Our world today is still, essentially, a world of barbarians, with an admixture of human animals and savages. That is why we, as a society, live in a mess. That is why we still fight, hurt, and murder each other. Let us look at some of these characteristics of ourselves.
Modern man still has and is still guided by strong animal instincts, sometimes too strong for his own good. A long time ago Aristotle wrote in Nicomachean Ethics : "The mass of men show themselves utterly slavish in their preference for the life of brute beasts..." Humans still hunt and kill other animals (sometimes other humans, too), but unlike animals, which depend on hunting for their survival, humans may do it just for kicks. Mark Twain did not mince his words when he wrote in his Autobiography : "Of all the creatures that were made he [man] is the most detestable. Of all the entire brood he is the only onethe solitary onethat possesses malice. That is the basest of all instincts, passions, vicesthe most hateful... He is the only creature that inflicts pain for sport, knowing it to be pain... Alsoin all the list he is the only creature that has a nasty mind." Thomas Jefferson (in a letter to Col. Edward Carrington of January 16, 1787) also had a bone to pick with man: "Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind."
We can recognize these instincts in small children, who have been observed to play with and kill small living creatures like bugs, butterflies, and worms with impassive curiosity and cruelty. Granted, these are children acting irrational, but it is a sign of their innate nature. It may require a good deal of effort and willpower on our part, even at an old age, to fight down these primitive base instincts.
Another example is sex. It is probably the most powerful animal force that impedes man's maturity and progress towards a higher stage of evolution. We are too preoccupied with sex, especially in our younger years. It often overpowers our rationality, sense of reality and judgement and occasionally leads to fatal errors. On this primeval instinct, designed by nature to ensure procreation, we have built our so-called human sexualitya fanciful term used more and more frequently to rationalize, justify, and glamourize sexual lust, deviations, and perversions, which have little to do with true love between man and woman. I will deal with the issue of sex in greater detail later in this book.
"... emotionally we are still living in the Stone Age," said Erich Fromm in May Man Prevail? (p. 30). People talk a lot about their feelings and passions, which they regard as superior human qualities. But feelings are not the prerogative of man. Animals, too, have feelings and emotions; of course their feelings are not as refined and sophisticated as ours, but they may be just as intense. My mother had a Bolognese dog that used to wet on the floor with ecstasy when friends visited them. All of us have heard or read stories about dogs who died from grief after losing their master or a mate. Very often feelings, emotions, and passions cause us to lose our sense of reality and make serious errors, even to the point of self-destruction. What distinguishes the human being from the animal is not feelings and emotions, but imagination, conceptualization, and, most important, reason. As Immanuel Kant wrote in Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals , "... the common run of men... are better guided by mere natural instinct and... do not permit their reason much influence on their conduct." According to Fromm (ibid., p. 29), "His [man's] reason is still governed by irrational passions... He has not still experienced what it is to be fully human."
We may assume that animals are aware only of their bodies and their physical environment, of what they can see, hear, touch, smell, and remember (including instincts). They may be aware of the sun, the moon, and the stars, but they are unlikely to be aware of the infiniteness of time, space and their own mortality. The human animal, though endowed with imagination and intelligence, is still guilty of unawareness, which, as Huxley remarked ( Those Barren Leaves , p. 96), Buddha considered "the most deadly of the deadly sins."
In the past, we used to regard aggressiveness as a negative human trait. But today it has become almost an asset for an athlete, a salesperson, or a politician. Once, when I was looking for a job, a manpower officer sent me to a travel agency. I was met there by two young fellows who took me to the local cafeteria, offered me a soft drink, and tried to figure out how good a salesman they could make out of me. In particular, they profusely congratulated me on the fact that I knew some French. I didn't think I knew French well enough to deserve such praise and told them so. They kind of insisted that my French was quite good, and I modestly (and that was my big mistake) insisted that it wasn't. On the whole, we had a nice, lively conversation, and when we parted, my impression was that the interview had gone quite well. Later, I learned from the manpower officer that I hadn't got the job because, in the interviewers' opinion, I was not aggressive enough.
I remember how, in a televised discussion, George Bush's campaign manager assured the audience that George Bush was going to be very aggressive in the forthcoming debate, obviously assuming that the public would appreciate it. Maybe that was one of the factors that helped Bush to get the job. Who knows? In Canada, aggressiveness is a darling word even with the New Democratic Party, which unilaterally proclaimed itself "the conscience of the nation." Some may say that we use this word in a figurative sense. That is true, of course, in the case of adults. But children take many things at face value. They don't easily distinguish between literal and figurative usage and assimilate it as a positive notion, their attitudes and behaviour changing accordingly. And gradually, society accepts it as a norm. Many people are not aware of the degree to which language affects behaviour.
Not only is the notion of aggressiveness treated with benevolence; in some cases it is claimed to be beneficial. The American TV program 20/20 once reported on a school whose teachers were trying out a new, "creative" idea on their little pupils. They issued them with light, padded bats and told them to hit each other as hard as they could. The kids, with some exceptions, seemed to enjoy it very much. The teachers, probably, enjoyed it even more. The profound scientific philosophy behind this idea was that such a "brawl" would deliver the child of psychological stress and make his/her life more balanced and happier. However, these barbarian philosophers did not bother to think about how this practice might affect the subsequent life of the child, what kind of person he/she might become. Wouldn't it be logical to assume that if a person learned to relieve his or her tension in a certain way at a young age, this person would be in the habit of using, or even addicted to, the same method?
