Continuing where I left off from my previous post…

… Still, we can glimpse that direction and purpose, using our own direction and purpose to guide our imagination. But more importantly, by seeing purpose and direction in evolution -- as in our own lives -- we can begin to positively effect our own evolution towards a better future, one that I am inclined to imagine would be more peaceful, respectful, balanced, and healthy than the present state of our species and its civilization.

Perhaps predator humans at the crest of local power and wealth waves might prefer to imagine a feudal, slave society that serves them and them alone, but I’d like to point out that human development clearly shows that predator species and predator individuals will be extincted (found less fit) more rapidly than other, less predatorial types. The saber-toothed tiger, the lion, the modern tiger, the cougar, the wolverine and so many other predators are targeted first by humans seeking to build a place for themselves. This is true for the most aggressive humans as well. Nature may create predators but it does not love them. And human nature has a particular antipathy for predatorial types.

Thus I speak of our species emerging into the “teenage” years of its life span, and the implications that has for us human children as we begin to grasp and manage our purpose, meaning, and direction, that is, as we begin to move towards greater maturity.

Like all growth in a population, some individuals will begin to mature a little sooner than others. Some individuals (we often call them prophets, sages, geniuses) speak to and for our future with guiding principles and values. Particularly meaningful to me are teachings that promote one law for all people alike, and for taking care of the needy and most vulnerable in society. Our prophets and geniuses are not perfect, and they may also say many things that are still embedded in adolescent thinking. But they have seen a glimmering of the future, and that can inspire and guide us.

Others speak forcefully and with great popularity, and yet they speak from the moral and social ignorance of our species’ prepubescence. They are fearful of people and ideas that they don’t know (xenophobic); predatorial towards those that are different or weaker (bigoted); certain of their knowledge, though it is profoundly limited (fundamentalist, authoritarian); without regard for or awareness of their impact on the world around them (anti-environmentalist); and/or concerned only with matters of status (idol worshiping). These are people on the back edge of the evolutionary wave, and yet they are often the people whose voices are the loudest or most popular.

One’s status in society is not a measure of one’s moral and spiritual growth. Indeed “high status” may be a measure of a person’s lack of growth, showing s/he is mired in the dogpack values of ego, aggression, vanity, and consumption. The same is true for those obsessed with power. Often very backwards in their moral and social values, those who seek political power are often among the people most resistant to societal growth, and most opposed to implementing legal and structural changes to facilitate unbiased justice, equal opportunity, and a sense of economic security which will enhance creativity and accelerate our intellectual, moral, and spiritual development.

The dogpack mind is very powerful in our psyche, and very essential. But I believe our evolutionary growth allows for the possibility of diminishing its most destructive aspects, such as unrestrained aggression and fear, while enhancing the dogpack virtues of social responsibility and semi-egalitarian authority structures. Individual commitment to that kind of evolutionary growth is a first step in its manifestation.