Free - the end of the human condition - the biological reason why humans have had to be individual, competitive, egocentric, and aggressive - 1988 PDF
Preview Free - the end of the human condition - the biological reason why humans have had to be individual, competitive, egocentric, and aggressive - 1988
Free: The End of the Human Condition The Biological Reason Why Humans Have Had To Be Individual, Competitive, Egocentric and Aggressive Jeremy Griffith Centre for Humanity’s Adulthood Box 5095 GPO Sydney, 2001 Australia First published January 1988 Copyright ® Jeremy Griffith 1988 Published by: Centre For Humanity’s Adulthood Box 5095 G.P.O. Sydney, 2001 Australia Written by Jeremy Griffith. Funded by Gervase and Jeremy Griffith. Assisted by Ann Williams. Dedication and Acknowledgement: To my Father and from my Mother. ISBN 0 7316 0495 4 This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to the publisher. Printed in Australia by: Southwood Press Pty Ltd 80-92 Chapel Street, Marrickville NSW 2204 CONTENTS Summary 7 An eleven paragraph summary of the explanation given in this book for human’s apparently divisive condition PART ONE The Human Condition 13 Step 1 – The Need for a Profound Approach 14 Step 2 – The Paradox of the Human Condition 15 Step 3 – The Story of the Birthday Party 20 Step 4 – Rehabilitation of Humanity 32 Step 5 – The Unevasive or True Story of the Life of a Human During Humanity’s Adolescence With the Human Condition resolved it becomes possible for the first time to reveal the real developments that humanity underwent throughout its ‘adolescence’ or search for meaning and identity – the psychological and intellectual adjustments we were making in response to the pressures of the Human Condition, in other words a description of the growth of what we now call our mind. To explain this, the psychological state of a teenager, a twenty-year-old, a thirty- year-old and a forty-year-old are described to illustrate both an individual’s progress through life and humanity’s progress through its adolescence. During the course of this description some major mysteries that until now have confounded humanity will be solved. Most importantly, the prime-mover or major influence in the development of humanity will be revealed and with it a reason for why (and therefore when) we began to walk upright, why (and when) we lost our body hair, how we became meat-eaters and how exactly we are related to the other primates. ‘Sex’, I.Q., corruption, inno- cence, science, religion, prophets, men, women, animals, idealists, realists, have all played different, important and often unrecognised roles in humanity’s development. What these have been and their interdependence are now explained. 3 PART TWO The Unevasive Scientific Story of the Ascent of Humanity 95 Part Two is broken into several sections. First the trinity of influences – namely the meaning of existence and the two biological tools by which it was possible to comply with it – are explained, followed by a description of what the tools achieved, their limitations and how these limitations were overcome. In the course of this description, many human behaviours are explained. (For ease of reference, boxes have been placed within the text which mentions the phenomenon being explained). The sequence of major events in the development of matter on earth are as follows: The Meaning of Existence 98 Genetic Refinement 104 Genetic Refinement’s Limitations 106 Brain Refinement 113 Brain Refinement’s Limitation 122 First Solution: Instincts 123 Instincts Encounter the Limitations of Genetic Refinement 135 Second Solution: ‘Love-Indoctrination’ This marked the birth and infancy of humanity. 138 Infancy led to Childhood. This was our first paradise on Earth 155 Humanity’s adolescence 164 A period in which we set out from paradise to find understanding of ourselves. It was during this period that the Human Condition, the state of conflict between human mind and conscience, emerged; a conflict we have courageously endured for two million years while we valiantly sought enough understanding to make resolution of it possible. 4 PART THREE Conclusion With reconciliation of our mind and our conscience possible, humanity is free at last. This section describes how our liberation has been achieved and what it means for us. The Role of Science and the Mechanistic/Objective Approach 172 The Role of the Holistic/Subjective Approach 177 The Limitations of Having to be Mechanistic 179 The Need for a Prophet to Liberate Humanity 180 The Problems Confronting a Liberating Prophet 182 The Restoration of Innocence 190 Our Liberation achieved through the Efforts of Everyone 196 The Difficulty of Adjusting to the Compassionate but Unevasive Full Truth 200 The Need for Explanation and for Adjustment Time 204 The Centre for Humanity’s Adulthood 214 5 Summary W HY HAVE HUMANS been individual, competitive, egocentric and aggressive? What is the expla- nation/defence for ourselves? What is the reason/justification for our apparently divisive condition? The following is a eleven-paragraph summary of the reason. This brief summary was written for use as an advertise- ment to promote this book. It serves here as a preface to the book. Assume just for a moment that our aim is to consider the wel- fare of the group or larger whole above self. In other words, rather than be selfish which is divisive our aim is to be selfless which is integrative (integration as defined in the Encyclopedic World Dictionary is ‘the act of bringing together [parts] into a whole’). Further, assume that we have in us a genetically based instinctive self trained in altruistic behaviour but this training is only an orientation to selflessness not an understanding of it. Suppose we subsequently acquire an intellectual capacity to operate from a basis of understanding. What happens when we begin to attempt to manage life from a basis of understanding, given the already established instinctive orientation to selfless- ness? What happens when the mind meets the instincts? The Birthday Party To see what happens, imagine a children’s birthday party where all the children sitting around the table are about seven years old 7 Free: The End of The Human Condition except for one who is about eight years old. The seven-year-olds are still obedient to, and dependent upon, their instinctive train- ing for management of their lives. The eight-year-old however has become sufficiently mentally developed to decide for the first time in his life to attempt to manage his life using his mind. Being an understanding device his mind requires understand- ing but there is none available to help him make decisions. Hav- ing to make a start somewhere on this process of thinking for himself he looks at the birthday cake and feeling hungry he decides ‘well, why not take the cake’. But when he leans across the table and takes it the younger children, obedient to their in- stinctive training in selflessness and unaware of the misjudg- ments and misunderstandings which can be made as the mind searches for reasons for everything, criticise him for being self- ish. (Interestingly, many mothers actually witness this grand mistake of pure selfishness often made by children first attempt- ing to self-manage. Our word for such totally unknowing mis- takes is naughty). So what happens is the eight-year-old gets a nasty shock and quickly puts the cake back on the table, deter- mined not to have anything more to do with attempts to self- manage his life. The trouble is he cannot deny his intellect and so sooner or later has to find the courage to shoulder the respon- sibility of learning to master his mind. Again he takes the cake only this time he adopts the more subtle form of selfishness called reciprocity, where he offers the others some of the cake to keep them quiet. The instinctive selves of all concerned however are not deceived and continue to criticise him. To continue his search for understanding the eight-year-old has no choice but to defy the criticism. First he tries to explain that he is not deserving of criticism – that he is not bad – so he says, ‘Mum, the cake accidentally fell into my lap’. With this explanation he is evading the apparent but false implication that he is being selfish or bad. Lacking the real explanation for his behaviour his attempt at an explanation is inadequate, an apparently blatant misrepresentation. To be able to adequately explain himself he would need all the understanding that he is 8
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