Education for Sanity
July 21, 2007
Never has it seemed more important for the youth of this nation to view social change as something conceivable and within their grasp. Unfortunately, what little guidance they receive tends to come largely from political leaders who base appeals for activism on unfounded assumptions concerning human nature. The Right assumes mankind to be virtually incapable of forming a true global community, while the Left assumes that conservatives themselves constitute the main impediment to this occurring. What follows is an attempt to formulate a more rational basis for citizen participation in social process, beginning with a careful examination of who we really are.
PART I: Debunking myths about human
nature
1 uncontrolled savagery does not define
us
Contrary to some popular b
If some are further advanced along this “evolutionary” highway than others, each of us possesses the capacity to embark upon it. The history of our species is the history of a creature bereft of instinct, but one driven through reason to discover useful, need-fulfilling strategies. No instinct compelled human groups to love culturally distant neighbors. Genetically hardwired tools did, however, enable them to recognize environmental patterns that impacted their survival. This included patterns indicating that an out-group’s power might spell trouble. One could negotiate and cooperate with adversaries as well as fight or flee them. The ability to select rationally from coping strategies rather than gut-level emotionally to react, was a genetically endowed capacity maximally developed among our species. It grew when we suffered the consequences of strategies that didn’t work well. We could expand our definition of who belonged in our in-group, of who merited compassion, when we learned that our own survival was enhanced as a result. Witness how American feelings toward Russians have changed since the end of the Cold War...
Psychologists view peoples’ ability to expand in-group embrasure to include outsiders as an advanced adaptive strategy; one that engages us emotionally as well as cognitively. We think, feel and behave differently when we do it. It begins, however, at the cognitive level, which is why education is the proper motivator for change.
Let us now look at little more deeply at how we have come to be the way we are, and why we might be able to change.
2 Irrationality does
not define us
Given how natural selection works, it was only predictable that Earth's top predator would possess precisely our penchant for ruthlessness. Ample evidence testifies that more efficiently than any predator homo sapiens minimized out-group competition for essential resources. Unlike other predators, weaker people often found ways to become stronger and overcome decimation or repression. They all to often created environmental havoc in the process. Based on this evidence alone, our intra-species dance of death might seem destined to engulf the entire planet. Instinct provides us little protection from the self-destructive ramifications of our intelligence. The near substitution of reason for instinct would seem to have made us both the king of predators and an ecological disaster all at once.
Fortunately, other evidence indicates that we are not intransigently bound to such behavior. As technology advances, our ability to perceive complex patterns and trends increases. The very intellectual coldness that allows us to kill without mercy also allows us to perceive waste and warfare as inimical to our long term survival. Recent work in neuro-psychology reveals how reason and emotion interact to define our adaptive capabilities. Thus, we behave more cruelly than lions or wolves, but we behave more adaptively as well. Lions and wolves kill only when hungry, not out of anger or sadism. However, when still unsatiated they cannot opt to kill fewer prey. Not even when reason would indicate the wisdom of such a course in order to ensure a future food supply. Our application of reason under such circumstances constitutes a genetically motivated urging. It is a much more deeply imbedded compulsion than most people think of when they imagine a process of cognitive choosing. Whether or not human groups make functional enough, foresightful enough decisions at any given time, we have the unique capacity to do so. More importantly, we have the ability to evolve in this capacity. It would seem, therefore, that we do possess some protective instinctive equipment.
3 Altruism is not an
anomaly
Anthropology tells us that natural selection “directed” homo sapiens sapiens to
prioritize empathetic altruism among in-groups. The best explanation for why we
have such a big brain is that it allows us to form large in-groups -- of around
a hundred and fifty peers (termite and ant colonies are much larger of course,
but they lack our flexibility). Chimpanzees can manage in-groups of
about fifty. Hominids are not the only
creatures capable of altruism. Many
birds and mammals (but not reptiles) apparently self-sacrifice for fellow
creatures. Altruism can preserve group integrity; which enhances the
propagation of species genes; which is how natural selection works.
