In the last post I talked about how ‘giving a f*ck’ about things that really matter is crucial to our well-being as we move forward in these chaotic times. It’s not only political and economic but as the recent hurricanes demonstrate, even mother nature is seemingly sending us a message. We have been waging war on the natural world for a long time, starting millennia ago and especially in the last two centuries as our technology to do so has expanded. What we care about seems dictated by the hierarchical media that controls our thinking. I have yet to meet anyone sensible that thinks violence is always a first reaction to solve a problem. Yet, it seems we have been conditioned that way. I think most people would find peaceful solutions first. I think we are a peaceful species coopted into being aggressive.
I have talked about how the one of the great myths that keep us locked into the current global paradigm of scarcity (e.g., see link) . Another is that the divisive behavior (brutal competition, selfishness, and aggressive proclivities) of current humanity is a natural aspect of human nature we try to curb with moralistic laws to make us more ‘civilized.’ We have been taught that humanity is merely a civilized wild animal. I would disagree. When I look at our biological origins, I don’t see violence as a natural part of us we are. While other higher mammals like the whales and dolphins show some aggression to threats, they generally are peaceful creatures. The Killer Whales seem to have a propensity for playing with their seal food before they kill them, much like Cats, but overall, these creatures are not nasty aggressive killers.
Humans are closely genetically related to the Great Apes. Many zoologist, primatologist and animal anthropologists (e.g., Jane Goodall) who have studied the Great Apes, like the Gorilla’s and Chimpanzee’s say they can show signs of aggression but generally are peaceful and social-minded creatures. The closest genetic species to humanity are the Bonobo’s of the Condo basin, Africa. While the human-bonobo genetic link is very close (more than 99%) there is a crucial difference between the bonobo gene pair 2 and 3, which is a modified single gene in the human. I won’t discuss the biochemical aspect of how this could happen at this time, but stay with the bonobo species for now.
Bonobos are noted as being one of a peaceful and loving matriarchically-nurturing species of the Great Apes. If we can accept that they are our distant genetic ancestor, then it strongly suggests that humans would originally have had the same behavior traits. The modern human (Cro-Magnon) appears on the scene about two hundred thousand years ago, exactly as we are now. There is no missing link we know about at this time except for the genetic one. As far as we know, humanity lived as simple tribal hunter-gatherers for more than 150 thousand years, until about 45 thousand years ago. Even though Neandertal findings show that they had some creative aspects and lived alongside Cro-Magnons and probably interbred with modern humans for much of this time, the cave-paintings we find from this time show something unique happened. Cro-Magnons developed a creative spark that made them think differently and showed their awareness of self was expanding. That would include, who are we and how do we fit into the universe?
The popular selfish gene theory espoused by many biologists claims that the drive to procreate makes us the brutally competitive, selfish, and aggressive species we seem to be (Selfish-Gene Theory. But the fact that most of the great apes and especially the bonobos that are peaceful, puts a big red-flag in front of that idea. It would seem that nurturing cooperation is more the norm than the exception with protection of the young driving peaceful behaviors (unless threatened of course).
A fascinating social study from 2016 (see link) shows that humanity can be grouped into one of four categories in how our human nature is conditioned to react to life challenges: Optimist (20%), Pessimist (20%), Trusting (20%), Envious (30%), and un-categorizable (10%). While the authors don’t say so, I would bet that Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Psychopaths are all part of that latter 10%. The large ‘envious’ category, I think is mis-termed, for it is not about jealous coveting per se, so much as an admiration perspective (e.g., admiring things achieved, innovations or behavioral characters displayed – something enjoyed by another) – all positive behavioral traits. The authors state that our behavior goes negative under just three conditions: when personally threatened, when family is threatened, or when the way-of-life is threatened.
While the official record for modern civilization is that agriculture began about 10 thousand years ago, this date is continually being pushed back with places like Gobekli Tepe at 11, 800 years ago and ruins around the world now showing ages of 35 thousand years or more! What seems intriguing is that these really ancient ruins were NOT built defensively, and that the populations that inhabited them came from large areas and travelled widely. For instance, relatively new Stonehenge in the UK is now thought to have been attended by people from all over the UK and western Europe. It would seem that they lived peacefully and travelled and traded widely. There is no evidence of war or widespread violence. Whether they had a ruling hierarchy we may never know – I suspect they didn’t since I believe it was the hierarchical revolution that created the modern violent world we consider normal (see earlier link for more explanation).
From the four categories, I conclude that the optimists among us look for positive outcomes. The Pessimists worry about change, but calm down when shown better options. The trusty ones believe that the wise ones know best, and the envious ones love to see innovation and new ways of doing things. Evidence of out inherent goodness abounds when we look at the self-sacrifice and acts of heroism everywhere during strife and catastrophes. There is a wonderful line from the film ‘Starman (1984)’ when the alien says, “Shall I tell you what I find beautiful about humans? You are at your very best when things are worst.” I agree, and the fact we can exhibit so much ‘humanity’ in the face of the most negative conditions says to me that this is the underlying part of us that yearns to be expressed, not suppressed. About 6000 years ago, part of that un-categorizable 10% began to exploit us with endless threats in order to control us, and continue to do so to this day.
In closing todays post, Australian Biologist Jeremy Griffith, has a novel idea that our recently acquired moral conscience (think about the creative spark) puts us at odds with our instinctive nature. He claims that this created a kind of cognitive dissonance that resulted in a species psychosis in which we human consciousness is separated from the sense of the divine. If we accepted that we had a psychosis, then we could ‘cure’ ourselves by understanding our true nurturing and peaceful nature, and turn away from the stress induced defensive behaviors that plague us as a species at this time.
Whether Griffith is correct, or it is some form of what I have claimed from human nature, I believe that we are a species that thrives when we live from altruistic Selflessness and not from base animal instincts triggered by conditioned threats perpetuated by a socio-psychopathic many millennia old hierarchy.
After the first and second world wars, nearly everyone said “Never again.” And then look what happened. Our leaders and politicians conjured up more excuses to go to war or induce us to violence – it is a political tool of the hierarchy, nothing less. They keep us in a state of heightened anxiety and then they create reasons they use to get us to unconsciously react to stressful conditions that nearly always are found to be fabricated threats. False Flags are a political tool to generate negative emotional reactions in a population to support hierarchical policies that could never occur otherwise. I have written about this several times within this blog (e.g., see links 1 and 2). Until we wake up and recognize this manipulation and propaganda, we will not be able to heal ourselves and the planet. Now is the time to listen to our ‘Better Angels’ and be the nurturing, compassionate species we truly are.
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