To:    Sundayam@bbc.co.uk
Re:    Not just a political, but also an actual animal: Earth's "Greatest Ape "
Date:  Monday 9 January 06

Andrew Marr et al. at Sunday AM,

Because it is taken so much for granted that politicians struggle for personal power and influence (exemplified in recent and on-going party leadership struggles), we largely overlook the fact that this behaviour is deeply rooted in our primitive animal nature. We are, after all, Earth's "Greatest Ape " (Homo sapiens, indeed! Homo stupidus is more like it).

We all know this, of course, having learned about evolution and human origins at school, but we are a very long way from really understanding it and the implications for human society - past, present and future.

There's a biblical saying about removing the plank of wood from one's own eye before pointing out the splinter in someone else's. The truth is that we ALL have a plank of wood in our eye, which, because it has always been there (and we ALL have it), is extremely difficult (if not impossible) to see. Removing it would radically change our view of the world and be very frightening, making us inclined to dismiss even allusions to it out of hand (about many aspects of reality we are in a state of what can only be described as “collective denial “).

The extent to which we are governed by our primitive animal nature (in which - unsurprising in view of our biological origins - our entire socio-economic order is also rooted) is very frightening. And so it should be, because it is leading us towards catastrophe. The plank of wood in virtually everyone's eye is preventing us from recognising the fundamental non-sustainability of our growth-dependent economy and the grossly materialistic lifestyles it engenders on our finite and vulnerable planet with its ever increasing population of technologically empowered, but insatiable human beings.


www.spaceship-earth.org

Sunday AM on BBC 1

 



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