Derek's Blog on everything and everything else...

By Derek Hendrikz

Unlike my regular posts on strategic leadership and strategy formulation this one is about whether or whether not humans should be allowed to hunt. Of course this blog is highly fuelled and motivated by the recent international outcry for Cecil the lion killed in Zimbabwe by the American Dr. Walter Palmer.

Shortly after reading about the killing of Cecil, I saw an article about how chimpanzees in Kibale National Park, Uganda, are currently hunting the red colobus monkey to extinction. This immediately triggered the thought that hunting is a natural phenomenon. It is our instinct to hunt and kill! This is how we have been obtaining energy for thousands of years and its how natural selection separates strong from the weak…

Now, this brings another question to mind, which is whether there is a difference between hunting for power and hunting for food… Many arguments can be put forth in this regard. We for instance know that chimpanzees kill in order to gain territory, thus humans are not the only specie that kills for power. Also, most hunting groups would claim that they eat the animals that they hunt, and that this justifies their killing. Thus, one would be able argue favourably on a number of reasons to kill.

I do not intent to argue for or against the moral or practical justifications to kill living beings. Reality is that our material world is one where death brings life. Energy needs to consume energy to evolve and manifest. This is the story of life…

There, however, is another view here. For a moment, let go of the argument for or against hunting and entertain the hypothesis of a direct correlation between why you kill and your level of consciousness. During the early stages of human evolution we had to kill to survive. Our superior intellectual evolution enabled us to work in teams and kill with speed. This evolved to a stage where our ability to kill led to an ability to conquer. We were very much where chimpanzees are today. The reason why chimpanzees are able to hunt the red colobus monkey to extinction is because of their superior intellectual ability. Should we stop these chimp tribes to do that? Of course not, since doing this would directly interfere with their evolutionary process. As the superior specie on this planet we should allow other species to evolve and to consciously awaken. If this results in the extinction of the red colobus monkey then so be it!

Now before becoming hunting happy, ask yourself whether you are still where the chimps are? Humans have evolved. We do not have to obtain our food in the way we have done before. We now have identified and domesticated animals specifically to serve as food. We regulate the killing of such animals and we have created an organised system where we divide roles and responsibilities to serve a variety of purposes….

Are we fully evolved? Now this is not much of a question since the world is riddled with poverty, pollution and extinction. Our need for killing has not disappeared. Nope, we simply sifted it out of awareness to abattoirs and corporations… Human beings are facing the same evolutionary threshold that chimps face. As chimpanzees are evolving to a place of conquer and kill, humans are now on the threshold of evolving to a place of compassion and responsibility. If we do not succeed on this evolutionary step, we, without the slightest doubt in my mind, will orchestrate our own extension.

As humans we need to move to place where we take responsibility on how we populate this planet, how we consume its resources and how we show compassion to those and that which have not reached our level of intelligence. This will require discipline in what we kill, how we kill, how much we kill, how many we allow to populate, how we teach our children, how we respect the elderly, how we reorganise ourselves, etc…

The outcry against hunting as a sport and protection of species is more than animal benevolence. It is an unconscious battle of conscious awakening. Our narcissistic self-importance and indulgent self-righteous behaviour has to end otherwise we are doomed as a specie. I truly hope that humans will evolve to place where the need to eat meat will disappear, where we show respect to the energy that we consume and where we realise that we are just a small part of a big system – a system that will get along perfectly well without our existence!!! Having not (even remotely) been able to reach such a state myself, I fully realise that his will take time. Time which we do not have much of… Thus I fully support the current outcry and rebellion against hunting, pollution, animal cruelty, protection of our oceans or any other endeavour where disrespect to our host is challenged…

Now, I’m not directly saying that where you hunt as a sport you have missed out on thousands of years of mental evolution or that you are on the level of a current day chimpanzee, but I do pre-suppose a strong possibility that this indeed might be the case…

© 01 June 2015