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 believed themselves to be more intelligent than man for precisely the same reasons. – Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Ch. 23)
Section 1: War
(Conjecture) 10
Even if the conditions necessary for life occur throughout the universe, most places would only have microbes, and intelligence like ours would only develop in unusual situations. Even so, the universe is so huge that even rare events could happen millions of times. Other intelligent life might never develop technology, or some may have progressed to the point of almost destroying themselves. A few might survive by accepting themselves and finding their Sacred Grove, yet before people reach this stage, we must rediscover a few facts about ourselves. In our temple, the fifth perspective is us.
In the book “Coming Home to the Pleistocene,” the ecologist Paul Shepard says we have the bodies, minds, and needs of foragers. Our ancestors foraged for millions of years, as natural selection shaped our bodies into those of foragers. The forager is our Nature, and what a person thinks about foragers equals what the person thinks about our Nature. The movie Croods (2013) portrays cave dwellers as crude. The portrait is not true; archaeologists found mythological symbols people made during the last Ice Age (Tattersall, 2008, ch. 6). This art shows that a lot was going on in the minds of Stone Age people. Stone Age people were not too different from us.
The sacred name of the fifth perspective is YESUO. Renaissance occultists put the S in YHVH, and they would pretend it was a Hebrew spelling for the Christian Jesus. The S is supposed to represent salvation, and since those occultists equated salvation with being progressive, for them, the S represents the progressive fixer of the world. I prefer not to think of it that way. In our temple, “Y” means conception, “E” means birth, “S” means learning, “U” Means maturity, and “O” means old age. This name contains the five stages of Life and the points of the body. Y matches the head, E matches the left arm, S matches the left leg, U matches the right Leg, and O matches the right hand. Life stands on the Earth at the middle pillar in the center of the temple, balanced between everything, and the common name for the fifth perspective of homo sapiens is Mars.
For the Roman writer Ovid, Mars is the personification of war (Fasti 3:1). Is war a necessary part of us? In the TV series “Cosmos,” Carl Sagan blames primitive parts of the brain for warfare.
“We see here a conflict between our passions and what is sometimes called our better natures; between the deep, ancient reptilian part of the brain, the R-complex, in charge of murderous rages, and the more recently evolved mammalian and human parts of the brain, the limbic system, and the cerebral cortex.” (Cosmos episode 13)
Sagan wanted to control our aggression with cultural improvements where the civilized take priority over the Primitive. Carl Sagan appears to have good intentions; however, the wrong process used to correct evil could actually intensify it. Civilized societies invent more reasons for us to kill each other when people fight over political propaganda and economic growth. The civilized writer Clausewitz thought these traditions were normal.
“War is the continuation of politics by other means.” (Clausewitz, 1832 ch.1 sec 24)
Prehistoric people most likely had politics and economics; however, civilization has enhanced these activities into artificial institutions, and civilizations invented more ways to kill than tribal war ever would (Keegan, 1993 ch. 4). Instead of each person dealing with conflict, modern civilized society outsources resistance to the military and the police. They keep citizens insulated from the killing approved by governments; therefore, civilized culture seems peaceful to the protected.
Our primate animal side is not all warlike. Research by the zoologist Frans de Waal reveals that animals exhibit empathy, fairness, and a tendency towards reconciliation. We have inherited these abilities.
“There is no sharp dividing line between human and animal emotions.” (de Waal, 2013)
We are a social species where individuals care about and support other members of their community. However, our behavior can not be easily defined. Neuroscientists have discovered intricate relationships between different brain regions (Sapolsky, 2017). Combinations of emotions adjust combinations of emotions. Humans are also heavily influenced by culture.
Nature alone did not create civilized armies. A perversion of our Nature makes people part of a team of disciplined fighting machines, and sometimes soldiers are told to put personal feelings aside. Politicians use our feelings. Even love becomes a tool used to support war when politicians tell us how the war will help our families. Our sense of loyalty is used to encourage people to fight. Consider how, in civilized societies, families do choose where to send their children to fight; the government makes that choice. Sometimes, they send your kids to fight in places far away for reasons that you might not understand.
