painful change and justifying the use of outdated models of the world. Or as Peterson puts it:

human tyranny is evil

Ahkin 10 [Mélanie, Monash University, “Human Centrism, Animist Materialism, and the Critique of Rationalism in Val. Plumwood’s Critical Ecological Feminism,” Emergent Australasian Philosophers, 2010, Issue 3, ]

These five features provide the basis for hegemonic centrism insofar as they promote certain conceptual and perceptual distortions of reality which universalise and naturalise the standpoint of the superior relata as primary or centre, and deny and subordinate the standpoints of inferiorised others as secondary or derivative. Using standpoint theory analysis, Plumwood’s reconceptualisation of human chauvinist frameworks locates and dissects these logical characteristics of dualism, and the conceptual and perceptual distortions of reality common to centric structures, as follows. Radical exclusion is found in the rationalist emphasis on differences between humans and non-human nature, its valourisation of a human rationality conceived as exclusionary of nature, and its minimisation of similarities between the two realms. Homogenisation and stereotyping occur especially in the rationalist denial of consciousness to nature, and its denial of the diversity of mental characteristics found within its many different constituents, facilitating a perception of nature as homogeneous and of its members as interchangeable and replaceable resources. This definition of nature in terms of its lack of human rationality and consciousness means that its identity remains relative to that of the dominant human group, and its difference is marked as deficiency, permitting its inferiorisation. Backgrounding and denial may be observed in the conception of nature as extraneous and inessential background to the foreground of human culture, in the human denial of dependency on the natural environment, and denial of the ethical and political constraints which the unrecognised ends and needs of non-human nature might otherwise place on human behaviour. These features together create an ethical discontinuity between humans and non-human nature which denies nature’s value and agency, and thereby promote its instrumentalisation and exploitation for the benefit of humans.11 This dualistic logic helps to universalise the human centric standpoint, making invisible and seemingly inevitable the conceptual and perceptual distortions of reality and oppression of non-human nature it enjoins. The alternative standpoints and perspectives of members of the inferiorised class of nature are denied legitimacy and subordinated to that of the class of humans, ultimately becoming invisible once this master standpoint becomes part of the very structure of thought.12 Such an anthropocentric framework creates a variety of serious injustices and prudential risks, making it highly ecologically irrational.13 The hierarchical value prescriptions and epistemic distortions responsible for its biased, reductive conceptualisation of nature strips the non-human natural realm of non- instrumental value, and impedes the fair and impartial treatment of its members. Similarly, anthropocentrism creates distributive injustices by restricting ethical concern to humans, admitting partisan distributive relationships with non-human nature in the forms of commodification and instrumentalisation. The prudential risks and blindspots created by anthropocentrism are problematic for nature and humans alike and are of especial concern within our current context of radical human dependence on an irreplaceable and increasingly degraded natural environment. These prudential risks are in large part consequences of the centric structure's promotion of illusory human disembeddedness, self-enclosure and insensitivity to the significance and survival needs of non-human nature: Within the context of human-nature relationships, such a logic must inevitably lead to failure, either through the catastrophic extinction of our natural environment and the consequent collapse of our species, or more hopefully by the abandonment and transformation of the human centric framework.15 Whilst acknowledging the importance of prudential concerns for the motivation of practical change, Plumwood emphasises the weightier task of acknowledging injustices to non-humans in order to bring about adequate dispositional change. The model of enlightened self-interest implicit in prudentially motivated action is inadequate to this task insofar as it remains within the framework of human centrism. Although it acknowledges the possibility of relational interests, it rests on a fundamental equivocation between instrumental and relational forms of concern for others. Indeed it motivates action either by appeal to humans' ultimate self-interest, thus failing to truly acknowledge injustices caused to non-human others, remaining caught within the prudentially risky framework of anthropocentrism, or else it accepts that others' interests count as reasons for action- enabling recognition of injustices- but it does so in a manner which treats the intersection of others' needs with more fully-considered human interests as contingent and transient. Given this analysis, it is clear that environmental concern must be based on a deeper recognition of injustice, in addition to that of prudence, if it is to overcome illusions of human disembeddedness and self-enclosure and have a genuine and lasting effect

vote neg to reject tyranny and oppression.

Paul '16 (Paul Watson, environmental activist, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.), "Human Lives Are Not More Important Than Animal Lives," 5-08-16, The Outdoor Journal, outdoorjournal.com/slider/human-lives-are-not-more-important-than-animal-lives/ //ike

**[edited] for offensive language

Is a human life worth more than a gorilla, a whale or any other species? I’m going to tread on some very sensitive toes with this commentary but I think it needs to be said. My perspective is biocentric, whereas most of humanity looks on reality from an anthropocentric point of view. I do not expect the anthropocentric mind to understand my position. My position is that a human life is not more important than the life of a gorilla or a whale. This is is going to make some people angry as hell, but that does not concern me. What concerns me is the reality of our relationship with the natural world. Columnist Dave Bry recently wrote in The Guardian: As much as I love animals – and I love them very much – the idea that the life of a cat or a dog or a lion or a gorilla is as important as the life of a human is a terrible one, a wrong one, an insulting one. [There] are powerful, important things about being a human being … Yes, I would save the life of Ted Kaczynski, Idi Amin or Donald Trump over any animal you could name. (Yes, even my beloved childhood pets: the cats Love and Honey, the dog, Yvette. Sorry, guys, RIP.) Personally I think this statement by Bry is asinine, insensitive and absurd. Idi Amin was a mass murderer. His life was not worth the life of a mosquito and if someone had shot the bastard [unpatriotic individual], thousands of people’s lives would have been spared not to mention the slaughter of African wildlife under his authority. Would Bry say the same about Hitler, and if not, why not, how is he any different than a mass murdering dictator like Idi Amin? So I think Brys’ position has not been thought out, and if it has, it is he who holds a terrible idea with a wrong position and insulting to every person who was slaughtered in WWII or in Africa under Amin. Bry is saying his cats and his dog are expendable but a vicious dictator is not, simply on the basis of being a member of the human species. The reality is that some human lives are simply not worth more than other humans and also not more important than many animals.