If it were within our power, beyond the reach
of slavish pride.
To no longer harbour grievances, behind the mask's opportunists facade.
We could welcome the responsibilty like a long lost friend,
and re-establish the kingdom of laughter in the doll's house once again.
For time has imprisoned us in the order of our years,
in the discipline of our ways and in the passing of momentary stillness
we can view our chaos in motion
and the subsequent collisions of fools well versed in the subtle art of slavery.
"In the Kingdom of the Blind the One-Eyed are Kings"
by Dead Can Dance
images and text by micah....
Why must our feelings exist within moral definitions & limitations to be recognized by others?
There has been much talk in the last century over the nature of our origins on this planet. Spurned of course by the writings of Charles Darwin, who argued for an ancient history of earth during which simple forms of life changed and diversified over time, this question may seem to some as the most significant issue in not only science but in our own existence.
This is largely due to the implications which evidence of either argument holds for us as a species. If we are all the product of a single act of creation several thousand years ago, then we may conclude our existence is resting within the hands of a divine creator who is perpetually and eternally conscious of our every action and thought. But if all life is proven to be the product of chaotic physical and biological events which have occurred on a planet 6 1/2 billion years old, then we are merely animals running around with oversized blips of "3 pounds of consciousness" for brains.
Predictably enough, both schools of thought frequently advocate publicly that they have obtained sufficient evidence to prove themselves correct in belief, and that the other school is false and ignorant.
I think we have something to learn from both schools, though neither seem willing to learn from one another.
Practitioners of evolutionary theory, in describing life's detailed complexity, have outlined a theory which is most clearly seen in animal behaviour studies. Researchers have long recognized the stereotyped repertoires of behavior which every individual of each animal species exhibits. For example, dogs bare their teeth and raise their hair to avoid fighting to the death, salmon swim upstream and die of exhaustion just so they can spawn, and many monkeys and apes will warn each other of danger with specific verbal warnings. In the early days, many researchers thought these existed for "the good of the species", because many of them appeared to prevent overpopulation or over-exploitation of resources (species that did the opposite no longer existed because they already went extinct). However, if such a utopian population existed, nothing could prevent selfish individuals from migrating into it and producing far more offspring over time than all the other un-selfish individuals in the group. With this in mind, it became clear that the behavior of a species exists to prevent selfishness. HOW? By making all the individuals of a species selfish. When we see a bird species with pairs who all lay roughly the same numer of eggs, it is not because a pair laying more eggs will drive the species extinct, but because they are laying as many young as each pair has the energy to feed, so as to keep up with all of the other breeding pairs who are also having as many young as possible. Evolution has often been described as "The Red Queen Hypothesis", after the queen in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, who claimed that "you have to keep running just to stay in the same place". The same goes for competition in evolution: if any species produces less than the maximum number of young which they can feed, then over time their genes will not be represented in the population. Instead, their neighbours' will!
So why do we care if the genes making up our bodies survive into the future? The fact that we subconsciously act as though we do (isn't everything anyone does actually a strive towards greater reproductive success?) leads us to conclude that we must be driven by our genes themselves, in particular by their "desire" to be represented in future generations above all other genes in the population: undoubtedly they fear going extinct! Thus, they are selfish genes. And since we are made up of them, we are in turn selfish individuals, as are all genetic animals. (To really expound on this thought, read Richard Dawkins' Selfish Gene)
Given the above, many people give a bleak eye to nature and its processes. But isn't this the process which gave the male peacock his feathers, the flowers their beauty, the bee its sting, the snake its venom, the bat its nocturnality, the primates their intelligence, and the lions, foxes, and wolves their wit? Certainly none of these animals would be what they are today had they not been in competition to become the best they could be. Any less, and they would not be!
Animals of the world do what they were made to do. Carnivores hunt, birds fly, fish swim, primates mate, generalise, generalise, generalise... The point here is that animals don't have the time to worry about others of their species. How many people today are trying to solve others' problems for them? Evangelists of the world, save yourselves! Let he who is without sin cast the first stone... How many people use the word "idiots" every day to describe others? Jews don't like Christians, Christians don't like Jews or Pagans, Goths don't like Marilyn Manson-ites, Jocks don't like weird people... the list goes on.