The anthropologist Brian Ferguson claims Stone Age cultures were peaceful (Ferguson, 2018). However, the idea that foragers had plenty of wars has been reinforced by the book “The Better Angels of Our Nature” by the psychologist Steven Pinker. There are fewer wars today than a hundred years ago (Pinker, 2011). Does this evidence indicate that civilized progress has improved our lives? But what if progress originally caused those wars by disrupting culture, leading to centuries of war from which modern society is now recovering? I was unable to determine if Pinker was correct. Pinker writes about many interesting topics and could be right about a lot of stuff; however, archaeological evidence does not always tell us the whole story. Suppose researchers find the remains of someone with an arrow in their back. Pinker might assume the death was a murder. Ferguson might assume the death was a hunting accident. I also mistrust Pinker’s interpretation of statistics, which relies on small samples to derive large numbers (Ferguson, 2013).
Pinker realized that we have the potential for good and assumed that civilized changes have helped cultivate this potential goodness in people. Pinker prefers modified people’s ways over the original ones. Did domestication make us good, or do cultures become stable when our social instincts encourage peace? The improvements brought about by progressive enlightenment would never have been accepted if people lacked a mechanism to motivate our species to adopt those changes. A species without this mechanism would not find these changes enlightened in the same way as Earthlings do. The Animals that live inside us create peaceful societies.
In the late twentieth century, the wealthier nations stopped fighting each other; potentially, the world will unite into a Global Nation (Talbott, 1992). For Pinker, reason, science, and humanism improved our lives. Of course, modern science has done a better job of revealing the universe than any other method. Warfare continues when civilized governments wage war against their citizens as they try to control us. Consequently, peace will never come from this civilized order if the future ends up with a police baton forever beating us into submission. Modern technology has surpassed anything our ancestors could have achieved, but is this prison our only option?
Section 2: Lies
(Conjecture) 7
A few centuries ago, explorers brought back stories about human sacrifice. The English Captain James Cook recorded one in Tahiti (Journal, 1777). You might assume that such behavior was typical of uncivilized people, and Cook’s story has some details that we should consider. An organized priesthood performed the ritual; it was done as preparation for war, and the king approved of the sacrifice. These are features of a civilized society. There must have been Tahitians who opposed the sacrifice and were not allowed to stop it. But then, the whole story could be fiction.
Stories one culture says about another tend to be inaccurate. The Protestant English settlers in North America mistook ceremonies among the Native Americans for the sacrifices of people and thought the Native Americans worshiped a Devil called Okee (Smith, 1624 bk. 2). Rather than trying to understand Native American religion, the settlers invented stories. These settlers were not the only ones inventing stories.
Before the development of anthropology, the information scholars had about tribal societies came from rumors invented by missionaries and prospectors who wanted to exploit fresh opportunities. Unfortunately, even the educated believed these stories. An Englishman named James George Frazer collected these rumors in a book called “The Golden Bough.” Though the book mostly tells stories about farmers, not foragers, readers easily mistake the stories as typical of all uncivilized tribes. Frazer thought primitive people believed killing would make the crops grow, and then Frazer interpreted agricultural stories about rebirth as evidence of people being sacrificed (Frazer, 1926 ch. 47). These stories portray the loving care a farmer gives to their job.
Frazer wrote stories about a king getting replaced (Frazer, 1926 ch. 24) and assumed the new king killed and ate the old king. The idea of peaceful retirement seldom occurs to Frazer, who sees a sacrifice in almost every myth. Frazer assumes that primitive tribes live in fear of the terrible wilderness, and, ignorant of how to rectify this situation, the tribes resort to magic. These ideas led Sigmund Freud to assume civilized behavior saves you from the misery produced by the savage hidden in your mind. Freud’s writing influenced popular culture’s view of foreign tribes. Unfortunately, the image of a bloodthirsty primitive culture supported a stereotype in which all primitive tribes acted like the natives in the movie King Kong (1933).
