The War to End All Wars
Hyper-man’s Unilateral Declaration of War on Nature
We could spend hours, literally, itemizing a long list of indicators pointing to the breakdown, collapse and decay of western civilization…pretty much every civilization or empire modern man has built has eventually collapsed, each the victim of its own excess. Instead let’s spend our time (more productively so) examining a wide-angle view of hyper-man’s conflicted and destructive relationship with the rest of the planet over the past several millennia. (The ‘rest of the planet’ includes humanity as well). This not being a history lesson and assuming readers have at least a rudimentary grasp of world history we will focus more on specific ideas, attitudes and mind-sets held by modern, aggressive, industrialized super-thinking humans and how these ideas have contributed greatly to the social and environmental melt-down currently unfolding on our planet.
(Note: It is an interesting aside that the recent bombardment of media coverage of ever-accelerating environmental catastrophes, i.e., wildfires, hurricanes, floods etc. has also been accompanied by an odd set of terms and phrases which would be much more suited to the realm of out-and-out warfare. Terms and phrases such as; “it looks like an atomic bomb exploded”, “there’s nothing left…it’s all gone”, “a disaster of biblical proportions”, “it feels like we’re in a war-zone”, “scorched earth”, “wasteland”, “apocalyptic”, etc. etc. And yet hidden within this unusual choice of words and phrases lies a subtle hint as to the origins of our current dilemma).
To wit, we advanced, progressive, hyper-ideological super-primates, as a sub-species, have in fact unilaterally declared war on nature. Super-humans have been on an irreversible collision course with nature for some time now. One might think this unfolding disaster originated back in the early stages of the industrial revolution with the invention and global proliferation of machines. But in fact the genesis of both the collision and the declaration of war can be traced back much, much further, back to the early days of the agricultural revolution. And the original ‘seed’ that spawned this poisonous and most destructive period in the Earth’s history was generated in the form of an idea. Yes, an idea.
The Arbitrary Manufacturing of Ideas
It is an indisputable historical fact that the explosive growth of the human brain (from 350cc to 1350cc – a 300% increase) in a relatively brief period of human evolution (post H. Habilis) caused early modern humans to develop the unique and unprecedented ability to arbitrarily manufacture ideas. The explosive growth of the human brain – a phenomenon herein referred to as a ‘biological aberration’ or ‘freak of nature’ – unleashed upon the Earth the ideological revolution which further begat (1) the agricultural revolution, (2) the stratification of human societies, (3) the lethal over-population of humans and their livestock, (4) the disparate/feudal class structures (the elites in control of the masses) and (5) hyper-man’s blind arrogance and disrespect for natural and universal laws. Combined, all of these questionable attributes have had a cumulative effect on hyper-man’s evolving conflict with nature.
(Note: The ability – or perhaps dis-ability – to manufacture ideas is a ‘big ticket item’ in the broader context of biological evolution. All other species groups on the planet and throughout biological history have functioned according to their genetic instincts, their immediate physical needs or in response to natural stimuli coming in from the world around them. We advanced humans are the only species group with a super-brain capable of synthesizing ideas and – surprise, surprise – we are also the only species group hell-bent on global destruction).
The real problem with a manufactured idea is that it is synthetic, capricious, arbitrary and not necessarily grounded in reality. The notions that the Earth is flat, that we exist in a geo-centric universe or that God wears a white robe and sits on a chair and judges humans are three good examples of ideas not grounded in reality. In fact, hyper-primates with super-sized brains have the dubious faculty of conjuring up any ‘eight-ball’ idea they choose and then incorporating that idea into their belief system where it eventually morphs into their truth. A very, very dangerous process as we have witnessed over the war-ravaged and ideology-driven history of western civilization. The attitudes and mind-sets referred to back in the first paragraph that have contributed to the social and environmental melt down today were arrived at through this exact same process.
“He was a legend in his own mind”
There are many examples of this process strewn – like haphazard car-wrecks – throughout the history of western civilization but two examples that really stand out are the centrism and religious-based concepts that man is the ‘crown of creation’ and has ‘dominion over the Earth’. These two arrogant notions alone would easily qualify as the most ‘eight-ball’ and (at the same time) the most destructive ideas hyper-man has dreamed up in the past ten thousand years since the beginning of the agricultural revolution.
For They Know Not What They Do
‘We are born into, will live and eventually die as tiny, insignificant ‘machine-parts’ lost in the complexities of a monstrous ideological mechanism that’s been thousands of years in the making. And being thus, and lacking any contextual/wide-angle view of our own history, we will blindly and unconsciously go about our business rarely, if ever, questioning the validity of the ethics that underpin the larger machine itself’.