Aggressiveness is especially useful in competition, where a party is concerned only with its own interests and achieves its goals at the expense of other parties. Some popular sports, such as football, hockey, and boxing, literally thrive on aggressiveness. The crowd still wants to see blood and broken bones. Aggressiveness is part of contemporary barbarian society.
It is almost universally assumed that the only way human society can make progress in this world is through competition, that only in this way can economies grow, abundance and high quality of goods be ensured, more pleasures be made available, our problems be solved, and the world become a nicer place to live in for everybody. Let me make a few points here to show that these assumptions do not hold water.
First, we know that in the animal world species compete with one another for their physical survival. They do this instinctively, unaware of their role in the planet's history, of their effect on the environment, or even of their own destiny. Thanks to the lack of intellect, they are unlikely to affect significantly life on Earth and cause damage to nature. Only man, who, according to Koestler, may be "one of evolution's mistakes," or, in the phrase of Fromm, is "a freak of nature," is endowed with intellect and imagination, but, unfortunately, with little reason. If God created man and allowed him to make his own choice, then God himself made a mistake. Whichever the case, it is man and man alone who is capable of drastically changing the environment, and he is doing a messy job of it. So we should not make the excuse of acting "naturally" in conducting our affairs.
Second, competition is a favourite buzzword with national leaders, politicians, and economists who call upon businesses, industries, and labour to become more and more competitive. But they do not usually specify what competition involves. Realistically, to become more competitive, a company, besides adding more glamor to its commercials, would have to make certain sacrifices, such as fewer employees, lesser pay, cheaper materials, and more intense labour. And who are the beneficiaries of this competition? Surely not those who have lost their jobs or those who have to work under stronger pressure or for less pay. And then, hasn't competition always been part of capitalism and unregulated market? Do politicians imply that today people work in less stressful conditions and we should go back to longer and more intensive working hours?
Third, competition is a barbarian's activity. It is not sharing; it is fighting for a share, an attempt to succeed at somebody else's expense. It is exclusive rather than inclusive. It does not utilize the entire human potential; it deals only with material values. Even in arts, competition is used as a manipulative tool for various purposes and a means for artists to gratify their vanity and gain more material benefits, rather than simply demonstrate achievements.
So competition does not make us more human; it cannot solve the problems of our society. It is certainly not the right path to a stable and healthy economy, let alone national or worldwide prosperity. It pits nation against nation in the world market and will inevitably lead to military confrontation. The only alternative to it is its opposite cooperation , which will be dealt with later on in this book.
2.6 Intelligence and Stupidity
At first glance, the two notions of intelligence and stupidity seem to be mutually exclusive, but in fact they are not. Though it may appear paradoxical, man can be intelligent and stupid at the same time. It is because most people either ignore or have a rather vague idea about another, less common ability of the human brainreason or wisdom. (These will be discussed at greater length in the section of chapter 3 "Intelligence, Reason, WisdomIs There a Difference?") To make a brief comparison, intelligence, or intellect, is similar to a large memory of a fast computer capable of effectively receiving, storing, and retrieving information. Intelligence helps one to acquire knowledge. It is a manipulative tool widely used in such areas as science and technology, economics, politics, and administration. ©
Whereas stupidity is a well-established term denoting the opposite of intelligence , there is no working antonym for lack of reason or wisdom . ( Irrationality is not comprehensive enough.) This only shows that reason and wisdom are not very popular in our society. If you call a person stupid or even unintelligent, that person is likely to take offence, but if you use such "weak" words as unwise or unreasonable , they will probably go unnoticed. So, for the time being I have to use the easily recognized term stupidity . It is precisely this kind of stupiditylack of vision, unawareness, and the inability to foresee the consequences of one's actions and understand the importance of moralitythat is the root of mankind's problems. Armed with intelligence only, man is a dangerous, destructive creature. As Arthur Koestler observed in "ManOne of Evolution's Mistakes?" (p. 10), "... there is the striking, symptomatic disparity between ... the power of the intellect when applied to mastering the environment, and its impotence when applied to the conduct of human affairs."
The reader might find amusing some of the conclusions Huxley came to during his travels in India ( Jesting Pilate , p. 128): ©
Despite all the lofty ideas and principles, such as democracy, freedom, justice, etc., fighting for power is still prevalent in human society and regarded almost as normal behaviour. It is because those who have power get the best out of life, often at the expense of those who have none. That is why leaders of the women's liberation movement, for instance, are righteously demanding that men share their power with them, which the male barbarians, of course, have no intention of doing. Let us assume that those militant women become as powerful as men. Will they really stop at that and not seek more power? After all, they have the same mentality as their male counterparts. The roles would just be reversed, and the fighting would go on.
The same is true of some black people who seek power in order to be
able to compete with whites. The fighting will never stop, because power
is
based on dominance, control, conflict, and estrangement. It is an atavistic,
barbarian notion that has no place in a truly humanistic society, where
the guiding principles should be cooperation and equal rights
.