For Frasier, refined civilization produced religion, whereas magic was an ignorant superstition of primitive minds (Frazer, 1926 ch. 4). Before Frasier, the philosopher Auguste Comte preached how civilized progress replaced superstition (Mill, 1865). A change may have occurred when civilized people became more detached from Nature, but this change was not necessarily for the better. A civilized person fears the jungle, whereas people living all their lives in it feel at home. Fear prompts us to construct stories that reinforce fear; misinformation is combined with errors, resulting in even greater errors.
The Golden Bough makes primitive cultures seem cruel, although even if most of these reports are incorrect, a few could be true or partially true, as a writer may give a sinister tone to something harmless. Question how often anyone practices these cruel practices or how closely people follow the tradition. Rebels or reformers may reject the tradition. Stories about evil acts might have been invented to show the evil of performing such acts. Take, for example, stories about violence in our own culture. Someone who watches our TV shows and knows nothing else about us might come to some very strange conclusions about our culture, especially if that person thought we were violent and cruel before watching the TV shows.
Frazer thought primitive people had a limited point of view. Frazer did not know that thinkers in foraging cultures are equal to the greatest thinkers of civilization. After reading Frazer’s silly book, I read the words of a Native American called Black Elk, who talks about a circle of people. These ideas made just as much sense as what I had heard a Christian preacher say. Black Elk was a Thunder Dreamer who observed the Morning Star. This puritanical idealist fit into civilization by working as a deacon in the Catholic Church (DeMallie 1984, pt. 1). Nevertheless, Black Elk still had a strong vision of the connection with the land and wanted to be a helper of the people, which is what a holy person should be.
Section 3: More Lies
(Conjecture) 8
According to the poet Schiller, people only know animal impulses without civilized refinement.
“The savage despises Art and recognizes Nature as his sovereign mistress;” (Schiller, 1794 Letter 4)
Such talk will give the impression that good art only happens in civilization. Of course, artists use time and effort to refine their work; however, we should not equate this refinement with civilization since all cultures produce artists. I must admit that German music in Schiller’s time was beyond anything any other culture ever made.
Edith Hamilton, the author of the famous book “Mythology,” says that primitive cultures never had lovely visions and then claims that the Greeks had risen above the primal slime. The Greeks in Homer’s stories love to rape, steal, and murder, and in real life, Greek raiders took other people’s property. Edith Hamilton came from a culture that also took other people’s property. Such beautiful people ignore their own ugliness, while a feeling of superiority lets them destroy cultures without considering how the thoughts in other cultures also have value.
The colonial British government wanted Native American land, so they paid money for Native American scalps (Nies, 1996 ch. VI). Such civilized programs exterminated thousands of cultures all over the world in the name of progress, leaving the colonized nations full of poverty and disease. The English had company in their attempt to take over the world; their primary competitor was Spain. The Spanish historian Bernal Diaz would accuse Spain’s targets of sacrificing people (Diaz, 1568). The Spanish made the Aztecs look bad after conquering Mexico and destroying the native literature. Only the conqueror’s ideas survive once a culture’s history has been erased. The Aztecs might not have been bad.
Consider how Ancient Greek technology seems primitive compared to our modern gadgets, yet scholars still seek answers in ancient Greek philosophy books. Although the best philosophy books from India, Greece, and China were written not long after 700 BC, the ideas contained in these books were discussed long before they were committed to writing. In the book “Tristes Tropiques,” the anthropologist Levi-Strauss noticed that tribes in the Amazon jungle used various symbols.
“they are moved by a need or a desire to understand the world around them, its nature and their society.” (Levi-Strauss, 1978 ch. 2)
The desire to understand the world motivates thinkers in all cultures. Joseph Campbell collected meaningful stories from all over the world. Therefore, we should not be surprised if even rationalists, skeptics, and progressives lived in prehistoric societies. A religious expert from 30,000 BC would resemble a religious scholar today, and an atheist from 30,000 BC would have the same doubts as atheists today.
