Have you ever stopped to wonder if, perhaps, the Human Race has outgrown itself? Are we over our heads? It’s not an impossible idea. Even though we are the most advanced species by an extreme margin we are still technically and specifically animals. We have built huge mechanisms for expanding our impact, and spread a membrane of control over the entire planet but, as individuals, much of our programming goes back to prehistory. Physically and emotionally we have changed very little over the millennia – in spite of developing the ability to destroy all living creatures on the planet.
Of course, the great majority of us don’t want to destroy all living things on this planet, especially ourselves. Still, the capability is there and we have national governments, sometimes led by unstable individuals, who could accomplish this out of sheer stupidity, or selfishness. Statistics, if you put any faith in such things, would suggest that sooner or later a national leader or governing party is going to begin a process that takes us past the tipping point, putting our demise in sight. However, if you accept this prediction, and happen to mention it in public, people will call you crazy and walk away.
Human beings are simply not capable of recognizing danger at a species level. This isn’t just my opinion. Cognitive scientists and socio-biologists have been saying the same thing for decades. We automatically reduce species wide existential threats down to an abstraction and ignore them. Acknowledgement is too overwhelming, it’s beyond our grasp. Instead, we disbelieve and ridicule any indication of it being possible which, sadly, makes it even more likely.
For years scientists studying human behavior have explained how this is a normal, albeit self-destructive, reaction. Humanity has never been in this position before so past experiences, both innate and learned, are unable to influence our actions.
In spite of what creationists will try and tell you, we were shaped through an evolutionary process that took place over millions of years. What worked to help us survive in our primitive past became incorporated into our personalities. A major aspect of this prehistoric programming leads us to focus on living contentedly within small groups, mostly family, friends, neighbours, and/or co-workers. From there we expand our interest in ever-weakening circles into community and region, then out to nation, and finally to all humankind. In addition, we develop specific loyalties to religious, cultural, racial, or other organizations, because they arise from family history or alliances. As we get near the outer reaches of our interest groups the ties become very thin, and when asked to make sacrifices, including significant changes in our lifestyle, in order to protect the entire living world, it just doesn’t register. We don’t have whatever type of brain cells are required to extrapolate these outcomes from the tiny little corner of the world on which we are focused. It isn’t part of our reality, we don’t buy in.
In spite of the progress we have made, the innovations we have created, and the multitude of advancements we have achieved, our past still guides our present. It took hundreds of millions of years of human development for Homo Sapiens – you and I – to make our appearance some three hundred thousand years ago. At that time we arrived as a sub-family of Homininea, an order of Primate in the class of Mammalia. The next big event for our species was the beginning of civilization but that didn’t come until five to ten thousand years ago, and it came about when we discovered agriculture. To think we left all of the previous millions of years of development behind us in the few hundred generations that civilization has existed, is to adopt self-delusion on a grand scale. We are highly intelligent animals, but still subject to the drives and urges of other animals. These impact our values, our perceptions, our physical desires, and our view of what life is. It has been well established since the sixties that we are born with approximately fifty percent of our personalities already built-in, inherited from our predecessors.
Human beings are self-absorbed, highly responsive to physically dominant personalities, tightly focused on family and close associates, mistrusting of outsiders, ready to sacrifice on behalf of our own, and ready to sacrifice others who threaten our own. These traits are what created and preserved us in our present form. This is what allowed us to succeed and prosper in a primitive world. It is part of us, it’s in our genetic code. It exists even if we don’t see it in the mirror. And as much as it brought about our success in a brutal and merciless pre-history, it is what may bring about our destruction in a technologically enhanced present and future.
We do not see ourselves as one race, we do not feel a kinship with all humanity, we trust strong leaders who promise to protect us, even at a cost to others, and we want those close to us to have more of everything. We are naturally small-minded and selfish because this is what worked to keep us alive and promote our development for millions of years, but we refuse to acknowledge these built in traits. Our ego’s won’t allow us, and by choosing to ignore the power of this programming we fail to prepare for the negative consequences. Our intellect has developed incredibly but we still are governed by our emotional responses. Our loyalties are more important than our realities and the result is we prefer to be emotionally stupid rather than coldly intelligent. We are a childlike species in an ever more adult world.
Just a Picture
