[Cross-posted at MLW and Street Prophets]
The following essay springs from a reading of Ishmael, a Turner Tomorrow Fellowship winner by author Daniel Quinn. Our society has been dealt a blow the past 5 years under the rule of those who don't appreciate science, don't concern themselves with protecting the commons, don't care to improve everyone's lot - only their own.
These musings on evolution, the selfish and short-sighted `taker' attitude of our present culture, our incessant environmental degradation and resource depletion, and the limitations of civilization as we know it are my personal answer to all that the Right has to say about these matters.
This should not be read as a statement against the idea of God, or the existence of a higher power. It is not meant to be a statement against human beings. It's about our thought processes, our choices, and the problems that have sprung from them.
A more hopeful companion piece will arrive from me in the coming days, offering up a glimpse of a new approaching era -- what author Daniel Quinn calls The New Renaissance.
cap'tive: n. one taken prisoner, kept in bondage; a. taken, imprisoned cap'tivate: v.t. fascinate
We are captives.
That's what we civilized Homo sapiens have become.
We are captive to this idea - this mythology - that our existence as a species is somehow exceptional and unique to Earth; our presence on this planet, Mother Culture continually whispers in our ear, is an event of such magnitude and consequence that nothing else holds a candle to it. We are the reason for life itself. If not for us, there would be no need for the sky to exist, the rain to fall, the earth to rotate. It's all for us, and only us, to do with as we please.
We are the Takers.
Our creation myths, though they may differ from one group to another, continually reinforce this value system absolving us from any guilt or responsibility we should have over what we do to ourselves and every other living thing around us. In contrast to the Takers, the Leavers (i.e. indigenous cultures), generally seem to understand that the Taker way of thinking and behaving is in direct contrast with the natural laws every other species populating Earth must live by in order to survive. Unfortunately, the Takers have nearly eradicated the Leaver societies from the planet; Takers don't dare have them around, showing them up.
Boy, do we Takers think we're just the neatest things to ever have happened to this place! We've cleaned house and finally eradicated the chaos of that lowly Leaver way of life. We've apparently improved upon and tamed the imperfect wild world the Gods had ineptly created and left behind for us.
Takers shudder to think what the state of the world would be absent their efforts to remake it.
When Charles Darwin published his On the Origin of Species in 1859 he, standing on the shoulders of many before him, set into motion a new way of thinking about human evolution. Just as Copernicus (and Galileo) knocked the legs right out from under the notion that human beings are at the center of the universe, Darwin's idea of biological evolution revolutionized man's time perspective - overpoweringly upsetting the significance of human life.
The idea that some great Creator, with much fanfare and forethought, was not directly responsible for our presence on Earth greatly decreases the human being's importance in the natural world around him - subjecting him to its laws and not the other way around.
Consider this: if humans aren't a member of the animal kingdom evolving side-by-side with other animals, then what can explain the ability we have to increase the knowledge of our own species through the comparative study of others found amongst us?
Of course, understanding this carries with it the realization that all species share a common bond and possess an intrinsic value beyond that which can be bequeathed to it by humans. It takes away the power that so many of us believe we have been divinely given; and it places the responsibility for the damage we do solely on us. We humans like to proclaim, at every chance given, that we are the `highest' and brightest of all life forms in existence to date - too bad we don't always act that way.
When we examine our history, we humans have evolved to possess a most remarkable set of abilities. Made possible by the increase in brain size over many millennia, our thinking abilities include reason, consciousness, and emotion. Because mammals have larger brains than either amphibians or reptiles, we have at our disposal a greater array of creative opportunities with which we can provide for and protect ourselves. But, are we too smart? Or rather, by narcissistically relying on our superior intelligence, do we think we can control and fix every mistake that we make along the way?
In Maitland A. Edey and Donald C. Johanson's book Blueprints: Solving the Mystery of Evolution, the idea of culturally rapid change (and the possibility of not evolving quickly enough to cope with its effects) is highlighted in the following passage:
Physically humans have not changed perceptibly in at least 20,000 years...culturally our development has been profound. It took early humans half a million years to progress from the use of fire to the cultivation of crops and the domestication of animals. From there it took them 10,000 years to discover and use metals, a couple thousand more to learn to read and write, and another thousand to develop explosives, a few hundred to perfect the internal combustible engine, a hundred to tame electricity, a generation to harness the atom, and a decade to put a small computer in to the hands of anybody who wanted to make in an afternoon calculations that would otherwise occupy a mathematician for a thousand years. (384)
Most people living in the developed world can easily point to the scores of contributions of Western Civilization to the human experience. From decreased infant mortality to increased longevity - and with all of the quality-of-life benefits in between (vaccinations, plumbing, contraception, etc.) - we in the developed world are living far more comfortably than any previous generation before us could have imagined. We run into problems, however, when we think we can come up with a quick fix for anything that comes our way.
