May/June 1997
Rebecca Scheib Utne Reader
That a great deal of human evolution might have been affected
not by our being hunters and predators but by being preyed upon by
much more efficient animal predators. I think this is something
that has been ignored in much of the writing about human evolution.
A lot fell into place for me as I began to see this vulnerability
as a central part of our formative experience.
RELATED CONTENT
Journalist Ellen Goodman talks magazines and media trends...
The soulful singer and activist talks books, magazines, music, and more...
The prolific writer and commentator talks musicians, magazines, and movies...
Therapist-turned-writer Thomas Moore--whose first two books, Care of the Soul and Soul Mates, were ...
We are always in big trouble morally when we forget the
helplessness and the weakness that we came from, because then we're
unable to empathize with others. Our view of our own species has
been too triumphalist -- an image of striding out from the forest,
stick in hand, and suddenly being the boss, the biggest deal on
earth. We have to revise that and understand how much time our
species has spent hiding and cowering and trying to fight off the
leopards.
This awareness also makes us see that we are perhaps not all bad
-- we are not natural-born killers -- that some of our predilection
for violence is rooted in the very honorable need to defend the
band or group.
What would you like to learn next?
Well, the next project grew out of this one. I began to get more
interested in the question of sociality, of what it is that makes
us social creatures. My reading is very preliminary, but it seems
to be the consensus that we have some sort of DNA-based need for
community. The other part of the consensus seems to be that that
need is not very well met in modern societies. What I am interested
in is how many curious ways we do find to meet that need. I am not
satisfied with the explanation that we have this missing thing in
our lives. There are all kinds of ways that a modern commercial
society tries to meet those needs. Some of them are vacuous; some
of them are perhaps dangerous.
It's a huge topic, but I figure life is short, and I better take
on the big questions. It has been embarrassing all these years.
People asked me, 'What are you writing about?' I said, 'War.' They
said, 'Which war?' And I replied, 'All of them.' It sounds
hubristic, but what the hell.
Page:
<< Previous 1 |
2 | 3 |