Maybe I just lack scientific creativity. Maybe I don’t understand science. Or maybe I just don’t understand the endgame of postmodern thinking.

Tim let me know today that after the Whanganui River in New Zealand was granted personhood last week- with a whole sphere of legal benefits given to it as a human- several days later both the Ganges and the Yamuna rivers in India were granted the status of “living human entities”, receiving similar legal endowments by the high court in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand.

The main incentive for giving these three rivers human status was largely to try and elevate them as natural resources and to help protect them from abuse. The two Indian rivers are immense daily repositories of human, chemical, and industrial wastes. In the Whanganui River’s case, the Maori tribe consider the third largest river in New Zealand their ancestor, and as such, forwarded that it deserves to be regarded as a living entity, as living entities should not be viewed as things to be owned and managed, but accorded concern and respect. By becoming living entities, the rivers can be approached collegially, as co-members in humanity, or at least in the world family of acknowledged non-things.

I am reminded that the passing of these laws have taken place in a day when the definition of human identity is itself in flux. With the uttering of a few fairly serious sounding statements, a man can become a woman, or a woman can become a man. Because self-identification is an earnest and serious thing flagging progress in human development.

But the absolutism of self-identification fits in well with the times. With the ascent of “The Secret” and the discovery that self-pronouncement creates reality, it’s not surprising that the definitions related to humanity, identity, sexuality, and morality have become fuzzy. Quantum thinking has taken over- the gaps are much more real than the solid elements- and definition is limiting.

That is postmodern thinking taken to its relativistic extreme: “You can’t tell me what anything really is, unless I think it’s that.”

At one time, similar thinking was viewed as dissociative and warranted psychiatric treatment. But the world is at a new level in understanding and wisdom.

A white man can self-identify as a black woman, a transgendered 6 year-old girl, a dragon lady, a parrot. And a tribe can self-identify a river as person, and persuade national courts to legitimize that opinion in statute.

The whole “self-identification as a legal identity” thing opens up a whole Pandora’s box of philosophical and ethical issues that hinge on the meaning of being human.

Being human is not easy, Rivers. But you know this- you’ve had us dump in you and dump on you for centuries.

And then there’s that identity theft thing. Just when you get one, someone else can take yours!

You are probably not going to like how other people treat you at times, either.

At least, if there are large problems in life and you are near, you can be made the scapegoat.

But I suspect your governments will also have some sort of support system and counseling option available to help you deal with the hardness of being human.

Tim asked a good question as we talked about this topic a bit today.

“If a river can be re-identified as a human, can a person self-identify then as a river?”

I guess it’s one way segments of humanity can expedite becoming one with nature.

You just got to say it’s so.

Objectivity. It’s in the eye of the beholder.

It’s a noble gesture, trying to make rivers more valuable to people by giving them human rights. The only problem with doing that is that we humans aren’t the best at regarding these rights we claim each person is owed.

What I can tell you though, Rivers, is that if you ever find you don’t like being human, remember: you can always just say “I’m a river”, and be done with this humanity stuff.