Within in-groups people learn that
kindness pays off. Our personal and collective security is enhanced when
we individually restrain and modify powerful drives generated by the most
ancient and primitive segment of our brain. The old brain, called
the R-complex, or sometimes reptilian brain, because we
inherited it from them, urges us to simplify life to the max:
to kill out of craving or anger, to flee out of fear, to procreate
when driven by lust. A newer, but still very old brain segment, the limbic
system, provides more subtle and more complex emotions: sadness, desire,
joy, love etc. The youngest part of our brain, the neocortex, makes us unique. It is,
essentially, the seat of reason and competes with the R-complex in determining how we deal with fe
Cutting edge work in psychology suggests that while the neo-cortex probably cannot truly control
limbic reactions to stimuli, it can
influence them. When we consciously
perceive the consequences of emotion driven reactions, thoughtfully commit to
behaving other than our emotions dictate, and engage in a dynamic interactive process
involving “mirroring,” we actually develop new feelings that gel with our new
behavior. Whether the old feelings are eliminated or only masked and rendered
ineffectual is not clearly understood.
In any event, people who behave with great prejudice toward another
group not only can change their behaviors, but often their feelings as
well. This is what happened following
the Cuban Missile Crisis of the 1960s.
As people grasped the inconceivability of nuclear warfare, and learned
more about Russians as people, their verbal stance toward Russians changed, and
gradually their negative feelings dissipated as well.
Neuroscience remains a pioneering field, however, and a full understanding of
how R-complex impulses and neo-cortexical strategizing interact
to frame human behavior remains sketchy. Nevertheless, theories predicting humans’ neo-cortexical
ability to grow and mature emotionally and culturally as well as individually, are
now more solidly based on empirical evidence than the b
3 Rejecting warfare is not beyond our
ability
Sociobiology tells us that Neanderthals, too much governed by the primitive parts
of their brains, succumbed to Homo Sapiens Sapiens in the race
for natural selection's brass ring. We beat them out in the
evolutionary struggle for dominance largely because of our greater ability to behave
altruistically, resulting in the greater functionality of his/her in-groups. As a result of this competence, we have become our own greatest threat. Humans now have the ability to globally
self-destruct, taking most of life on the planet with us. No body of data yet indicates that our capacity
to universalize social altruism constitutes more than a hypothesis. On the other hand, growing evidence from
history and anthropology tells us that when warfare posed a lose-lose proposition our ancestors adeptly
formed new combinations, cutting across in-groups, in order to avoid it.
If horses, dogs, goats and pigs had existed in the Neolithic Western hemisphere
as well as in Eurasia, or if life had been as difficult in Eurasia as it was on
most of the planet, global conflict might pose a far weaker threat than it does
at present. Eurasians became immune to the diseases spread by the animals that
made them prosperous. Agriculture came
easily and hard metals for weapons were plentiful. Communities
quickly over-populated. Horses
were plentiful and warfare became a useful strategy for finding new territories
to exploit. When Eurasian warrior
hordes used up the human and natural resources of a region, they simply moved
on.
In the Western Hemisphere things were different. Life was hard, and it took great concentration to eke a decent living out of unfertile plains, un-nourishing jungles and arid mountains. In Meso-America, occasional conquering tribes often starved to death trying to rebuild what they had destroyed. Aztecs indeed practiced terrible cruelties, as did other empires of the Western Hemisphere from time to time. Nevertheless, Aztecs, Incans, Mayans, Toltecs and Olmecs among many others invented methods of city and regional planning, of political coordination, and social integration far beyond the common practice in Europe. They were masters of genetic engineering before Mendel, creating maize (not discovering it, as is commonly thought); transforming the Amazon forests into plentiful gardens, and much more. European writers understood none of this, describing Indians as noble savages living effortlessly off of nature's bounty. In North America, the constant migration of tribes southward from the Bering Straits created ripe conditions for perpetual warfare. A growing literature reveals how among the great Indian confederations, such as the Iroquois, warfare was usually a last resort, and even then highly controlled.
If Europeans were fine warriors and poor
negotiators, it wasn't their military skills that brought the
But for the diseases, the clash of European and American cultures might have moved quickly beyond conflict to an entirely new kind of cooperative society. The vision of just such a renaissance motivated Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson to borrow from the Iroquois in attempting to fashion models for their own peers to consider, with all too limited success..
