Where we went astray

[mqbush]

Ages ago, individual cellular life took an evolutionary leap
by forming cooperative colonies.  In time, the differentiation
of component cells became great enough that each cell was
truly dependent on the whole.  For all but the most primitive
forms of life, the synergy of cooperation is not just a
desirable way of doing business, it’s absolutely essential,
in-the-genes, indispensable.

We marvel how all the fish in a school move seemingly as a
single organism.  What we see is a high-speed version of what
can be more readily observed in a herd of grazing animals. 
When the herd reaches a grazing area, the members are at first
oriented randomly as they graze.  When a member becomes
thirsty, he turns in the direction of the watering hole, and
continues grazing.  Another member becomes thirsty, turns to
face the water.  When a majority of the members are turned
toward the water, the herd, as one, starts walking toward
water.  When humans do this, it’s called democracy, and,
indeed, early human groupings were democratic.  They enshrined
in their earliest religions ethics of cooperation, as well as
a respect for the Earth, personalized as Earth goddesses,
creators and nurturers of life. 

Then, some five thousand years ago, some evil genius in some
hunter/gatherer tribe figured out how much easier it would be
to just take food from another tribe.  Before long, all tribes
viewed all others as enemies, not only because others had
become a threat, but also to justify attacking these others in
return.  The nurturing Earth goddesses of democratic
cooperation were usurped by authoritarian warrior gods of
domination and hierarchy.  Racism, sexism, class bias,
religious strife, nationalism, corporatism, militarism, all
are inevitable artifacts of that five thousand year old
turning away from partnership to anti-cooperation.  

The compete-or-die model creates a powerful incentive to
abandon ethics as “not practical.”  Every unethical act
imperially demands compensatory evil.  We have to be carefully
taught how to be self-serving, or we would resist hurting
others of our own species.  “It’s a dangerous world,” we’re
told, so we have to become dangerous in return.  And that
creates a self-perpetuating cycle of destruction instead of
creation.

Why do we have to be carefully taught the lying narrative of
anti-life precepts?  Not for our own good, no.  It’s purely so
we don’t clearly see and instantly rebel against the actions
of the elites of empire who inherited the sociopathic way of
life of the land pirates, the marauders, the parasites.  If we
were allowed to develop and grow as a thinking, mature
society, we would stop enabling them.  So we have to be
indoctrinated relentlessly.

The thing is, people are learning in spite of this.  Small,
poor nations are finding they can thwart the mightiest
military empires.  More and more nations are stopping the
economic marauders that were so devastating to so many
cultures.  When so many hundreds of millions of people defy
the power of military and economic empires, then this ghastly
mutation, this domination over life, is on its way to the
reject pile of evolutionary mistakes.  It is within our power
to put human evolution back on track, so our children can be
the shapers of a better world.

[hootinholler]

1. Nice! Welcome to DU!

People have been trying to put that genie back into the bottle for a long time.

-Hoot

[KoKo]

2. What a hopeful Post...thanks! and welcome to DU!

:kick: