I think the social evolution of humanity is retarded, not because of inherent 'human nature', because human nature is every way people can be, but because we made a terrible mistake long ago, back at the beginning of the agricultural revolution. The society we live in which has those characteristics you describe came from the division of the world into 'hunter' tribes and 'agricultural' tribes, the hunter tribes following a social paradigm based upon 'winning and losing', male dominance, and 'ownership of nature'.
The agricultural tribes were based upon 'unity and cooperation', equality, and symbiosis with nature. The struggle for consciousness in the world is still pretty much defined by these social determinants, with the whole 'economics/military/nation-turfs' orientation on large scales and 'individuality/property/competition' on individual scales coming from the hunter tribe paradigm.
The agricultural paradigm fits nature more, and provides more real wealth in terms of basics of survival, while the hunter paradigm is mostly so ego diseased, it produces far more psychopaths and destroys nature. While the sane agricultural paradigm is making headway due to science discovering the harm the other paradigm causes, the hunter paradigm holds tight to the illogic of the military and economics, which remains in power worldwide, causing massive harm to the world and to humanity.
I'm not specifically talking about farming people or farming society in the here and now... because the overall social dynamic contains both paradigms, and both are active, with the female population tending to think in the agricultural paradigm and the men thinking in the hunter paradigm. Although science has shown overwhelmingly that the cooperation of species theory provides survival for most of the planet's lifeforms, the idea that competition of species is the evolutionary dynamic is still the dominant concept among most of the planet's population.
Also, the academic subculture is almost completely hunter paradigm dominated, although within academia itself, it is not the prevailing dynamic. The result is that what is taught in schools is institutionalized obedience to academia and the hunter paradigm. This is especially apparent in terms of school taught versions of the history and justification of 'economics' which still teaches that money came from the need for a common trade symbol system.
The ancient mistake that caused this insane social dynamic is the use of violence to enslave humanity in the name of psychopathic selfishness, which led to 'godkings' and the entrenchment of slave control systems like money, organized religion, politics, and the military.
It is important to realize that regardless of what people say or think, they basically follow the agricultural paradigm moment to moment in their daily lives, even while cooperating in the economic and military systems. If economics and the military were the acting paradigm in everyone's lives, we would have nothing but chaos, violence in the streets, torture, and bloodletting everywhere and Humanity would have died out long ago. But the fact is, most people are willingly peaceful, cooperative, and non-selfish most of the time, working together to create a better world for at least them and their families and often giving to larger scale efforts.
The hunter paradigm explains this cooperation of humanity in survival as a product of fear, known as 'the law', and backed by violence and torture. Actually, human survival comes from the cooperation of humanity as a natural response, not as something forced.
Peace and Good Health
Roan
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Probability to survive
ReplyDeleteRoan, you said you see no reason why Humanity shouldn't survive until the Universe becomes cold and dark. I’ll try to present some such reasons.
Let me begin from your thought: “Species that become too specialized do not tend to survive major changes. Adaptive flexibility seems a requirement for survival”. There is big true in it. However this true, being apprehended conformably to the human species, appears to be able to blow up your sureness.
Note: the human civilization had been creating in several millennia; then problem of survival was standing only for individuals, not for whole human race. But in XX century, at first in the human history, it appeared that the civilization survival problem, as Earth, after S.Lec, got "point under question sign", at that "the sign" was increasing, even if because of so called overkill - "possibility" disposed to completely exterminate life with tenth or even hundredth quotas of warheads available. There is even a gloomy joke: "Optimists and pessimists distinguish themselves by the dates of a doomsday only". It means - if we want to defend what had been created thousands of years we should save it from self-extermination in during of some decades, because we have scarcely more time to undertake something, until global catastrophes (predicted!) will come.
(I stand here on the point that destruction, as a result of a thoughtlessness, of low abilities to foresee, may be considered as partial case of self-destruction and self-extermination).
My idea: there is common cause for all our misfortunes, up to the hanging-over threat of collapse. It is finding inside OUR MINDS.
From the times of stone ages, the selection by the reason had been overwhelmed with more significant selection by aggressiveness, physical force and sexual attractiveness. Really, you can see that all your main organs of feelings -- eyes, ears, nose, not excluding tongue -- are finding as near as possible to your mind. Note, that is common peculiarity with all higher animals. This peculiarity was in correlation with the necessity to minimize the time of animals’ behavior reactions what had been called out by high pressure of selection. The minimizing of behavior reactions' times pre-determined our narrow field of consciousness, having been formerly an advantage in survival, and now, under protection of the civilization, being a defect, what may be named the shortage of panoramic thinking (SPT)
It is known, aggressiveness, it is a property that had provided survival of our animal ancestors. In human societies, the aggressiveness has even bigger diversity of appearance than in the wild world. Correlatively linked with aggressiveness, SPT in any sense may be considered as well as an example of a narrow specialization as applied to the human brain. Deep-water fishes lifted up from sea depths always NOT ALIVE, give any dangerous image of the humans, being raised to civilization tops.
You are correctly set the question: “Will we manage to change our minds and thereforee our behaviour en mass before accumulated error all catches up with us?” As you I’d like to say “it will”. But I can’t.
I explain my position. Your email login, worldmind; but is it reflecting something existing?
Whole human civilization, with its culture and techno-sphere, had arisen in result of intellectual, creative activities of many generations of people, of those, who later were called intellectuals, intelligentsia. It is why just they might take now responsibility for the civilization's state and future. But they are till now not going to take. Why? Many causes: among intelligentsia one is pride being closed to the power, other - being far from it; not a few ones experience to themselves feelings of deep self-respect and because of that stay low balls for any others' initiatives. There are there leaders and outsiders, having titles/ranks and not having, not to mention usual divisions by sex, age, social stratum. There is as well the copyright creating additional obstacles while cooperating.
So, such dilemma arises: only collective mind of global scale, a World-Wide Intellectual Resource, might cope with all masse of huge problems, the problem of survival being one of them --- but “cells” of the mind, creative part of human race, is out of the affair of the biggest importance.
And I see the only possibility for WWIR to appear: after global catastrophes predicted. To foresee them, it is sufficient to know that there is a systems non-correspondence, getting all stronger, between civilization’s mighty, its sophistic construction and complexity, first information one, --- and little humans’ possibilities to govern the bulky, though if to influence on its development.
Only then the creative part of human community HAVING LOST ALIVE should fell strong call to unite to survive.
Their chance to cope would be higher if before they elaborated and launched a new education system having its main priority in “changing the minds” of inhabitants, i.e. in the overcoming our evolution-conditioned SPT, in the developing of panoramic thinking.
But very few time is remained to save in decades what had been creating in millennia. Watches are ticking…
Vladimir Tretyakov.
See more:
* Creation of the system of civilization security in the 3rd Millennium
* Institutional and strategic bankruptcy of the intelligentsia in the civilization process
* Panoramic thinking as a notion.