Mankind’s Race

Mankind is in a race with itself to determine whether we can comprehend the cause of our eternal warfare in time to prevent the warfare from consuming us.

It is not looking good.

Early returns indicate that we are programmed to be tribal territorial animals that compulsively war with one another, and to form belief-based subtribes that furiously defend their beliefs as irrationally as they do territory. The fiercely defended beliefs need not be religious beliefs, but can be secular beliefs equally well.

Catch-22 is that part of our prevailing, irrationally defended beliefs is the belief that, unlike all other animals, our behavior is determined by reason rather than by instinct. We tend to become outraged (an animal reaction) whenever it’s suggested that our human species programming might be the cause of our glaringly evident tribal territorial animal behavior.

Thus whenever Science, in the form of neuroscientists studying the brain, uncovers evidence that we may not be as “rational” as we believe, that subconscious brain processing may indeed affect our judgment and our behavior, we rise up in anger to attack these heretics and their odious “evidence.” It does no good to point out that the evidence also shows we are not “robots having no control over our behavior” but are capable of modifying and overriding it; once a tribal belief is violated our instinct is to destroy those violating it.

While we readily agree that such behavior is clearly evident in our enemies, those who question or oppose our beliefs, we are astonished and dismayed at the suggestion that our own tribes may behave in the same way. It seems that unconscious brain processes not only bias our perception in favor of existing beliefs, they also blind us to that bias.

We are now at a potential turning point in human history, the point at which Mankind finally acquires sufficient understanding of its own nature to begin diminishing its self-destructive behavior. But, alas, standing in the way of this new enlightenment is our certainty that our groups and our tribes are not part of the problem, but that all competing groups are, and if they would only cooperate with Us, peace would reign.

Rather than give up the tribal animal pleasure we experience zealously blaming and attacking ideological enemies, we are more likely to irrationally ignore or deny the evidence of our shared culpability and continue in our suicidal race to oblivion. As Mark Twain observed, “It is not worthwhile to try to keep history from repeating itself, for man’s character (nature) will always make the preventing of the repetitions impossible.”