|
COLLECTIVE INSANITY "When we remember that we are all insane, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained." MARK TWAIN The best indicator of insanity is when the abnormal seems
normal. If you think it is normal billions of dollars per year
are spent globally on weapon systems that in seconds can annihilate
millions of people then this essay is not for you. Nor is it
for you if you believe contraception is morally wrong, capital
punishment is morally right, poverty is inevitable, global warming
is a myth and overpopulation is not a problem. As Paul Ehrlich
(The Population Bomb) pointed out in the sixties: if you know
where a person "stands" on half a dozen or so key issues,
you can accurately predict where that person stands on most other
issues. Some people even hold contradictory points of view. E.g.
many so-called pro lifers are supportive of the death penalty,
military action and the National Rifle Association. "Man as a species is irrational, and those most susceptible to the atavistic urge for self-destruction have only a thin skin over their lust for kindling a global holocaust." (pp 191 Mankind in Amnesia by Immanuel Velikovsky). The human race is the most irrational form of life on this planet since it is the only species that is engineering its own extinction by destroying the very environment on which it (along with countless other forms of life) depends for survival. As any astute observer will be aware, the chances that the human race will survive its own greed, arrogance and paradoxically its own scientific ingenuity are basically nil. You may not share this point of view, but that by itself doesn't disprove its validity. Most people practise reality denial and strongly resent anyone tinkering with their fantasies. They are their own victims and serve as the prey of those who take advantage of their gullibility. No one has ever gone broke giving people hope, even if there is no real basis for it. Fantasy is a lot easier to sell than reality. How far-reaching is collective human irrationality? Consider
this: No rational individual would watch TV, cook a meal or plan
the future while his/her house is on fire. Individual priorities
would dictate that the fire must be extinguished before any of
the aforementioned activities would be resumed. However, collectively
human behaviour is very different: people watch sport events,
decorate their homes or play computer games in the midst of global
developments that threaten the very survival of the human race. The reality is we live in a drivel-driven society in which trivialities are hammered into the public psyche, while critical issues are given scant attention or are ignored altogether. Consider the keen public interest in who sleeps with whom in Hollywood, Oprah Winfrey's latest weight, who won the Stanley Cup and other trivia. Yet drivel and deception are the foundation of the multi-billion dollar tabloid industry which specializes in unbelievable topics, such as these headlines proclaim: Alien impregnates 70-year-old grandmother. Grave of Adam and Eve found. Surprised mom gives birth to eighty-pound baby, and so on. Examples of collective insanity surround us: for example,
fertility drugs in an overpopulated world. Killing millions of
animals every day for meat no one needs. The enormous military
expenditures spent allegedly to create a more secure world. The
waste of countless millions of dollars to move the Olympics around
the world instead of keeping them at their place of origin: Greece.
Spending billions on cancer treatment (which in most cases does
not work) and next to nothing on cancer prevention. In a rational world society would not pay countless millions of dollars for rock stars and build huge stadiums, while hospital beds are closed and schools are overcrowded and under-funded. In a rational world global security would be built on the basis of education and public health instead of weapons of mass destruction. Social justice would reign instead of a parasitic economic system. For most people the top priorities in life are money and mating, often at the risk of everything else. Reality denial allows people to live in a make-believe world. No one has ever passed through this life without being victimized by illusions. We are born into a set of illusions which may include the stork, the tooth fairy, Santa Claus and the infallibility of parents, teachers and other persons of authority right up to and including the pope. When people reach adulthood most manage to get rid of these
childhood illusions, only to replace them with other illusions
some of which stick with them for the rest of their lives. People
are misled from cradle to grave: from the first goo-goo they
hear as a baby to the final farewell at their funeral. Most experiences
between these two major events are marked by distortions of reality.
Reality denial was magically packaged by the Oscar winning movie
Life Is Beautiful in 1998. It shows a man and his young son in
a concentration camp with the father deceiving the young boy
into believing that all this was only a game. Movie-goers commonly
erupted in laughter about how funny this was. The father after
portraying suffering like millions of real concentration camp
victims was finally shot dead, the boy allegedly believing this
was all still a game. Reality denial makes it possible to convince
people that despite the horrifying experiences portrayed in the
movie life is nevertheless beautiful. How can life be so illogical? Dr. Lawrence Kohlberg offers a fascinating explanation. Paraphrasing the Harvard psychologist, the three stages of behavioural development are: 1. PRE-MORAL STAGE applies to young children and is based
on reward and punishment which is universally used by parents:
if a child does as it is told it is rewarded. If it doesn't,
it is punished. 3. INDEPENDENT STAGE challenges conventional thinking and behaviour. Once convinced of the errors and weaknesses of conventional customs, such independent thinkers formulate their own moral code and conduct themselves accordingly. They challenge conventional thinking and are widely condemned as heretics, iconoclasts and other disparaging appellations, yet it is out of their midst that some of the world's greatest moral leaders have risen, e.g. Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela and so on. The reason the world is in such an illogical--and indeed deplorable--state is that less than 10 per cent of people ever reach the third stage! History is full of examples of insane behaviour by "normal people." For example, attempted suicide was an offence under the Criminal Code of Canada as recently as the 1960's. In Europe a few hundred years ago anyone who attempted suicide and failed was charged with a capital offence, nursed back to health and then put to death in one barbaric fashion or another. As recently as the fifties birth control was against the law and condoms could be sold only as protection against venereal disease. In many Third World countries any form of birth control is still against the law. To this day it remains a "sin" in the eyes of the Catholic church! Of course, real sin is the abject poverty unrestricted breeding creates. Conventional morality is the foundation of intolerance, barbarism, discrimination, racism, prejudice, fundamentalism, self-righteousness, militarism and supremacism. People who don't rise above conventional morality make great candidates for the military (blind obedience: orders are orders) and, of course, conventional morality is the basis of religious fundamentalism. We live in a world based on Space Age technology with Stone Age morals and motivations. This means the life-threatening consequences of corporate and government decisions are magnified by the advancement of science and the ethical failure to apply that scientific progress for the benefit of all people instead of the enrichment of a select few. Murderous intentions in a bow-and-arrow society is only a threat to some individuals, but murderous intentions in our nuclear-armed global village threatens the entire human race. Even if we can avoid nuclear conflict, we are not likely to survive the ultimate consequences of global warming, genetic engineering, resource depletion, pollution and --perhaps most threatening of all-- microbial mutations. If humans were really as intelligent as they think they are we would never have reached this stage of converging disasters In conclusion a sobering thought: of all the countless life forms on this planet, none is more dispensable than human beings. No other life form depends for its survival on humans, while humans-- being at the top of the food chain-- could not survive without a large number of plants and animals. If the human race would vanish, the surviving species would flourish. Perhaps we are genetically programmed to destroy ourselves since we are one of very few species that has no natural predators to do it for us. |