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Does whatever might save humans from themselves lie within some corrective engineering of the external world, or may the answers actually lie in a better understanding of our evolutionary development? If certain problems are unique to our species, can we expect significant beneficial changes if we remain disinterested in who and what we really are?
An easy mistake is to assume the numerous problems of the human race are basically unrelated and have no common origin. For example, when we look at ongoing bloodshed in its peculiarly human form – which is most definitely not just an expression of the natural competition seen in other species – this looks quite unrelated to acidification of the oceans, malnutrition, or a host of other issues the mind would normally identify as problems in their own right.
Silly though it is to imagine that all such problems are somehow the same problem, it is not ridiculous to consider that, given these all ultimately result from human conduct, they may share a common origin. This is in fact hard to argue against in that such problems could logically not exist in a world devoid of humans. But, for better or worse, such a world is by definition not one we can inhabit, and so we are forced to address such issues with ourselves in the picture – all of which makes us appear very much our own enemy.
But any cultural incarnations of such obvious thinking are unsurprisingly buried amidst endless obfuscation and convolution. Who wants to consider themselves a problem to the world and their fellow humans? Moreover, who wants to present themselves to others as such? Who even wants to think about any of this? The implication here is of course that we tend to think whatever pleases us, rather than whatever concurs with the realities before our eyes.
Hence, regardless of any beneficial value there may be in contemplating such an awkward perspective, and however stultified our cultural evolution may remain through failure to look frankly at ourselves, we largely remain unwilling to push our minds into what they subliminally understand as the dangerous no-go zone of unfettered self-criticism. Even the very concept of self-criticism has a ring of negativity that tends to block any idea of simple and impartial appraisal – thereby suggesting we actually know somewhere within ourselves that something potentially untoward remains unexposed.
Our basic desire to present ourselves as useful and legitimate members of whatever communities we populate is probably one of the most basic hard-wired traits we possess. Furthermore, all our modern sophistication and highbrow sociological explanations of how this operates may only obscure how visceral this desire to feel secure and socially accepted really is. In almost all nature it appears that being outside of the flock, herd, or pack is inherently dangerous, whereas integration offers safety. Whatever battles may rage within such groupings, mere membership offers basic security inasmuch as we are at least members of a group that pursues its overall survival. Exclusion, in stark contrast, entails utter self-reliance in the face of a hostile world – not to mention the end of our particular bloodline.
Any passing glance at human cohabitation suggests that, for all our technological development, there is neither good reason nor evidence to imagine we are much different from other species in these respects. The rare individuals who display little or no allegiance to family, would-be friends, communities, and other social groups, are generally associated with precariousness and compromised survival chances.
These ideas reaffirm our status as basically animals-with-technology, and they suggest that understanding our conduct should be approached more from a zoological perspective than from the typically rational approaches that flatteringly assume we are motivated by logic and reason. The cultural resistance to roughly equating our behavior with that of other species stems from a long-standing pretentiousness that seeks to paint ourselves as somehow above mere beasts. But that is only a legitimate position inasmuch as we differ – having transformed almost the entire surface of this planet through our unique technological development. Social group behavior suggests we remain very animal-like in many respects – specifically in terms of our deepest drives and motivations. As organic beings with the same basic needs as many other beings, this is surely no surprise; the modern cultural emphasis on rationality appears misleading.
The tearful and distraught mother whose children have just been murdered in a war zone is not being rational or logical about the obvious fact that her children’s death is utterly final – she is instead undergoing some profound emotional pain that no amount of rationality can touch. She exhibits some opaque but deeply-felt need to undergo and express intense grief as some sort of internal rebalancing process, or even as a display of social revolt against an act that so obviously weakens her social group. Whatever the explanation of her behavior, she is not driven by the logical and calm decision-making processes that modern culture typically uses to explain behavior.