The theme of this piece is man’s unilateral declaration of war on nature. We must give early modern humans the benefit of the doubt…they most certainly did not ‘know’ what they were doing or had even a clue as to the long-range ramifications of their actions (specifically the invention of agriculture), being oblivious to what was going on in terms of the ‘big picture’ view of biological history and natural law. And they certainly couldn’t have known that they were active but unwitting participants in a major evolutionary ‘quirk’ or the catastrophic train wreck it would cause just up around the bend. It is even stated in other related documents that there is no blame attached to the explosive growth of the human brain, the resulting ideological revolution, the invention of agriculture or the global tragedy these would one day wrought. By side-stepping blame and fault we can more objectively accept the realities of hyper-man’s war-torn and turbulent history and the first reality is that regardless of how ill-informed and unconscious his ideas and actions were throughout the evolution of western civilization, those ideas and actions were tantamount to a unilateral declaration of war on nature.
‘So, no train wreck…and then Poof!…a train wreck, in only seven thousand years’
‘Unilateral declaration of war’ are strong words but what do they mean exactly. In the prologue of the ‘train wreck’ essay there is a line which reads…’so, no train wreck…and then Poof!….a train wreck, in only seven thousand years’. Between the early days of the agricultural revolution and the current 21st century (approx. 7,000 years) we have witnessed a violent transformation from a world that was in a general state of harmony with itself – to a world in abject chaos. The fact that we and the rest of the biosphere are now fully involved in (as opposed to entering or on the verge of) another major extinction event indicates the severity of the ‘violent transformation’. To be clear, this radical and extreme transformation did not occur out of ‘thin air’…it was caused by an equally radical and equally extreme triggering mechanism which this essay identifies as the destructive and synthetic ideas manufactured inside the ‘freakishly’ over-sized brain of advanced modern hyper-humans.
The Idea of ‘Mine’ as in ‘This is Mine’
Hyper-man’s synthetic ideas and the declaration of war are one and the same. The bi-product of synthetic ideas was a synthetic value system which included the acquisition, possession, exclusive ownership and hoarding of material wealth. The ugly and pernicious idea of ‘this is mine’…this ‘belongs’ to me and me alone. The idea that someone, anyone, can take a tract of land – a piece of the ‘Earth’ itself, no matter how large or how small – erect a fence around it and put up a sign saying ‘private property…trespassers will be prosecuted’ is an obscenity. An utter obscenity in the context of natural laws and natural ethics. The essence of this deadly concept has evolved and infected the entire history of western civilization and today greatly defines who we are as a sub-species. Elitist at its core, this idea has been the driving force and motivation behind the evolution of ‘big business’, ‘big industry’, ‘big profit’, ’big government’, ‘big military’, ’big medicine’, ‘big education’, ’big Pharma’ and ‘big religion’. (The Catholic Church itself is more culpable than any other institution in history in terms of its blatant obsession with the accumulation and hoarding of material wealth). Combined, these poisonous attitudes and mind-sets constitute a declaration of war on nature.
To repeat, in only seven thousand years – a micro-second in universal terms – our sub-species of big-brained, hyper-ideological super-primates has propelled us from what was back then a simpler world in harmony with itself into the epicenter of the Sixth Great Extinction…in only seven thousand years. The five previous extinctions were caused by either geological or extra-terrestrial cataclysms…this is the first time a planet has been brought down by an idea.
Conclusion
No doubt, there are many who will scream with derision at this radical approach to understanding the age of modern hyper-humans. What about all the scientific, medical, astronomical, biological discoveries? Newton, Galileo, Darwin, Salk, Einstein? What about the discoveries of penicillin, vaccines, open-heart surgery, molecular biology, genetics, E=mc2, quantum physics, stem-cell research, nano-technology? Yes, what about them??? (And this is where one has to look at the ‘big, big’ picture). In this super-ideological age which spawned the invention of agriculture – in which we aggressive advanced humans first began to wrest control away from nature – to this current period of global/systemic collapse and certain extinction, could there be, just might there be a direct correlation between the reckless, ‘damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead’ development of science, medicine, innovation and technology, and the unfolding train wreck? Could it be that the fields of science, western medicine, innovation and technology have been, in fact, blindly and arrogantly contravening the laws of nature from the very beginning…that beginning marked by the arbitrary and synthetic manufacturing of ideas.
Author’s note: There is an axiom within the field of broadcasting which goes something like; if one wishes to get their point across to the audience, first, you must ‘tell them you are going to tell them’, second, ‘tell them’, and thirdly, ‘tell them you have told them’. Certain elements contained in the above essay were drawn directly from other essays and books written over the past ten years and can be found on the attached website. The approach to these divisive issues is radical and a bit extreme at times and the reader may benefit from a second or third line of exposure to this unique perspective.
Dennis Lakusta October 23, 2017