Part II
How to maximize rational behavior and prevent chaos
1
Describing aggression as poor strategy rather than as inhumane
How does debunking myths about human nature constitute rational activist strategy? How can it help when a world of violently clashing civilizations appears to be inevitable? Based on the analysis above, people seem less likely to reject governmental strategies maximizing confrontation because they seem inhumane, than because they seem ill advised and likely to enhance our descent into chaos.
Key U.S. policy makers, arguably the world's most powerful aggressors
in history, assume the clash of civilizations to be inevitable. In
order to survive in a world of civilization size tribes (or gangs) according to
neoconservative thinking, the United States must remain the toughest such group
on Earth. President
On the other hand, Machiavellian policies adopted by U.S. leaders and their
mirror images abroad cannot promise, as in the past, to guarantee national security. Quite
apart from the awful moral and ethical implications of ruthlessly conquering and oppressing weak opponents
following only token efforts at negotiation, this behavior seems outmoded and
disastrous – very likely inconsistent with any outcome other than chaos. If
we the citizens perceive this to be so, can we change our nation’s course?
Our real human nature well equips us to operate other than as passive observers. We seem to be entirely capable of choosing a course other than aggression. However, not because aggression is inhumane. We are likely to reject aggression toward others only when such policy threatens our own security and well being.
What is required of change agents, then, is to bring about a public examination of whether aggression is – whether or not humane – in any degree rational...
2 The real meaning of “power corrupts”
History tells us that while our species at large seems to operate rationally,
isolated groups and individuals develop patterns of irrationality. Elites in particular easily lose their
way. Power does indeed corrupt. The powerful tend to shut out news
of reality in favor of what they want to hear, or surround themselves with
sycophants fearful of telling their masters bad news even when they ask for it.
Witness the failure of post-WWII Western powers to acknowledge Islam’s rapid
modernizing trend until Brzezinski spelled
it out in the 1960s. In The Grand Chessboard he warned that unless Arab initiatives could
be undermined,Western economic control of the world would be in dire peril. Owen
Lattimore, the nation’s leading Asian expert counseled in The Situation in Asia for negotiation rather than aggression. Unfortunately, the irrationality that had
shut out awareness of Asian trends also held to the premise that imperial
suppression of the Third World was still feasible.
In today's world when powers-that-be bent on global conflict
become socially lost, the predictable consequence
is universal devastation. Our world is so interconnected that this time
the certain chaos produced by the decline of the ruling empire would surely engulf
all life on the planet. Nor could we envision a simple circulation of
Economists reinforce this concern, and Lattimore’s
arguments. They inform us that the targets
of U.S. aggression do not grow weaker.
The gross national products of those most exploited by Western
imperialism, the Have-Not nations, has grown faster than any other economic sector.
Have-Nots demonstrate more and more resilience, imagination and adaptive skill in
coping with imperial Haves. For decades ranking members of our own State
Department and intelligence community have acknowledged Arabic
peoples to be highly adept modernizers even as the public is
encouraged to view Arabs as backward, r
History tells us that the world of warfare has always changed. In today's
world, conventional warfare seems passé. Wars are no longer waged between
armies and navies and air forces, so much as between the former as Imperial
forces and small groups of very sophisticated guerilla fighters as their
opponents. No guerilla band can defeat any nation’s army or police force, but no nation’s army or
police force can protect its own citizenry from being ravaged by guerillas. The tiniest, most
backward village has access to the Internet, affording people detailed
information about how to obtain and use biological and chemical
weapons. When "little people" willing to die to d
An outcome of modernization predictable for nearly a century has apparently materialized:
No matter how well-armed one nation or confederation, international conflict
promises to be a lose-lose proposition. In the twenty-first
century any population's survival may well depend upon the survival of all. The failure of current U.S. policy makers to
discuss, much less indicate awareness of these concerns must generate more than
loud arguments about their
intentions. It must generate an intensive
evaluation of their very ability to operate rationally.