LOOK AT YOUR OWN LIFE!
YOU HAVE ENOUGH TO WORRY ABOUT !!!
In addition, animals do not require divine glory to provide meaning or significance to their existence. Then why do humans?
We only fear for our lives not having meaning: not to be judged in the end: not important to any divine being: only blackness at death.
Since we can't prove the existence or absence of divinity, then why do we argue about it? Why do we wear little fishes VS. little walking "Darwin" fishes on our cars? (We should be more concerned over our use of a cars altogether!) It's not worth the energy to argue either side, when there is so much more significance in other issues. Pick any of the hundreds of fatal ecological concerns of the moment, any of which is likely caused by human overpopulation growth, and reside your energies there instead!
Is it not all about our omnipotent egos that we cannot allow other species to not be crushed by our population expansion, to not allow somebody of another religion to live in peace, to not let a man deny divine existence, to not let children grow up without all of the lies, to not love somebody without all the possessiveness?
Throughout human history (not including prehistory) there have been more catastrophes from religion than any other variable, and yet we do not question why? How different could they all be that they tell people how to love one another so differently? In America this has led to many people believing evolution cannot be cooperative with the existence of a divine creator. This is the evangelists' doing. Nowhere outside of America does this hold true; most of the world sees no clash between religion and natural history. Perhaps Americans should concentrate on the similarities between the 2 instead of their insignificant differences.
Our ideas of right and wrong, and thus the laws of our society, are entirely
descendant of the popular religious belief of our country. The result is not
only a clash of belief when we travel to other countries around the world, but
also significant alienation (or conformity) of citizens of our country from/to
such laws.
The character Meursault in Camus' The Stranger felt such alienation
in Algiers when he concluded, largely as a result of being an atheist, that
one choice is no different from another (since he didn't believe in being judged
in heaven), and only physical sensations are of any importance (because he didn't
believe in an afterlife); as a result, he was beheaded by the government for
the murder of a stranger.
Countries dominated by religions believe their laws to be descendant of some
type of divine form, often because of a prophet who was briefly in physical
form on the planet at one time (Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, etc.). Is it not strange
that such prophets have never appeared to so-called "primitives"?
Are these native peoples truly unimportant? I believe it is simply that they
are not in need of somebody to tell them how to live. When missionaries first
came to indigenous peoples, they often laughed out loudly when instructed how
to pray before every meal to show thankfulness. This was silly to people who
already arose thankful every day, and remained thankful throughout their waking
hours!!! Also, being in significantly purer harmony with nature (though not
100% pure), they lacked a need for guidelines in their life, since unlike invading
and destructive prophet-cultures they weren't destroying their own habitat!
So, we have the different countries of the world, all backed by religions which have seen "prophets", yet all still warring amongst themselves. Hmm. Something still isn't right.
What if, today, instead of standing behind the religious doctrines they all held to be
true and factual, the "divine" people of the world concluded:
"I don't know anything"
and just worried about only about living and loving life?
And since we cannot prove or unprove divine existence, why don't we take what we really only truly have...
Life and Love
Isn't that enough? Is there really anything more we need? It seems many think so: they want appliances, cars, efficiency, progress, governments, lies, inner cities, poverty, viruses, crime, pollution... It all comes in one package, baby! And your recent ancestors chose it for you in the 20th Century in America, in the 18th Century in Spain Portugal and England, in the 15th, 10th, and 1st Centuries in western Europe... all the way back to 10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent when we began to murder our pastoralist brothers in order to make room for our expanding agriculturalist population. Like Daniel Quinn said (author of Ishmael), once we began to violate the principles of nature, it was like a plane violating the laws of aerodynamics: down we go, headed for destruction (but we're meanwhile still flying blissfully through the air.... wheeeeeeee!!!). Only in the last few decades have we really been able to see the ground coming up beneath us, seconds before we crash and burn right into it.
