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The REAL Human Condition
By L. Reichard White August 29, 2011 You aren't the way they told you you are. --John Runde While material existence for most of us in the modern world may be different from that of our tribal ancestors, our most basic emotional and social nature isn't different. We still have two arms, two legs, and just like our small-group ancestors, the same genetically specified emotional tools and predispositions as well. It's like this, "Our ancestors spent well over 99 percent of our species' evolutionary history living ...in small, nomadic bands of a few dozen individuals who got all of their food each day by gathering plants or by hunting animals. ... Generation after generation, for 10 million years, natural selection slowly sculpted the human brain, favoring circuitry that was good at solving the day-to-day problems of our hunter-gatherer ancestors ... Those whose circuits were better designed for solving these problems left more children, and we are descended from them." --Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, Primer on Evolutionary Psychology "...about 10,000 years ago we invented agriculture and underwent the most dramatic of all changes to our lifestyle. From semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers, we settled down to a life of farming that led to a dramatic expansion of the population and the establishment of cities and organised religion and culture. "Depressed? Of course we're all depressed. We've been so quickly, violently, and irreconcilably plucked from nature, from physical labor, from kinship and village mentality, from every natural and primordial anti-depressant. The further society 'progresses,' the grander the scale of imbalance." --M. Robin D'Antan You can find this development and more in "The HI-JACKING of Civilization," Preface But how can we deal with this? Here's a suggestion - - - "I must try to live in society and yet remain untouched by its pitfalls." --Mohandas Karamchand (Mahatma) Gandhi But following Gandhi's prescription isn't easy -- and it's getting harder and harder as we follow the chimera of hierarchical "leadership" further and further down the garden path. Why do I suggest "hierarchy" as the major problem? Because it is probably the most unnatural -- and largely unnecessary -- not to mention "all eggs in one basket" dangerous artifact of the evolution of modern society. Here are a few of the symptoms of the hierarchist artifact that has been inflicted upon us: According to a CDC report, at least 48% of Americans use at least one prescription drug a month. Prescriptions for anti-depressants are the largest catagory. Other sources reveal that at least one in four Americans will have a major depressive episode and that use of anti-depressants is rising faster than any other prescription drug use. And, ironically, one of their side-effects is suicide. And there are the non-prescription substances often used as anti-depressants -- from cocaine and speed through nicotine, alcohol, and caffeine. And then we have these - - - CHICAGO (AP) - To you, that angry, horn-blasting tailgater is suffering from road rage. But doctors have another name for it - intermittent explosive disorder - "People think it's bad behavior and that you just need an attitude adjustment, but what they don't know ... is that there's a biology and cognitive science to this," said Dr. Emil Coccaro, chairman of psychiatry at the University of Chicago's medical school... THE rapid spread of Western business practices in Japan has caused widespread mental illness and is responsible for a deepening demographic crisis, government officials say. But what's that have to do with government and hierarchy? Here's a clue. ... In the spring of 1986 the United States and Thai governments jointly comissioned a study of four villages in northeastern Thailand. ...The two allied governments wanted to know, to use a cliche of the day, whether they were winning any "hearts and minds" in the countryside ...It was in one of these four villages in particular that he [Charles Murray] expected ...that the interviewees would tell him much about the projects initiated by a certain young and enthusiastic Thai official -- who had given these villagers a new fish pond, a school building, a health clinic, etc. -- who had made of this place "the pride of the Mukdahan district." ...Villagers would talk at length about the way this official had changed the life of their community. Their discussion would be "spontaneous and subtle and deeply felt ... The energetic and engaging young official had taken over ... and in so doing had supplanted the mechanisms by which the villagers ran their village and pursued their lives. The villagers said plainly and without qualification that the life in this model village had gotten worse, not better." --"Real Gold, Fool's Gold and Charles Murray" by Benjamin J. Constant, The Pragmatist, Feb. 1994, p.1 London, Nov 20: Young people in developing nations are at least twice as likely to feel happy about their lives than their richer counterparts --Young people in developed countries unhappy: survey Maybe our founding fathers were on to something - - - Happiness is more generally and equally diffus'd among Savages than in civilized societies. No European who has tasted savage life can afterwards bear to live in our societies. --Benjamin Franklin, 1770 [1] 8 A NEW CHAPTER, Images of native America in the writings of Franklin, Jefferson, and Paine Mary Rowlandson was taken captive [by "indians"]...There were a number of women captives who either defended themselves, negotiated, or, extraordinarily, about a third of female captives actually chose to stay with their Indian captors, preferred the Indian life. --Author and Social Critic Susan Faludi on "The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America", Democracy NOW!, Thursday, October 4th, 2007 I am convinced that those societies (as the Indians) which live without government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under the European governments. Among the former, public opinion is in the place of law, & restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did anywhere. Among the latter, under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves & sheep. I do not exaggerate. --Thomas Jefferson Notes:
[1] "Benjamin Franklin's Marginalia,
1770,"
in Labaree, ed., Franklin Papers, Vol. 17, p. 381.
L. Reichard White specializes in games theory and self-motivation in enterprises with uncertain outcomes. He has supported his writing habit for over 30 years by beating casinos at their own games. You can find other dubious results from that noxious habit on his website at NEXIALIST NEWS, his blogs (Serious SoundBytes, COMMON SENSE, UNCOMMON SENSE), and check-out Hierarchy and Leadership? Not In MY Group You Don't! -- a key chapter from his latest project, "The HI-JACKING of Civilization" -- which has almost nothing at all to do with 9-11. You can find links to some of his other articles here Your comments and feedback are welcome! Now PoL
has its own forum at The Mental Militia!
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Archives Immigration Solved: Short & Sweet The Silly Truth About NSA Spying: Short & Sweet The Handschu Scam:Short & Sweet A Little Temporary Safety - Short and Sweet The Who's Who of Gratuitous Torture Who's Cele Castillo -- and Why Should You Care? The Securitized Housing Investment Trust Has Hit the Fan Complete archives for L. R. White
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