3 Real humanitarianism requires
accepting real human nature
If the foregoing evidence and arguments have merit, then the absence of debate
concerning whether our nation's leaders can successfully achieve aggressive,
Machiavellian goals should be cause for alarm. Whether or not U.S. citizens deplore
leaders’ undisguised readiness to conquer, torture and enslave when
"necessary" is indeed a crucial question, but it is not the same
question. Passionately deploring the violence of leaders who can
presumably keep one safe is not the same as
vigorously rejecting leaders who can clearly not keep one
safe. At this stage of our cultural evolution,
The absence of this debate constitutes perhaps the strongest indication of the
need for a powerful education initiative. Much of the success of the Civil
Rights Movement depended upon replacing common assumptions about the biology of
race with facts contradicting those assumptions. The threat of nuclear warfare was nullified
worldwide as hard evidence of its devastating consequences became widespread. Predicting the inability of our leaders
to prevail is counterintuitive for most people. Our leaders, and
those before them have indeed prevailed, for as far back as we can
recall. Subjugation of the weak by the strong has been the
norm. Powerful evidence tells us that this may well no longer be
true. In important ways the world has changed.
4 Education for sanity
It requires little imagination to envision devastating attacks upon random
schools, small towns, church picnics and crowded streets, changing the United States into a place of
fear, depression and outrage at leaders
who add to our torment in order to preserve their control. This is
what U.S. citizens can rationally anticipate if we fail accurately to assess
the rationality, if not indeed the sanity, of our leaders. These include not merely the Incumbency,
but the more elusive, shadowy group who no longer earn but simply own money. The men who sit on the boards
of major corporations, who manage the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
who fund the great Neo-liberal/ Neo-conservative think tanks, and who decide
which candidates citizens will be allowed to select amongst. Even as
our government proclaims that only they can protect us from
ethno-centric enemies bent
upon our destruction, history firmly rejects this argument. In-groups
have defined themselves based upon ethnicity, r
Evidence that our government bears a
rich tradition of subjugation, enslavement and the extermination of
inconvenient and easily disposed of out-groupers is abundant. Evidence that those we subjugate constitute
threats to our way of life is scarce. Contrary
to the propaganda citizens receive, the State Department’s own chief advisors
since the 1950s have characterized Arabs in particular as people eager to join
us at our table of prosperity, not to replace us. They need our expertise
and hope we need their labor. They seem motivated not by hatred of
our lifestyle, but by optimism that they
too can attain the skills of production and marketing and planning that we have
achieved. Their history indicates that they are, however, as capable as we of
ruthlessness, and are no less strategically adaptive. Having not
occupied the seat of power for centuries, they may be less corrupt
and less insane than we. If we will not accept them, they will
surely do all possible to change our minds.
5 Where to begin
Education for sanity might begin with this lesson: that social conflict is not an inevitable product of human nature. Growing evidence affirms that human conflict has more to do with social context than with genes or personality or primitive instincts and drives.
The second lesson, perhaps, might be that ethics and morality, our commitment to decency, constitute the most practical political basis for our continued existence. Extending the concept of in-group to include all humans, and then all beings, would seem to be a necessary, and perhaps even sufficient step toward saving the world Presumably, we are wise enough, probably, to grasp and act upon these facts. Should we, on the other hand, allow power-corrupted leaders, people who seem truly ill by any reasonable definition of the term, to nullify our collective wisdom, our suicide seems predictable and puzzling. It would amount to a profound and strange reversal of the adaptive driving forces of natural selection.
The third lesson might describe how change could occur. As
people grasp essential facts and patterns, some of which have only come into
sharp r
If addressing the question of aggression’s feasibility seems cold blooded it also seems the most rational way out of the trap of endless in-group vs out-group aggression. Because we are not innately compelled to act humanely toward “others,” we must elect to do so based upon evidence of its survival value. Because we possess the capacity to assimilate such evidence rationally, and then to integrate it emotionally, we should be able to achieve the level of moral and ethical behavior that we envision but cannot yet fully embrace. The true function of education is to ensure this logical/emotional process by enabling us to gather and analyze evidence pertaining to the question of whether warfare can any longer guarantee the survival of anyone.
This is hardly an abstract issue. People are desperately trying to come to terms with current events in Iraq. Is it a deplorable but necessary venture? Is it ruthless and inhumane? The reasoning presented here indicates that it is profoundly irrational.
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Dr. Weiner teaches at a community college and engages in community
organization work in Austin Texas.
This paper was presented at the 61st Annual Texas Community
College Teachers Association convention on February 23, 2008. It was also published on Opednews.com on
March 8, 2008. http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_david_we_080308_education_for_sanity.htm