Similarly, but in a superficially very different manner, the athlete who pushes his body to the absolute limit in an attempt to excel at his sport is not entirely rational in terms of his own welfare. Whatever wealth, adulation, or official recognition are his goals, these are pursued at the expense of later-life health. Regularly extending the organism’s abilities far beyond nature’s demands is obviously not necessary in a world where, arguably due to technology, others actually face health problems through lack of exercise and overly-lazy lifestyles. Both excessive and inadequate exercise are similar in being injurious to health. But both are nonetheless peculiarly common to the supposedly rational human race.
Could it be that technological development and civilization have corrupted the various means by which we would otherwise manifest a more animal-like pursuit of social success? Is, for example, the quest for wealth something that would have any meaning without years of schooling in monetarist values? To what extent is acquiescence to such modern social expectancies in our best interests as either individuals or group members? And is any group really strengthened by cultures that make such unnatural demands on individuals?
An abusive indifference to personal well-being can be seen in many social situations where actions appear based on somewhat irrationally doing what others seemingly expect – apparent obligations becoming internalized as demands people subsequently put on themselves. The standard model of paid employment is the obvious example where the pursuit of social integration drives people into a plethora of activities that offer no direct benefit and often provoke ill health – all the way from the well-recognized repetitive strain injury, to various hazardous-environment issues, or even to a general loss of motivation resulting from the sheer tedium of the office or factory floor. And while the social role money plays leaves many seeing little choice but to submit to soul-destroying work conditions, others demonstrate a positive eagerness to embrace such employment-related suffering in the interests of pursuing the materialist lifestyle.
Within some enthusiastic workplace mindsets, simply leaving the office at the end of the nominal working day is deemed bad form – even if exhausted to the point of not being able to function properly. More generally, and well beyond simply funding the mere survival requirements of the organism, many are driven by various expectations of achieving – apparently devoid of any direct knowledge or understanding of their deepest motivations for doing so. Again, the simple but powerful need to belong to a given social group seems to dominate any rationality about the basic matter of how one ideally spends one’s time.
Although modern man certainly does display a lot of rationality in the general structuring of his conscious ideas, his instinctive desire to successfully play a social role seems to motivate him more profoundly. This is no surprise, given the abstract thought and planning associated with modern technology appears to be just an evolutionary add-on to essential physical and biological needs. Hence, the dramatic changes of the last few thousand years in the external world – albeit wrought by the hand of man – are not matched by any dramatic biological evolution of the species. Our natural interest in security, survival and procreation may have to wrestle with the many newfangled complexities of today’s world, but such interest otherwise appears little altered since ancestral times.
Curiously, this line of thinking suggests we really do not know who we are – at least, not on the level of conscious thought. Much as we may be aware of our social identity in terms of name, address, age, employment and so forth, such details hardly provide a deep insight into either our drives, or even what it is to be the unique person each one of us is. And though we might all have fuller ideas concerning our own personalities, most of us seem more or less at the mercy of various reflexive drives, as well as the occasional emotional explosion or breakdown – forms of conduct that again suggest deeper motivations operating below the radar of consciousness. The full implication is that, whatever we superficially think of ourselves and others, we actually have no solid or reliable knowledge of the totality of ourselves. It may even be that our conscious thoughts are actually a distraction in terms of letting the overall organism’s non-conscious processes self-regulate in our best interests.
The individual who resolves to alter their eating habits, or to kick gambling, smoking or drinking, frequently provides an unintended illustration of a certain disconnect between conscious thoughts and deeper drives. Plans made at one point can come unstuck only hours later when some impulse overrides them and once again initiates the behavior the plans sought to avoid. Huge sums of money are exchanged ineffectually addressing this matter via miracle diets, rehab centers, wonder therapies, drugs, self-help books and other generally unsuccessful strategies. All promise in vain to deliver some means of joining behavior more closely to conscious intentions such that those conscious intentions will successfully control behavior. But if all the money spent on such dubious ventures serves any useful purpose at all, it is perhaps only as testimony to the fact we are actually somewhat out-of-control in relation to any notion that conscious thoughts control our behavior.
