He predicted, I remember, that human slavery would come back, that it had in fact never gone away. He said that so many people wanted to come here because it was so easy to rob the poor people, who got absolutely no protections from the Government. He talked about bridges falling down and water mains breaking because of no maintenance. He talked about oils spills and radioactive waste and poisoned aquifers and looted banks and liquidated corporations. "And nobody ever gets punished for anything," he said. "Being an American means never having to say you're sorry."
I think it was Billy Joel who sang “It’s
always been a matter of trust.”
I am reading E.O. Wilson’s The Meaning of Human Existence and was
within the first few pages reminded of Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael.
In Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael pre-agricultural man lived at
the mercy of the god(s); sometimes there was plenty sometimes there was drought
and famine. But a post-agricultural man who can store a surplus of food is no
longer at the mercy of the god(s). (Cue
ominous music)
Now this passage from E.O. Wilson’s
The Meaning of Human Existence:
…the greatest
moral dilemma since God stayed the hand of Abraham: how much to retrofit the
human genotype. …We are about to abandon natural selection…in order to direct
our own evolution by volitional selection-the process of redesigning our
biology and human nature as we wish them to be. No longer will the prevalence
of some genes over others be the result of environmental forces, most of which
are beyond human control or even understanding. The genes and the prescribed
traits can be what we choose. So – how about longer lives, enlarged memory,
better vision, less aggressive behavior, superior athletic ability, pleasing body
odor?
In Quinn’s case the running of the
world can be left to the god(s) or man; In Wilson’s case the evolution of man
can be left to natural selection (god(s)) or to man.
I get the feeling neither author
trusts man with the responsibilities.
80,000 years ago, man's survival in a vast uncharted land
depended on the possession of fire. / For those early humans, fire was an
object of great mystery, since no one had mastered its creation. Fire had to be
stolen from nature, it had to be kept alive - sheltered from wind and rain,
guarded from rival tribes. / Fire was a symbol of power and a means of
survival. The tribe who possessed fire, possessed life.
I was finally able to watch Quest for Fire on Netflix…the
movie was made in 1981. I was 11. My dad often talked about this movie and I
thought about it over the years and came across it the other night and…what a
great movie.
I was particularly struck by the scene where a more advance
early human shows another man how to create fire. With no dialogue to use the
only way to convey the power of what this early man is witnessing is through
facial expressions and grunts but with just these, the scene is magic.
This reminded me of what I read in E.O. Wilson’s book, “The
Social Conquest of Earth” about the importance of fire and meat in the
evolutionary history of man. Wilson pointed out that our brains are incredible
nutrient-sucks; brains require more nutrients than all the other organs and
evolutionarily speaking, meat is one of the important nutrients feeding the
brain. Wilson pointed out that lighting caused rolling fires over dry grass
lands which rolled up animals in the fire, which early humans would then eat.
In the movie one tribe learns to transport fire (smoldering
embers in a tree-trunk like carrier) that can then be used to build larger
fires in another location. But, another tribe has learned to CREATE fire.
The great thing about the scene is how the individual mind
and the collective mind both explode; the fire would cook the meat that would
explode the brain.
Sublime.
I can’t find that specific scene on youtube but here is the
trailer:
