In the millennia before they all murdered each other, human beings (Homo sapiens) rode the sexual reproduction gravy train and survived. In due course, on a random statistical basis, episodic couplings produced phenotypes with big brains, opposed thumbs, and tongues. This latter is used by many phenotypes to consume fuel, but humans, with their big brains, figured out how to exploit it for speech. Once this occurred, flirting followed. Then Bill Gates. Then, Adult Matchmaker. It is difficult to recall what civilization was like before them.
But Homo sapiens copped another little break through natural selection. Among a subgroup of primates, certain ones not only copulated away wih glee. They developed idiosyncratic attachments to each other. Let’s face it—there’s just no explaining love. I’ll leave out several million years of boring detail. We evolved as a social species, dependent on our group. And all of us, even confirmed bachelors, appear to have felt some responsibility to guard the yowling and pooping little primate. It was, after all, humanity’s future.
The glue that held us all together was emotion, commonly called love. Not only did we enjoy its reinforcing aspects. We found its withdrawal excruciating. It has a terrible withdrawal. So terrible, that even after vowing “never again,” the poor animal drives itself out of the lair, trying to score. Country and Western Tunes abound with cautionary warnings here. But the importance of this pain to perpetuating the species is obvious. So, it’s the pain of loneliness—point, game, set, and match.
ALL RIGHT ALREADY, BUT WHY HANG WALT DISNEY?
Because, ladies and gentlemen, the reason that anthropomorphizing survival is dangerous is because it leads to muddled thinking. This is a time in history when we cannot afford any indulgences in sentiment.
I have no quarrel with any religion or system of belief that encompasses a concept of God. I just think it is crucial at this juncture in history that we do not mix apples and oranges. Before you vehemently disagree, remind yourself where you’re standing. Look down into the abyss. I hope you will agree with me that God does indeed help him who helps himself. And that a certain hard-boiled pragmatism is much needed.
Look down through those rain-sodden clouds. Feel the bite of the wind. Now—ask yourself: does it seem very logical to you that our best chance of surviving this imminent crisis lies in splitting into two factions and slaughtering one another? I grant you that anything is possible, but this seems unlikely, doesn’t it? Not a wise choice. Downright moronic if I may say so. And yet look at what we are all doing1 Men for this, Women for that…CUT THE SHIT! NOW!
What you decide, naturally, is your own business. But I think it makes no sense, on any level, to believe that we are waging revolution when in fact we’re committing suicide. Viewing survival from a Darwinian perspective neither requires the existence of God nor refutes it. What it does do is clarify something that we have lost sight of. Men and women need each other. We had damned well better stick together now, too. We can always hash out the finer points after the deluge, OK? But for now, “Up the ramp we go, onto the ark, two by two. They are predicting rain. After you, my dear.”
How are we going to get down from this damned spire?
I suggest that you take a look. It’s been raining heavily for some time. My tangential ramblings momentarily distracted you. See? The water swirls now six inches below our feet. And, just in the nick of time, here comes the ark, too. Its laden with animals, leaning on the railing. It’s lowering its gangplank. I know it stinks! But what makes you think that we smell any better to them?
No, I’m sorry, it doesn’t have cable, either. In fact, we have to share a suite with two squirrels.
But you’re not an animal?
I see. Nevertheless, we’re going to be on the boat for some time. It was built in relative haste and does not have a liquor license. I would suggest that the best way for you to pass the time might be to master the skill of thinking clearly. Like all under-used muscles, our brains may indeed be sore for a day or two. But soon you will come to enjoy thinking. Eventually, you may even become an obligatory thinker.
You will lie awake at night trying to figure out what to do once you get off this damned boat. I would suggest that, for starters, you pay much more attention to the system you develop for enforcing public order. Nothing remotely looking like a lawyer may ever even crop up. But—if one does—don’t become paralyzed by obsessive uncertainty. Grab a cudgel and club hizzoner to death.
But wait. Still more to be done. Hide behind a nearby rock. See if more of them appear the following day. If this happens, then cook a yummy meal and leave it out for them. Impregnate it with poison. Make the poison slow acting enough that the creatures carry it back to their nest and feed it to their young.
Our survival depends on it. And as I said earlier, it’s a dog eat dog world.
Read Part I HereIn 2000, David lost his only son to Parental Alienation Syndrome. "Before my divorce in 2000," he says, "I had never been charged with anything worse than a speeding ticket...They threw me in jail and dragged me into a courtroom handcuffed, weeping, and manacled to a chain. The proceeding required less than ten minutes. I never saw my son again... I'm no 'expert.' I'm just one more broken man. I hope to do something positive with what is left of me. My resume is one line long--I am a father who lost the most beloved person in his life--my son. I do what I can now, not because I'm noble, but because I have no choice. I try to do the right thing because I sense that this is my only hope. My ideals are all that, in the end, they couldn't take from me. I refuse to accept a world where hatred routinely prevails over love, and where the destruction of our children is viewed as simply the cost of doing business. I'm no saint. I'm dazed and terrified. I'm not sure what "God" even means, and I'm sure as hell no hero. But I will stand up to any legal system, hateful mob, or totalitarian regime whose code of ethics is built around cruelty, power, and lying; and whose only god is money."