Do not assume the brain got bigger after the invention of civilization. Our ancestors’ brains were about the same size as ours. Homo sapiens have had large brains for over 100,000 years (Tattersall, 2008 ch. 6), while modern civilization has been around for less than 12,000 years. Species related to homo sapiens, such as Neanderthals and Heidelbergensis, also had large brains.
Civilized scholars employed modern educational methods to become specialized in a limited range of knowledge. Meanwhile, the forager lifestyle requires much more use of the mind than a civilized lifestyle, and people living in the wilderness develop an intricate understanding of their land (Diamond 1997 p. 21). High intelligence becomes unnecessary in a civilization where services are provided for you and where your brain can become permanently damaged. At the same time, technology keeps you alive, even allowing you to reproduce. Domesticated animals lack the skills of their wild ancestors. Consider how domestication transformed a wolf into the little, nervous dogs that constantly shake. Our descendants will eventually become dumber (Crabtree, 2012).
The idea that civilized people are superior to primitive people has led to misunderstandings, and the ignorance of our origins has allowed civilized writers to invent a cruel image of people in nature, where primitive people struggle to survive. Such a harsh assumption makes civilization seem necessary. An essay called “The Original Affluent Society,” written by Marshall Sahlins, refutes this belief by claiming hunters enjoy more leisure than people in industrial societies. One of the main sources Sahlins used was the researcher Richard Borshay Lee, who portrayed the San in the Kalahari (Lee, 1979); however, Lee mentions how the San got stuff by working with agricultural cultures (Kelly, 2013 ch. 1); therefore, the San might not be a reliable example of foragers.
Section 4: Anthropology
(Conjecture) 10
Societies that depend on crops, animals, and machines have taken over the world. Reliable information about foraging people would help us understand how everyone lived before the advent of agriculture. Unfortunately, stories about foragers might not be reliable because no living society is the same as our foraging ancestors. The ancestors of the Inuit were foragers; however, they used advanced hunting tools and sophisticated boats that, to my knowledge, did not exist twenty thousand years ago. Inuit should be classified as technologically advanced. African Kalahari people have been forced to live in deserts where few people can live. This gave anthropologists the impression that foragers lived in small groups. Thousands of years ago, foragers lived in places that could support larger societies.
Back in anthropology class, the students were shown movies about foraging cultures. These cultures include the African San, Aboriginal Australians, and Inuit. These movies were pieced together using actors to portray how anthropologists thought foragers would act. Karl Heider writes about the makers of ethnographic films taking artistic license.
“Rather, they would take a selection of data and interpret these data in a particularly enlightening and convincing manner. The truth perhaps, but certainly not the whole truth.” (Heider, 2009)
Did that author call lies enlightened? Whenever anyone tries to understand people, there are all kinds of unknown variables, and we tend to fill these variables with what we believe. Sometimes, field researchers pay informants, and the Native American writer Charles Eastman observed how informants learn to profit by inventing stories that the scholar expects to hear.
“Give a reservation Indian a present, and he will possibly provide you with sacred songs, a mythology, and folk-lore to order!” (Eastman, 1911 xii)
I am not saying all stories are fake. To understand foraging cultures, we should use information published by reputable academic institutions while remaining skeptical. Even the best scholars interpret what people do using other people’s interpretations. Ideas about people often turn out to be more imaginative than truth.
Over a century ago, the scholar Auguste Comte thought people progressed from primitive thought to more advanced consciousness. Such scholars supported their speculation with words such as fetish, fertility, and taboo. Since people tend to study these words rather than cultures, a scholarly tradition of assumptions has led to some strange hypotheses. For instance, the psychologist Carl Jung believed that myths originated from archetypes in the unconscious mind (Jung, 1964). This archetype model would explain why all cultures seem to share similar stories; however, we should consider the possibility that scholars have found myths to fit this model by ignoring parts of stories that do not fit. Archetypes only exist in the minds of scholars, and the stories seem the same because the people collecting the stories all came from the same culture and all shared a similar perspective.