When we consciously decide to, for example, take more exercise, it seems we delude ourselves with an idea of some identifiable self under the control of conscious thought. Consciousness may obviously involve itself in some reasoning that more exercise will somehow benefit what it sees as this self, but the fact that the decisions then taken are subsequently overridden by something else suggests at the very least that whatever this self might be, it is certainly not the controlling master of behavior it so habitually considers itself to be. And it is noticeable within many such situations how any determination garnered amidst efforts to better discipline behavior, is easily overcome by impulsive drives – often leading to a generalized state of frustration and inner tension.
The difficulty of consciously and deliberately altering habitual behavior can be seen as just one obvious example of a more general situation in which behavior is driven by poorly-understood mechanisms of the organism within its environment – a view that of course contrasts sharply with the popular idea that we are consciously in control of ourselves. But exactly what it might be for any entity to control itself is not only a philosophical conundrum; it is also a delusion in terms of explaining real-world human behavior. Hence, it is arguable that the self-image of the modern individual as someone who consciously understands himself and his actions is simply a psychological convenience for managing the complexities of modern life. Analogous to the way warm clothes maintain body temperature in the colder climates to which humans have migrated, presenting oneself as an integrated self-knowing person helps us exist within today’s complex civilizations. All such outward protections meet basic needs and exist for all to see, but they do not constitute much more than that. Behind our outward appearances, the bulk of who we really are remains concealed, and is too easily overlooked by the conscious thoughts we mistakenly interpret to be me or the self.
The ramifications of this idea are immense. Topping the list is the closely-related idea that conscious thought is a cognitive phenomenon somewhat driven by mechanisms not properly amenable to abstract analyses – not least of all because the organism is not directly conscious of such mechanisms. Far from conscious ideas being the primary motivational drives we habitually consider them to be, they can be seen as simply manifestations within a greater whole, and subject to largely mysterious influences that defy any amount of thought or analyses. Furthermore, the situation is not so much that we know the world through conscious thoughts, but more that we somehow adopt a preferred set of thoughts and ideas as survival strategies for negotiating our path through immediate circumstances.
Conventional ideas of evolution we might remind ourselves, place no particular value on intellectual abstraction as a pursuit in itself – even if any means whatsoever of pragmatically negotiating life’s challenges obviously prove advantageous in terms of survival. Once evolutionary theory is embraced, whatever survival benefits might be conferred by abstract conscious thought surely ought to be regarded as evolutionary enhancements. Hence, the basic notion that abstract thought assists human survival should surely not be in question – the products of the human mind being arguably the very means by which our species has dramatically fanned out across the planet. However, the exact nature of our increasingly curious societal and cultural evolution is not something to be reflexively assumed as that which human ideas to date have imagined it to be.
The popular perspective simply paints the situation as one in which rational and logical thoughts have been deployed to comprehend and manipulate the world in predictable ways that achieve desired results. This can appear fine as a simplistic microcosmic view. For example, planning to run water into a glass and then drinking it is a strategy that will obviously quench thirst. But the problem in even this simple example is that it in no way accounts for the initial thirst that instigated the overall process. We can of course address that issue in terms of physiological knowledge of the body’s hydration requirements and its overall nervous system – but note that in doing so we explicitly remove conscious thought as the primary motive. By such reasoning, thought is relegated to nothing more than a link within a chain of events initiated by non-conscious bodily activities.
The same thinking can obviously be applied to all thoughts associated with satisfying key biological needs and desires; the body seems to somehow tell consciousness that something needs attending to, and then conscious thoughts merely help achieve the end.
Many of our more basic activities obviously operate in similar animal-like manners, such as breathing: an activity we are occasionally conscious of and might deliberately alter, but not one actually requiring conscious thought. And of course, the organism has endless internal activities that we neither know of nor identify outside of dedicated medical research, but that appear utterly essential to our survival.
