How Cynicism Will Save Us From A Date With Extinction
- From: trudogg <trudogg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 30 May 2007 08:24:04 -0400
by Robert Weitzel
I am a Homo sapien and a cynic by nature. I can no more change one
than the other. And while there is nothing mutually inclusive about
this pairing, the latter is meaningless without the former. Regardless
(or because), I find lowering the bar on my fellow sapiens cathartic.
It is also less disappointing.
Ninety-nine percent of our evolution as a social species has taken
place in the absence of language. If there was any abstract thinking
going on in the early days, besides what was necessary to survive from
sunrise to sunset, there was no way to be nauseating about it or to
contradict someone else?s abstract thoughts. Basically, there was no
way to really piss anyone off. All we had to do to coexist peacefully
was keep our mitts off the other guy?s significant other(s).
It was only when our pet abstractions found a voice that all the
trouble with our fellow sapiens started. It must have been about this
time that the heretofore-latent genes for cynicism were recognized for
their survival value by the ?genius? of natural selection. This is how
I came to be.
The lesson to be learned from a backward glance at our evolutionary
descent from pre-lingual to post-loquacious is that when we open our
mouths we cease to be truly social animals and cynicism begins its
inexorable creep.
Consider wolves, another social animal. They communicate with each
other about food and danger and hunting and sex. And certainly there
is a bit of jockeying for positions of power within the pack. But they
are incapable of muddling things up by communicating more than is
absolutely necessary to maintain the cohesion and survival of the pack
or a position in it. They can?t, for instance, gloat if they happen to
be the alpha male or female. They just are, end of story. Likewise,
they can?t harangue or proselytize or lie or bore. This inability
leaves any social animal feeling well disposed toward its neighbor.
Cynicism has no survival value in such a congenial atmosphere.
Why then do we Homo sapiens?busting at the corpus callosum with all
sorts of abstractions?open our mouths, knowing darn well it will
automatically alienate at least fifty percent of our species? Why . .
.. because we can, and because we can?t stop ourselves. Because we
think the edification of our species hinges on the latest blast from
the bullhorn-of-a-gob-hole under our nose.
Religion . . . blah, blah, blah! Politics . . . blah, blah, blah! We
are always one wrong abstract thought too late in shutting up. Without
fail, our coreligionists or our political pals feel the needle of the
one unorthodox abstraction in an otherwise flawless soliloquy.
Predictably, they will feel ever so slightly less social toward us.
Imagine the antisocial feeling if our audience didn?t particularly
like us to begin with.
There is an inverse bell-curve relationship between success as a
social animal and yammering and cynicism . . . yammering up, social
value down, cynicism up. Is it any wonder, then, that natural
selection was so hesitant in committing Homo sapiens to the big brain,
language thing? It was an evolutionary experiment in creating the
ultimate social creature that has, for the most part, failed. Even
money says the last-minute language mutation makes dinosaurs out of us
all.
I?ll also wager many readers are thinking at this point that it is
only through dialogue with those whom we disagree that we will ever
learn to live harmoniously as a species. While I agree there is a
certain number of Homo sapiens (you may be one) genetically
predisposed for such temperate give and take, the critical mass of
humanity is predisposed otherwise. It is not the talking but the
walking in another?s shoes that is needed. And yet, there is only room
for one person?s foot at a time in any given shoe.
But there is no denying that we crave the company of other sapiens.
Evolution has made it difficult to resist. And if kept at a certain
level that precludes irritating opinions or inflexible beliefs or
bigoted assumptions we get along swimmingly. Unfortunately for the
longevity of our species, our abstractions are our obstructions and
our gob hole is a permanent aperture.
So the survival advantage of cynicism is that it allows us to enjoy
the sine qua non of being a member of a social species?namely, being
social?by never expecting more than we are likely to get and by never
being disappointed when we get what we expect. This lowering of the
bar tends to make us a more tolerant, dare I say, a friendlier bunch
of sapiens.
Cynicism is only one of evolution?s strategies for survival as a
social species. There are others we can exploit. Mostly, though, we
just need to stop talking so damn much.
.
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