Monday 29 July 2019

Humans, Humanity, and Human Rights - Chapter 1 - What I Don't Currently Know to My Satisfaction

This project commenced with a conceptual outline, published on Saturday 1st December, 2018, at: https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2018/12/humans-humanity-and-human-rights.html
I’ve decided I’ll post each chapter in its first, raw state, and you, Dear Reader, can see if my later research (probably long after I've finished this first version, in my retirement, should I be fortunate enough to actually get to retire) led to any change. (You can also think about the points I am making.) 
I've come up with an initial structure of the book (no guarantees it won't change), and will add the links to each chapter in the latest installment as they are published. Owing to the size of each chapter, I will have to publish this using the sub-chapters. Links below, and also here.

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Chapter One – Introduction to Concepts, and On Early Humans

Chapter One: What I don't currently know to my satisfaction


(As a digression, I was going to title these sections “what ‘we’ don’t know”, but someone else may well know what I’m going to raise here, so using the royal “we” was, I considered, presumptuous and quite possibly wrong. Also, if I do manage to get this published, I doubt very much that I’ll have the luxury of publishing updated editions – that’s OK, this book, as with virtually all others, will eventually become dated and obsolete. It’s better, though, IMO, for the author to make sure that is brought to the Reader’s attention early, in the interests of promoting thoughtful, reflective and constructively critical reading. As a final point, I’m not really interested in others’ opinions / knowledge other than as expressed below: if you think I’m an idiot and some things in the list below are well known, you are welcome to your opinion / knowledge - and you may well be correct, but, at the time I’m writing this, this is the situation as far as I am concerned. By the time you read it, my opinion may have changed . . . )
What I currently don’t know to my satisfaction (I know I will expand this when I edit it, but I am keen to get the first version of this first chapter up, so here ‘tis):
·         Major (to me) question:

o   Why no-one else (especially someone with credibility or even academic qualifications) has thought to do this, or something similar. (If they have, where?)
o   How a proper, objective and independent consideration of philosophical (logical) fallacies would rate this chapter (dammit, Jim, where’s Spock when you need him?);
o   How I would have written this chapter if I had done all the reading and study I want to.
o   The actual, probably pre-historic origin of human rights thinking / action.
o   Adequate details of Australia’s indigenous cultures. By the way, I actually don’t consider that I need to know those: I would love to see an indigenous person draw on that rich history and culture and write their version of what I am covering in this book.
o   To what extent I can rely on the descriptions of pre-historic cultures in Jean M. Auel’s Earth’s Children series of books.
o   To what extent and in what manner Neanderthals and early homo sapiens interacted.
o   How well I can rely on the experiences of modern re-enactors of pre-historic cultures.
o   Differences in the thinking and world views of people in pre-historic cultures as compared to modern, industrialised cultures.
o   The quantitative benefits of families, groups, tribes, companies, organisations, or nations treating its constituent members with respect and dignity, including fully respecting and realising human rights, throughout history and in various cultures.
o   How death rates from violence of humans through our history compares with that of primates.
o   The extent to which kindness is uniquely or human or can be used to define “human”, which includes how much what reasonable or normal people (not scientists) would find kindness in life other than humans, and to what extent kindness can be considered characteristic of life itself.
o   The extent to which “tough love” and similar ilk could be justified, and exactly by what, in humanity’s gatherer-hunter eras – past and present;
o   Exactly how much of a struggle was survival then compared to now (keeping in mind the variety of circumstances humans find themselves in, and the wide range of ways we can struggle)?
o   How can the hardening of the human heart created by social engineering over the last few millennia be best undone?
o   How can bad motivation (e.g., keeping power, protecting oneself, or for self-gain) for plausible actions (e.g., the “we’ve all got to tighten our belts” line) be detected/identified, and made apparent / proven?
o   How can people be brought to accept and work constructively with variety?
o   How can people be enabled to be comfortable with the non-binary reality of gender?
o   To what extent I can actually rely on the word analysis I have used to support my proposal that being kind is – or should be - an essential part of being human?
o   To what extent can I rely on looking at genetic neighbours for any conclusions?
o   What circumstances were like in the early tribes that were moving out of Africa – how much of that move was violence, and how much was actively thinking and deciding to avoid conflict?

·         Other questions:

o   The differences between Cro-Magnons and modern humans, and the ins and outs of the history of sub-species under homo sapiens – for instance, when I was younger I am fairly sure I was told modern humans were homo sapiens sapiens.
(Digression and minor whinge: how can I get Word to accept that some repeated words are not mistakes – as in the preceding sentence, and Australian names such as Baw Baw. Will a future version of Word allow us to add exceptions to that “rule”? J )
o   Exactly how quickly the first Australians adapted their cultures to Australian conditions.
o   What percentage of human DNA would be Neanderthal if Danny Vendramini’s Neanderthal Predation theory applied (I suspect it would lower than it actually is – see preceding footnote in this chapter).
o   What challenges other people have experienced to the view that groups “do better” under “fairer and more humane” conditions. (Yes, the fact that this question is in the “minor to me” section is arrogant and self-centred, isn’t it?)
o   Can the hardening of the human heart created by social engineering over the last few millennia (until the Enlightenment, perhaps? Or the Gutenberg printing press and modern literacy?) be quantified?
o   Exactly how did specialisation start?
o   What academics and experts think of all this is of very minor curiosity to me.





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