None of this is surprising once the peculiarly human activity of complex abstract thought is viewed as a recent evolutionary add-on – as opposed to something more central to life. When every other species gets by without it, just how important can it be? Arguably, what is in fact surprising here is the great importance human culture accords to its unique way of thinking. But this is nonetheless understandable given that what we value highly as human culture arguably amounts to little more than just a collection of thoughts, ideas, and the results of deploying them. Culture itself is notably another idea for which other species have no requirement.
Humans can therefore be seen as subliminally obsessed with the technology of abstract thought – perhaps to the point that this obsession distracts them from otherwise obvious problematic results in terms of both the planet and their general sociability. Far from being some explanation of reality, abstract thought appears to be an evolutionary development of an as-yet unclear if not dubious long-term value. If it really merited a more positive consideration it would surely have allowed us to better tackle the many challenges it has thus far created.
Trapped by thought
At a time when our cultural obsession with physical technology is one in which questioning its merits effectively amounts to a modern form of blasphemy, our passion for such technology actively inhibits any proper examination of abstract thought as its foundation. This is another situation in which a generalized but deeply subliminal fear of what might be uncovered can be postulated as the backdrop. When abstract thought has expanded in so many different directions and is arguably the main characteristic marking humans off from other species, it is remarkable that we deploy such thought so extensively whilst giving so little consideration to the simple question of how and why we think, and what abstract thinking might actually represent in the bigger picture.
The position that thought is primarily a tool of survival and dominance makes absolute sense inasmuch as evolution is not just some theoretical framework in which species evolve faculties that serve no end. Nature is ruthless. Short of metaphysical speculation, there is no explanation as to why any species would develop a faculty in a manner that only allowed it to pointlessly know things for academic purposes alone. Our form of knowledge, given the general understanding of evolution, will have developed by enabling advantages that most definitely are not knowledge for the sake of knowledge. And of course, this is evident in the huge expansion of our species across the globe – knowledge having empowered us tremendously through its practical deployment.
However, the implication of this idea is that the real value of thought and the form of knowledge it produces has nothing to do with our conventional and somewhat idealistic ideas of being right or wrong, or of some veracity within academic and scientific disciplines; it is instead about exploiting our world to immediate benefit. Notably from this perspective, knowing how to benefit from blatant lies and deception is no less useful than knowing how to benefit from being honest and truthful – in much the same way as other technologies are used to gain advantage through both destructive and constructive goals. Within a competitive world of evolve-or-die, evolutionary theory dictates that every opportunity to gain an advantage will be dispassionately exploited by sheer force of circumstance if nothing else. Any supposed authenticity within whatever is called knowledge becomes incidental to knowledge’s evolutionary usefulness. Supposed falsehoods that somehow protect lives prove more expedient than truths that imperil them – another observation with sobering ramifications for the supposedly great enterprise that is human knowledge.
Positioning these ideas within today’s world creates a version of human cultures that differs greatly from most popularly accepted notions. Instead of knowledge being primarily a process by which we continually add to the sum of what is known, its prime goal is indeed as a technology – that is, as a means to an end. Regardless of how we might view even the most academic or esoteric knowledge – for example, theories claiming gravitational waves have been discovered and are somehow proof of colliding black holes buried in the depths of space – such supposed knowledge must logically serve some real end here on Earth.
But of course, this is exactly what we find. Science in its many forms is a very well-funded activity, and few scientists are motivated by pure desires for knowledge devoid of financial rewards. Even robotic scientific work typically guarantees salary as a minimum, whereas apparent breakthroughs boost academic prestige, elevate careers, sell books and maintain funding. The practical activities of scientific research, learning, teaching and education in general, can therefore be lumped together as a knowledge industry: a business first and foremost within a commercial world order in which knowledge authentication and verification are no more than business processes, and not even essential elements for the selling of knowledge.
As regards what conventional knowledge really is, it reduces to nothing more than approved ideas and beliefs, given there are no independent guidelines for what constitutes objective knowledge, beyond whatever blessings specific ideas and beliefs might receive within academia – often substantially augmented and filtered by mass media.