The anthropologist’s personal feelings may influence how they describe the cultures they study. Colin Turnbull wrote a book depicting happy Forest People after one of the Forest People, named Kenge, made Turnbull happy. Turnbull also wrote another book portraying the Ik as miserable after becoming frustrated with the Ik. Turnbull did not see kindness in them. In contrast, a documentary called “Ikland” (2011) shows how the Ik are not the monsters Turnbull portrayed. Never consider one person’s observation valid unless the observations are tested multiple times by more than one person.
We should learn about other cultures by listening to what members of those cultures say in their own words. In a famous speech, the Native American Chief Seattle felt such a strong bond with the land that losing a part of it was akin to losing a relative. Unfortunately, the speech is a forgery (Anderson, 1991), and we will never know how the real Seattle felt. The fake speech reinforces the stereotype that all Native Americans love the Earth. I learned the stereotype was false while visiting a Native American reservation where some residents had different opinions about the Earth.
The sources of information also tell stories from their point of view. Margaret Mead collected information from a few young girls and then used this information to support the claim that the Samoans were more easygoing than Western culture.
“The girls’ minds were perplexed by no conflicts, troubled by no philosophical queries, beset by no remote ambitions.” (Mead, 1928)
Contradicting Mead, Derek Freeman collected information from older people who considered themselves guardians of tradition, and these elders led Freeman to believe that the Samoans had a rigid culture with numerous rules (Freeman, 1983). After Margaret Mead had died, a lady named Fa’apua’a Fa’amu claimed to be one of the girls Mead used, and in the video “Margaret Mead and Samoa” (1988), Fa’apua’a Fa’amu said the girls misled Mead. I do not think the girl lied to Mead since our opinions of ourselves tend to change when we get older. The person said what seemed true to a kid and later said what seemed true to an older person. Mead made the mistake of assuming the Samoans were different from our culture. You can get similar stories from young girls in any culture. In society, each person is part of more than one process; people feel more than one way, and anything an individual says only tells part of the story. People also exaggerate when telling stories.
Information about some cultures was lost because the people realized they had to keep secrets. Conquerors will kill people for following harmless traditions. For example, the Spanish Conquistadors used dogs to kill men who dressed femininely.
“Vasco discovered that the village of Quarequa was stained by the foulest vice. The king’s brother and a number of other courtiers were dressed as women, and according to the accounts of the neighbours shared the same passion. Vasco ordered forty of them to be torn to pieces by dogs.” (D’Anghera, 1530)
Unfortunately, almost every culture in the world was absorbed or destroyed by the larger world culture before 1890, so now people have to read books to learn about their ancestors. Few books stand out as good sources of information about what life in a tribal society was like before assimilation. One such book about a Native American is called “Lame Deer, Seeker of Vision.” Notably, Lame Deer’s book contains an insightful comparison of cultures, where Lame Deer discusses Western culture from the perspective of someone familiar with older traditional ways. Lame Deer also gave one of the best explanations for visions in all religious literature.
I visited different cultures with a wide variety of opinions; both religious and atheists live in the same town; conservatives and liberals live in the same neighborhood; philosophers and dimwits are found in the same family, so why assume Foragers were any different? Perhaps foragers were everyday people with traditions similar to anyone else. When a group portrays their ancestors, such as how the Inuktitut show them in the movie “The Fast Runner” (2001), we see people behaving similarly to people in other cultures. Cultural differences are minor compared to similarities.
Section 5: The Messiah
(Conjecture) e 8
Sometimes, tribal cultures are blamed for the wrongs that civilization has committed. For instance, my relatives thought that the Native Americans killed off the buffalo. They were never told about the special relationship Native Americans had with the bison and other life forms.
“It is the story of all life that is holy and is good to tell, and of us two-leggeds sharing in it with the four-leggeds and the wings of the air and all green things; for these are children of one mother and their father is one Spirit.” (Neihardt, 1932 ch. 1)
This relationship lasted for thousands of years before Europeans came along and converted the wild grazing land to farmland, causing the bison’s decline (Nies, 1996 ch. VII). My relatives want to believe that what they do is better than what other people do. Perhaps all tribes have people who feel that way. The ancient Jews considered themselves the Chosen People, who were obligated to obey the laws God gave to Moses.
