Thoughts on us, where we came from, what we have become - and what we can choose to be

Two or three centuries ago, in Europe, Asia and parts of Africa, life depended on agriculture, and survival had become a struggle as populations grew beyond the capacity of the land, and several millennia had established materialistic, hierarchical, and aggressive forms of societies - mainly in Europe, which was in the process of invading, occupying and colonising other parts of the world. 

This had been developing since agriculture was discovered or invented around ten millennia ago. Before then, human populations were limited to the capacity of lands, based often on a nomadic lifestyle. 

There was a simple but brutal arithmetic then: if you had more people than you could feed, some people died. There was a metaphysical and social and creative (artistic) richness to their lives, but technological developments were limited (compared to post-industrial revolution) and, combined with population limits, environmental impacts were generally limited - not always, but then some of those environmental impacts were beneficial, as shown by Australia’s Indigenous people had highly effective systems of caring for land (“country”) (and agriculture,farming and the building of structures in some places - see here, here, and here), systems which were damaged and almost forgotten during the dispossession and violent suppression of colonisation.

Care for others has been a feature of human existence for a long time - one set of archaeological remains was of a Neanderthal (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) who had no teeth, and could only have survived if others pre-chewed that person’s food.

But medical care and health knowledge was not comparable to what we have now: some  forms of surgery were practised, and herb-based medicines were known - we now have, for instance, Buscopan, which came  from an ingredient of the Duboisia plant (see also here and here), but we couldn’t monitor and control disease and genetic problems and undertake the advanced surgeries we can now.

We had some forms of pain relief, but not to the extent and efficacy most of us now have (which, although good, does not provide pain relief for all ailments, as advocates for assisted dying quite rightly point out). 

Although those pre-agriculture lifestyles had some advantages, the limited medical care was a disadvantage, and we humans may well have lost people who were talented and could have made valuable contributions to our existence to that limitation. 

It is a little like a pre-historic version of something I often ask now: how many Einsteins, Marie  Curies, and Nelson  Mandelas has the world lost to poverty? (I often vary the names used.)

Poverty is a good segue to my main point: the loss of quality of life as authoritarian power structures developed in society (although I have to point out that human development has had advantages: although gatherer-hunters worked an average of 25 - 30 hours per week, the advantages of development are shown by things such as the reduced effort required for lighting [ever spent a year gathering wood to burn?] and clothes washing [which I mostly did by hand in the eight years I lived on a boat]). 

Some power structures are the outcome of organisation - for instance, large engineering projects I work on from time to time have clearly defined and well developed organisational structures, communication & record systems, and time management / planning schemes that are essential to the accomplishment of things like large infrastructure projects (I work in the water and wastewater field - which is finally embracing circular economy and other concepts many of us have advocated for over many decades).

But the sort of social structures that manifest as social class, bigotry and discrimination, and inept political & other management (of which neoliberalism [see also here] is the most recent, although possibly surpassed by fascism [including naziism/neo-naziism] / communism) make life untenable, no matter how well-served some of us on this planet are with our material needs ... which has led to an economy dedicated to serving material wants, or seeming wants, in a way that grows inequality. 

And the fault of that lies partly with us, in political choices and what we allow. 

Benjamin Franklin replied, when  asked what form of government the nascent USA would have, “a republic, if you can keep it”. 

If you can keep it. 

What does that take? Well, several things (for a range of views on that, see here, here, here, here, and this, this, this, and this), and one is the impartation of knowledge. 

We no longer have the wise and trusted story tellers of the majority of our existence. 

We have forgotten who and what we are. 

And we have allowed ourselves to be splintered by the powerful. 

But we can choose to reverse that.

We can choose to step out of modern social structures, care about all other humans and the world we rely on for our existence, reconnect with our human essence, and collaborate for peace, decency (including inclusion), and equitable sharing.

That can be in the political arena, but it can also be in our everyday ways of being and living. 

Are you interested in making a change?