Whatever the exact mechanics, the result is that much of what is believed beyond question in one mind can be considered utter bunkum in another – especially as regards anything claiming to be knowledge within the worlds of politics and religion. Curiously enough, those two major areas of contention just happen to be concerned with two of the biggest questions: how is a human society best structured, and what is the metaphysical truth of the human condition? So, although there might be no shortage of ideas and beliefs floating around within these areas, they are hardly founded on any agreed means of validation or any broad consensus of anything at all. The mere existence of such widespread contention is the effective proof.
Other content culturally passed off as knowledge is in effect of entertainment value only: celebrity gossip, personal opinion and comment, overly-dramatized or phony scandals, journalistic space-fillers, and various other forms of trivia. Such so-called knowledge haunts culture as just so many more tales of reality – ideas that are loosely framed, vague by definition, just plausible, but easily ridiculed, and arguably of no real consequence in any case.
The overall mass of current cultural ideas called knowledge can thus be seen very roughly as serving one of two goals – either they allow something useful to be achieved, or they entertain. These two goals can even coalesce where for example, entertainment achieves the politically useful goal of keeping minds preoccupied and distracted. Hence, just as science and academia can be seen as business-like knowledge industries, the various activities that amuse people can be recognized as a business-like entertainment industry. In summary, our dominant cultural activities are destined towards one end or another and compete for attention within mostly commercial parameters.
In this sense, both cultural expressions and technical ideas can be considered commodities – products and services within cultures which assign a monetary value to everything. The internet illustrates this particularly well via its heaving glut of trivial information electronically tailored to commodify attention; its traditional pay-for-access model of selling specialist knowledge and privatized intellectual property actually looks quite old-fashioned in comparison. And as with everything bought and sold, sales and profit margins are ultimately prioritized over quality.
More generally, the explosion of the internet itself can be seen as just the latest stage in a long history of progressive technological developments that expand the ease of exchanging and disseminating ideas – not because we are particularly concerned with keeping each other informed, but more because ideas and thoughts can influence how people behave and thereby constitute powerful tools of social manipulation.
Meanwhile, the view of money as a valuable social asset has just about every mind in some way pursuing what are in truth the worthless tokens of a formalized system of exchange. Of course, considerable social power can in fact be harnessed via money – such power being indirectly derived from a mass delusion that money in fact does have some inherent value. But this constitutes massive cultural indoctrination as regards apparently legitimizing the huge levels of social inequality monetary structures actively perpetuate – all in all, an unsurprising situation given monetary wealth invariably coincides with social power and prestige.
Who can afford to view money as worthless when no one else does? But the near-global conviction that money does have value only shows the colossal power of a universally believed false idea. It would seem a suitably convincing lie can be more powerful than the truth; so much so that many people will reflexively defend the role of money with great vigor.
From such a perspective it is easy to understand the continual cultural and media emphasis given to economics in general – the inclusion of economic reports within newscasts now being as regular as weather forecasts. Without the fabricated and arguably illegitimate social role of money, many wielding power might suddenly be disempowered. Consequently, we see discussion of most political issues reduced to economic concerns. As long as public debate centers on ideas of money and its effective importance, any political affair at all can be framed in terms of the apparent necessity of complying with faceless market forces, dehumanized financial requirements, troublesome costs, anonymous business interests – or other assumed economic parameters that construct whatever narratives suit those of power and financial wealth. Of course, to the extent that all these ideas thoroughly saturate the public’s consciousness, money does in effect equate to power, and power will therefore seek to further emphasize these perspectives to its own benefit. The almost universally accepted value of money and the continuous cultural emphasis of such a supposed value is anything but coincidence.
Nonetheless, modern monetary systems – taken together with the legal systems required to enforce them – remain elaborate scams that cultivate delusions of their legitimacy. A tell-tale sign of the vast reach of the related cultural indoctrination can be seen in the manner by which even many of capitalism’s strongest opponents will nonetheless frame thei