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Zeitgeist: Moving Forward Page #5
- NOT RATED
- Year:
- 2011
- 161 min
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for instance, based on food sharing, gift exchange...
Small bands of people living predominately
off of foraging and a little bit of hunting
predominantly among people you have
at the least, known your entire life
if not surrounded by third cousins or closer;
in a world in which there is a great
deal of fluidity between different groups;
in a world which there is not a
whole lot in terms of material culture...
this is how humans have spent most of their hominid history.
And no surprise, that makes for a very different world.
One of the things you get as a result of that is far less violence.
Organized group violence is not
something that occurred at that time
of human history and that seems quite clear.
So where did we go wrong?
Violence is not universal.
It is not symmetrically distributed throughout the human race.
There is a huge variation in the amount of violence in different societies.
There are some societies that have virtually no violence.
There are others that destroy themselves.
Some of the Anabaptist religious
groups that are complete strict pacifists
like the Amish, the Mennonites, the Hutterites...
among some of these groups, the Hutterites
there are no recorded cases of homicide.
During our major wars, like World War II
where people were being drafted
they would refuse to serve in the military.
They would go to prison rather than serve in the military
In the Kibbutzim in Israel
the level of violence is so low that the criminal courts there
will often send violent offenders
people who have committed crimes
to live on the Kibbutzim in order to
learn how to live a non-violent life...
because that's the way people live there.
So, we are amply shaped by society.
Our societies, in the broader sense including our theological
our metaphysical, our linguistic influences, etc.
our societies help shape us as to whether or not we think
life is basically about sin or about beauty;
whether the afterlife will carry a price for
how we live our lives or if it's irrelevant.
In a broad sort of way different large societies could
be termed as individualistic or
collectivist and you get very different people
and different mindsets and I suspect
different brains coming along with that.
We, in America, are in one of the most individualistic of societies.
With capitalism being a system that allows you to go
higher and higher up a potential pyramid and
the deal is that it comes with fewer and fewer safety nets.
By definition, the more stratified a society is
the fewer people you have as peers - the fewer people with whom
you have symmetrical, reciprocal relationships -
and instead, all you have are differing spots and endless hierarchies...
A world in which you have few reciprocal partners
is a world with a lot less altruism.
[Human Nature]
So, this brings us to a total impossible juncture which is
to try to make sense in perspective science...
as to what that nature is of human nature.
You know, on a certain level
the nature of our nature is not to be
particularly constrained by our nature.
We come up with more social
variability than any species out there.
More systems of belief, of styles of family structures
of ways of raising children. The capacity
for variety that we have is extraordinary.
In a society which is predicated on competition
and really, very often, the ruthless exploitation
the profiteering off of other people's problems
and very often the creation of
problems for the purpose of profiteering
the ruling ideology will very often justify that behavior
by appeals to some fundamental and unalterable human nature.
So the myth in our society is
that people are competitive by nature
and that they are individualistic and that they're selfish.
The real reality is quite the opposite.
The only way that you can talk about human nature concretely
is by recognizing that there are certain human needs.
We have a human need for companionship and for close contact
to be loved, to be attached to, to be accepted
to be seen, to be received for who we are.
If those needs are met, we develop
into people who are compassionate
and cooperative and who have empathy for other people.
So...
the opposite, that we often see in our
society is, in fact, a distortion of human nature
precisely because so few people have their needs met.
So, yes you can talk about human nature
but only in the sense of basic human needs
that are instinctively evoked
or I should say, certain human needs
that lead to certain traits if they are met
and a different set of traits if they are denied.
So...
when we recognize the fact that the human organism
which has a great deal of adaptive flexibility
allowing us to survive in many different conditions
is also rigidly programmed for certain environmental requirements
or human needs
a social imperative begins to emerge.
Just as our bodies require physical nutrients
the human brain demands positive forms of environmental stimulus
at all stages of development
while also needing to be protected
from other negative forms of stimulus.
And if things that should happen, do not...
or if things that shouldn't happen, do...
it is now apparent that the door can be opened for not only
a cascade of mental and physical diseases
but many detrimental human behaviors as well.
So, as we turn our perspective now outward
and take account for the state of affairs today
we must ask the question:
Is the condition we have created in the modern world
actually supporting our health?
Is the bedrock of our socioeconomic
system acting as a positive force
for human and social development and progress?
Or, is the foundational gravitation of our society
actually going against the core evolutionary requirements
needed to create and maintain
our personal and social well-being?
[Part II:
Social Pathology]So, one might ask where did this all begin?
What we have today... really a world in a state of
cumulative collapse.
[The Market]
You get it started with John Locke.
And John Locke introduces property.
He has three provisos for just private right and property.
There must be enough left over for others
and that you must not let it spoil
and that you, most of all, must mix your labor with it.
It seems justified- you mix your labor with the world
then you are entitled to the product
and as long as there's enough left over for others
and as long as it doesn't spoil
and you don't allow anything to go to waste then that's okay.
He spends a long time on this and his famous treatise of government
and it's since been the canonical text
for economic and political and legal understanding.
It is still the classic text that's studied.
Well - after he gives the provisos
and you're almost thinking at the time whether you
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