Similarly, the American philosophy of “manifest destiny” (ugly as it is), also carries that same scent of exceptionalism. And so does the “divine right of Kings” from our history. Modern prosperity gospel exploits those same flaws in our cognitive make-up.

In contemporary times we see these philosophies as egocentric and perhaps outdated. But just like children pass through very egocentric stages (well some never grow past that), so too does collective human consciousness evolve past exceptionalism and towards maturity and humility.

Oh yeah? But which one of those species is writing a book challenging their own exceptionalism.

    For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much -- the wheel, New York, wars and so on -- whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. 
    But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man -- for precisely the same reasons.

    - The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

But in general I think this is also reflective of a negative trend in Western culture, which is something like a collapse of the “divine potential” of man. I don’t mean it in the literal religious sense (although that’s where it came from), but in the sense that many people increasingly see themselves as just evolved apes, not as creative beings with limitless potential. There are many reasons for this cultural trend (evolution, secularism and the collapse of religion as a foundation for our idea of self), and so on.

The key, to me, is in understanding that this “evolved ape” narrative is a fundamentally a narrative. What’s needed is a new story that factors in these scientifically true facts of evolution etc. but isn’t so flat and unimaginative in placing them into an arch-narrative.

It probably needs to start with a shift from essence to process as foundational. In other words, the deflationary account of humanity sees itself as “just an evolved ape” because we categorize things as if they were unchanging, static entities. A shift to a process-oriented idea means that value can grow in complexity and develop over time, and so therefore there isn’t anything deflationary about being descended from microscopic organisms.

It reminds me of philosopher Feuerbach’s ideas on God, which are essentially that humanity has externalized its own qualities and greatness into an abstract being, and become estranged from our own potential.

People can say random strangers are no better than animals no big deal, but random strangers have been getting little respect and the bad end of the deal for quite a while. It's different when it's someone you actually care about.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Heatmaps-indicating-high...

I get the noble sentiment of wanting re-contextualize things to be less human-centric. But, for better or worse, we’ve taken control of the planet. It is our responsibility to take care of it. And if we do manage to, we’ll do so because the alternative is human suffering or extinction.