“And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.” (Genesis 17:7)
When people think of themselves as better than other people, they also like to think of someone else as worse. In Jewish holy books, the Canaanites were accused of burning children in sacrifice to Moloch (Leviticus 18:21). Archeologists found Canaanite writing at Ugarit (Coogan, 2012), and these show the Canaanites were ordinary people. Perhaps the Canaanites never burned children to Moloch, and the Jews were never the Chosen.
The Babylonians conquered the ancestors of the Jews (2 Kings 25). People were taken from their homeland. Later, the Persians allowed displaced people to settle in Judea. These settlers attempted to revive the laws of Moses (Ezra 3) and reconstruct what they believed to be the old ways. Bible passages describe how, before the conquest, the people forgot the deal they had with God and started worshiping idols.
“So I went in and looked, and I saw portrayed all over the walls all kinds of crawling things and unclean animals and all the idols of Israel.” (Ezekiel 8:10)
Stories developed that said God punished people for not being faithful to the old laws.
“Son of man, when the land sinneth against me by trespassing grievously, then will I stretch out mine hand upon it, and will break the staff of the bread thereof, and will send famine upon it, and will cut off man and beast from it:” (Ezekiel 14:13)
Another story emerged, in which the Messiah would restore the Jewish kingdom for those faithful to the old laws.
“And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.” (Daniel 7:14)
The settlers were rebuilding old ways that might have never existed. The ancestors of the Jews might not have been different from other Canaanites. Whatever the case, the settlers established a religion that would endure for centuries and have a profound impact on history. Thousands of years later, orthodox Jews still wait for the Messiah. Christians claim the Messiah came to Earth, founded the church, and then died to save us. Christians claim Jesus will one day return, and to get salvation, you must find faith in Jesus.
“For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.” (John 3:17)
Since the Jesus story first gained popularity when Rome manipulated other nations, consider the possibility that the Christian idea of salvation emerged as a response to the need to escape the horrors that civilization inflicts. Stories about savors come about when governments are cruel to people, and a feeling of hopelessness motivates them to look for hope. Unfortunately, when the oppressed forget how to build a kinder society, the oppressed enforce cruel religious laws. This happened recently in the Middle East when, after years of war and torture by ruthless dictators, a bunch of angry young men set up the Islamic State, and these terrorists think the messiah Mahdi will help them spread Sharia law around the world (Wood, 2015). Cruelty begets more cruelty, which also explains what happened in Germany after World War I. It might also explain the hostile activities of Black Lives Matter. The results of resenting are never good when the oppressed become the privileged.
We need better ideas than the angry outbursts of disgruntled victims. I searched the world literature, and privileged people have good ideas. Thomas Jefferson is one of my favorites. Jefferson founded the United States, and Muhammad founded Islam; both attempted to build what they believed to be a better world. Though both owned enslaved people, Jefferson knew slavery would be abolished someday, for Jefferson was an educated gentleman who saw beyond one’s time, knowing later generations would improve all plans. Jefferson’s beliefs were written in stone on a wall in the Jefferson Memorial.
“As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times.” (Jefferson, 1816)
Muhammad did not see beyond tribal traditions and assumed that the ways of one tribe were the only right ways, which would never change.
“(This was Our) way with the apostles We sent before thee: thou wilt find no change in Our ways.” (Qur’an 17:77)
Plus, Muhammad claimed to be the last prophet.
“Muhammad is not the father of any of your men, but (he is) the Messenger of Allah, and the Seal of the Prophets: and Allah has full knowledge of all things.” (Qur’an 33:40)
Which direction will Earthlings go in the future? Will we boldly go where no one has gone before, or will we submit and stagnate in religious fundamentalism? There is no last prophet, and we will continue to produce visionaries.
Section 6: Now what?
