Re: Richard Dawkins


robin wrote:
It seems to be built into our genes, into our very nature, to want to
win, to perpetuate our existence, to be immortal. Freud thought so, as
Darwin had thought so.

Richard Dawkins wrote:

"When we die we can leave behind us only two things, genes and memes.
... Our genes may be immortal but the collection of genes that is any
of us is bound to crumble away."

"But if you contribute to the world's culture, if you have a good idea,
compose a tune, invent a sparking plug, write a poem, it may live on,
intact, long after your genes have dissolved in the common pool."

And Dawkins offers these examples -

"The meme-complexes of Socrates, Leonardo, Copernicus and Marconi are
still going strong."

[p199 The Selfish Gene] Reminds me of "Psalm of Life" which has the
lines "lives of great men all remind us, we can make our lives sublime,
and departing leave behind us, footprints on the sands of time."

Many cnturies before either Dawkins or Longfellow, Quintillian taught
rhetoric to the Romans, and as revered as he was in his own time, he
still had enemies. But Quintillian believed that the true eloquence of
rhetoric depends upon the solid gold of one's character. Enemies must
be treated honorably, even when they themselves behave dishonorably.
The clue to the eloquence of the flower's beauty (which is seen) lies
buried hidden in its roots (Which are unseen).

There is a correspondence with the teaching of some of the
Eastern-inspired martial arts disciplines which come to us from Asia.
The core of the teaching (in theory at least) is spiritual and ethical.
There is a focus on inward integrity and self-discipline. There is a
concentration on the wholeness which integrates both feminine values
and masculine ones. If anything, wantonness and rampant testosterone
are regarded as unworthy, almost barbarian, the crude manner of brutes.

LIKEWISE, in his theory of language arts of persuasion, Quntillian
insisted on a kind of ethicality in his view of rhetoric. Apparently,
some of his ideas came close to Martin Luther King's ideal of
non-violence. "Wisdom must be lived."

As to whether our meme complexes, in Dawkins words, will live on, will
reach the stars, that is out of our hands. Quintillian asks, is your
"life" eloquent? If it is not, forget about your words. Forget about a
meme-complex that reaches the stars.

Concentrate on being (as King might say, in fact DID say) an overcomer
of this world. Concentrate on ethics. You, that is, your body, might
perish in the process. You might be a martyr, as was (in a real sense)
Martin Luther King. As was the Italian Giordana Bruno. As was Boethius.

Don't give up.

superata tellus sidera donat

Be an overcomer, not only of those who bully and hate, but be an
overcomer of your own fears and flaws and failings, of the reflex to
fight back, to resort to "violence" in rhetoric, and of self-defensive
and argumentative passion.

In schools now, here in the states, a movement is under way to oppose
bullying and unkindness.

"Don't laugh at me, don't call me names, don't get your pleasure, from
my pain."

(This could have come right out of Quintillian. Indeed, he as much as
said it, many centuries ago.)


Neither Quintillian nor Dawkins were Christians. But their words and
lives deserve to be studied by all of us. Martin Luther King reminds us
that as Christians (who should know better) we are called to an
impossibly high standard, the Sermon on the Mount. Yet there is no
other hope for the world. How do we stand up against hatred, yet do so
out of love? How do we put our lives in jeopardy from those who hate
and kill, who use violence and bullying to make sure they "Win" --- and
become willing to be their victims, while we quietly persist in truth
and love?

Self defense is the first law of nature, Darwin taught. How true that
no doubt is.

Yet Dawkins wrote in Selfish Gene, "We, that is our brains, are
separate and independent enough from our genes to rebel against them."

Dr. King said we need agape love.

Well put Robin. Most people who resist Darwinian evolution and Dawkin's
selfish gene hypothesis do so because they think that it conflicts with
a humane and ethical nature.

If people have to rely on a book of bloodthirsty fairy tales and a list
of 'Thou Shalt Not' rules to determine their own moral compass and then
have the temerity to question the ethics of people who rely on empathy,
reason and compassion to form their own sense of morality it no doubt
makes the baby jebus cry a little.

.

Relevant Pages

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