Many of us walk around with the assumption that technology (i.e. the product of our intelligence) will save us from ourselves. Is this a solid reason to continue along the destructive course that we're on? Should we really be consuming and harvesting all of the available resources of the world without much consideration for the future -- or even the present? I wonder if our ever-beloved technology is moving at such a quick clip that we're unable to biologically keep up with it (make rational decisions about it). How else to explain our irrational behavior?
Ishmael points out that our present Taker culture is a "megalomaniac's fantasy...fundamentally unhealthy and unsatisfying" to its participants. How else to explain the myriad social problems that we face in our society: drug addiction, depression, excessive vanity, greed, crime, obesity to name a few? These symptoms can be directly tied to a way of life in which control and power and things are admired while living peacefully with one another - without the desire to destroy those who may want to live differently - is abhorred or looked down upon. This `winner take all' mentality feeds a human individual's fragile ego and nothing more.
Things have spiraled out of control.
The current ethics-in-business crisis and our government's culture of corruption reflect the attitude that those who don't aggressively protect their own interests become the losers left holding the empty bag -- we all know our society admires winners above all else. The Leavers' way of life - valuing the success and happiness of everyone in a community over the gains of just a few - flies smack dab in the face of the Takers' way of doing things and, therefore, must be eradicated from the face of the Earth as quickly as possible.
We don't want anyone pointing out to the masses that there may be better ways of doing things, now do we?
How often do we hear from our President, our Federal Reserve chief, or our top economists that in order for us to thrive in this country, to keep our economy alive (i.e. for us to survive), we must continue to spend, spend, and spend some more. Is that all capitalism is? We, the masses, are merely consumers and nothing else?
For centuries we've only been hearing one story -- the one that Taker Mother Culture keeps telling and reinforcing. This is the way it's always been. This is the way it's meant to be. Only recently has the Internet allowed the masses to communicate their ideas with one another on a broad scale. Until today, the ones holding all of the power, resources, and money have been telling us that the Taker way is the only way. Don't worry yourselves. This is as good as it gets. There's no other way to live. This is as good as it gets. Go out and consume -- that will keep you happy.
Maybe the Taker way wasn't as vast a problem when the world and its resources seemed infinite and eternal, when there was more than enough land for everyone to live on and more than enough clean water to hydrate everybody. However, today we're in a time of crisis. We're running out of places to dump our waste; we're using up the precious nonrenewable resources our consumer-driven way of life depends upon; we're killing off species at every turn, reducing our biodiversity on this planet.
We are slowly doing ourselves in. We are making the planet inhabitable.
Are we so willing to put our heads in the sand, as long as it doesn't directly affect us, going along as if all of the alarming environmental statistics are somehow flawed just to protect the status quo? For example, why are we not alarmed at the reality that our Taker way of life is eradicating 200 species on this planet every day?
Perhaps one reason that we don't seem to hear the alarms going off across the globe is that our way of life has us so detached from anything having to do with nature. We've succeeded in our goal to conquer it. We no longer need the skills necessary to grow our own vegetables from seed on land that we patiently cultivate. We no longer need to have the knowledge of what it takes to raise cattle for that juicy steak we'll have for this evening's dinner. With very little effort, all we have to do is waltz right up to our nearest grocery store and toss these items into our cart.
Because we today are so divorced from the steps needed to produce these items that sustain us, we not only lose our appreciation for the time and energy required to bring this food into being, but we've also lost the fundamental knowledge and valuable life lessons that come along with the process.
Yes, our generation now has access to reams of data unavailable to the wisest adult of a few generations earlier, but what does it really tell us about how smart we are as a group if we don't use that information to improve everyone's lot in life? Will knowing the answers to questions of trivia help you to fend for yourself if ever you were to be shipwrecked on a deserted island? What would happen if we no longer had the most basic of things such as electricity? [ed: We need only look at the after-effects of hurricane season to see how desperate humans will become.]
I won't go in to detail here listing all of the things that would fall apart if that were to happen, but suffice it to say, it's an illusion that our way of life creates a generation of independent people. We are astronomically dependant upon the resources that we are very rapidly using up. We will have to find a way to live one day without them, if we want to or not. Why have we not begun planning for this transition? Why, taking in the harmful effects pollution has on ourselves and our planet, aren't we running towards trying to find a solution?
Is it due to greed? Foolishness? Fear?
The key to our survival, and the survival of life of all kinds on Earth lies in its sustained and protected biodiversity. The more variety that exists here, the better chances for a continued existence for us all. The way we are living, however -- polluting our air, water, and land -- will most assuredly harm more than the 200 species per day currently moving into extinction. Eventually, if we don't begin doing things differently around here, we may find ourselves submitting to the same fate that other animals on this planet have been relegated to.
There's an old pygmy legend of a little boy who brings home a wondrous songbird from the forest. He asks his father to help to feed the bird, but his father doesn't want to waste their food on a mere bird, so he kills it. The legend goes on to say: The man killed the bird, and with the bird he killed the song, and with the song, himself.
Our destiny is calling us. Shouldn't our legacy be greater than what the Takers would have it be?