10
Of course, not all anthropological reports are incorrect, and an outsider could conduct sufficient research to understand a culture better than its members. Most likely, there are a few good books somewhere, though I cannot tell when ones are right, and using unreliable information to support opinions would be dishonest. I am unable to determine whether our species naturally engages in war or if war is an abnormal behavior for people.
Foragers in places such as Australia and the Andaman Islands experienced extreme cultural disruption once outsiders entered their territories. Thousands of people died. I assume that something about their way of life did not fit the modern world; however, there seems to be no clear explanation of what these people needed. The fact that we do not understand people who live the way all humans once lived means that we do not understand humans.
Just from reading books about my own culture, I have learned that the unpredictability of human behavior means contradictory viewpoints can both have some truth. However, these conflicting viewpoints would be more reliable if they were supported by credible evidence. You will discover yourself wrong in physics and biology if your predictions do not fit observations. Unfortunately, observations of people during their first encounter with modern civilization are not reliable. Whoever recorded the first contact was probably not the first civilized person the tribe ever saw. A friendly tribe will have changed after a group of invaders killed and raped their families. We will never know how aggressive or peaceful they originally were. A wide variety of other factors may have changed their culture.
Even though reliable information about people is hard to find, progressives still talk about people as if they are evil and need to be domesticated. The term toxic masculinity is used to blame various forms of masculine behavior for a wide variety of problems. For example, a complainer can claim that men using harsh language exclude feminine people. This complaint does not represent the views of all women. Some ladies like harsh language.
People without evidence tend to become demanding and pushy. They can become so confident in their ideas that they want to apply social engineering to force people to be what they want. The American Psychological Association guidelines give the impression that masculine roles infect people who need saving from themselves (APA, 2018). I do not know if the research cited by the guidelines shows that traditional masculine roles are harmful. I suspect the guidelines were written by people who are scared and say whatever aggressive social reformers tell them to say.
Masculine people are happy being masculine, and people living with masculine people are also happy. I understand that society needs masculine behavior. I do not want people to fear male behavior until they ask authorities to restrict our behavior. This will have horrible consequences for future generations if we end up in a society where people are not allowed to be people. Should we choose the enforced safety of civilization or the freedom of the wilderness? Before we answer that question, we should at least try to understand our species. Misinformation will put us in places where we do not belong.
Beware of policies that promise safety because restrictions you set up to restrict the other guy will one day limit you. Consider how laws get used in ways the creators never intended. Tyrants do not build tyrannies from scratch; tyrants use existing laws. The economist Friedrich Hayek argued that socialism can lead to tyranny.
“We shall never prevent the abuse of power if we are not prepared to limit power in a way which occasionally may prevent its use for desirable purposes.” (Hayek 1944)
Sadly, so much of our thinking is influenced by fear of people. The fearful tend to ignore examples that do not align with their beliefs and only see what confirms their fears. The mistake of our utopian fantasies seemed like good intentions as we created restrictions that became building blocks of our prison.
You have probably never seen a rabid dog attack. You can knock it back, and it will keep attacking. Our culture has become a prison of fear. We will continue to attack one another if we do not find a better way to understand each other. I do not think we will ever understand people until we see them in their natural environment. We do not need all the gadgets civilization has given us. These devices have become an unnatural cage. There must be some way to downsize civilization and find a way of life that is closer to how humans are biologically fit to live. Only then will we see people grow into the individuals they are meant to be.
We, the civilized, live an artificial life. Is it life? Are we even human, or are we just ghosts of our primate ancestors? A tiny population on the Andaman Islands is the last to live like our primal ancestors. Are they the last of us?
Do you think that future minds will feel the same way you do? In the future, cyberarcheologists will examine the electronic messages that our culture has left behind, and I have no idea how the future will perceive us. Those living in the future will be the victims of the mistakes of the past. What we consider our best ideas could lead to disasters that we are not yet aware of. And these disasters are more likely to occur if we build a future on misinformation. Pinker and Sagan wanted us to make a better world. Will people in the future prefer that we follow Pinker’s advice, or would they prefer that we choose a different path? Perhaps we need to go back to an older way of doing things.
Next Page Chapter 6
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