The liberating power of ignorance

Humans have been battling ignorance from the very beginning. So much has been made of the achievements that have been made possible through human intelligence that we often overlook the fact that the first humans appeared on this planet in the same condition that a newborn infant makes its entrance into this life, with one significant difference; we had not assigned teacher. The young of each species – human and nonhuman -- learn from the adults of the species, usually their parents, how to perfect the behaviors that are unique to their species and which are encoded in their DNA molecule.

It is significant that one species will not take on the unique behaviors of other species with which they share living areas. Their DNA determines how they will behave as a species. When humans arrived on the scene we knew nothing about the world around us and culturally we did not know how we should react to external stimuli. Like a newborn infant we had to learn how to respond to external stimuli but there was no one to teach us. Had it not been for the wild animals we met here we never would have made it. This is one of the unanswered questions of human evolution; one that I don’t intend to try to answer in this book. Why does human DNA not include cultural information that would dictate how we should respond to external stimuli? This information is encoded in the DNA of all other species so why the sudden rewriting of the script with Homo sapiens?

Whatever the answer to that question may be, modern humans should be thankful that the other species with which we were to share this planet knew what to do; we have been learning from them ever since. We are not really innovators, we are the original copycats.

Who played with our DNA? Somebody must have. And whoever did, did not tell us how far or in what direction we should go in our quest, or where we should stop.

Thanks for visiting

If you are still interested in the topics that caused you to visit this blog I would like to invite you to visit my blog at http://humanomaly.blogspot.com

For the moment, I have decided to focus my attention on one blog rather than divide my efforts on two.

Thanks for visiting and I hope to see you on the other site. Keep the peace.

What do you mean "He looks like me"?

One of the weirdest statements to come from the election of Barack Obama is the claim that African-Americans now have someone in the White House who looks like them. I understand the sentiment behind that statement but it also shows that we are still tied to the pre-Obama era. That statement reinforces what we all claim that the election of Barack Obama destroyed: It reduces African-Americans to the color of their skin. Before Barack Obama was elected there was always someone in the White House who looked like every other citizen of the United States. That can be stated another way, because before Barack Obama there never has been a President of the United States who looked like every other citizen of the United States.

Work in progress

My apologies for not posting over the last couple weeks.

The recent cartoon controversy raised by the New York Post illustrates the need to carefully consider what occurred on Nov. 4, 2008. Change brought Barack Obama but it was not because the entire American society had changed. Obama's election only demonstrated that we had achieved enough of a critical mass to begin the journey to the true nationhood envisioned by our founding fathers.

If we attempt to go through the Obama presidency as if there is no Obama presidency then at the end of the Obama presidency we will return to the world that was before the Obama presidency. This is why it is important to emphasize the obvious; that Obama's election was not just the election of a new politician. That happens every four years on the regular schedule. Obama's election must be seen for what it is; the attempted emergence of a new electorate. That attempt at rebirth can be aborted if we treat it as if it never happened. So far, this is exactly what we have been doing.

Is it Really Our Victory?

One of the incongruities of Barack Obama's election is his insistence that his election was the people's victory.

Any student of democracy knows that the people do not win elections. Elections are won by political candidates and political parties.

How should we interpret Obama's claim and what are its implications for the future?

His words make sense when we consider that we did not elect him because of what he promised but because he represented what we have become, or believe we are ready to become.

In several of his pronouncements, both before and since the election, Obama has demonstrated his understanding that we have transitioned into the post-partisan age. It also obvious to most that on this hangs the gilded future of society.

In that context we can say that this was the people's victory, and the American electorate spoke on behalf of the peoples of the world. This was not a victory of the Democratic party or a defeat of the Republican party. It was the glorious emergence of the people into a way of thinking that holds the promise of world peace.

But, those who represent political ideology in the public eye are not yet post-partisan in their thinking. The Democrats view it as a victory and the Republicans view it as a defeat. Completely oblivious of what really happened on November 4, 2008 the Democrats will spend the next four years attempting to consolidate their positions and the Republicans will spend that time rebuilding. The result is that, if we the people are not careful, we will find that we have been denied the victory we thought we accomplished.

Undoing what we have done

On November 4, 2008 something tremendous happened with the election of Barack Obama. However, we seem not to have realized that we entered the non-partisan age. One need only listen to our political commentators for a few minutes to realize that we have begun to dismantle what the people did on November 4, 2008. Partisanship still rules the roost.

Normative humanity

KM's comment on the last blog introduces the idea of what it means to be human. Obama's clarion call, "Yes we can" may more accurately be rendered, "Yes we can, because we can." It is axiomatic that humans cannot do what humans cannot do. When individuals suggest that war is normative they usually mean that peace keeping is not normative. It is this perspective that is false. Humans wage war because it is part of human nature to wage war against their enemies. Humans are also naturally prone to maintain peace with those they consider to be like them.

It is obvious that the problem is not that we wage war but who we consider to be our enemies. When humans first appeared on the planet they could not have viewed each other as enemies or the race would not thrive. At some point we became partisan in our thinking to the point that we magnified our differences and viewed other humans as being our enemies. If we can determine how we lapsed into this state it is possible that we could resolve all our violent conflicts. This is the Obama challenge in this non-partisan era.