Call Them Teachers

The first thing to remember is that the ants were here before we were. The house we live in was built on top of their house. That they find their way inside during the winter is inevitable, as they seek warmth, moisture, and food. This does not make them invaders or enemies. And so to treat them as such is an unenlightened response that mimics American history in particular, and colonial history in general. Steal something, act with brutality, then call your victims enemies or savages — it’s an old, oft-repeated formula. If we must call ants anything, we should call them teachers, because they remind us that we’re all part of the same grand ecosystem. To poison them is to poison ourselves. To resent them is to resent ourselves. And so the best we can do is to find non-harmful ways to keep them from entering, while remembering in a cosmic sense how wonderful and necessary they are. Remove ants from the world, remove bees, then see how long we survive. Remove each other, banish those we deem different, then discover the depth of our dependence and loss.

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