Being Weird Is No Excuse

At a personal level there are signs that many of us are showing signs of disconnection from our own selves. There are many historical and psychological origins of this disconnection. Amongst these are: lack of community, individualism (especially toxic individualism), a flawed understanding of our basic nature, and identification with an isolated, autonomous, self.

When these are combined in a toxic cauldron it is easy to understand how we have come to be tragically disconnected from our own selves. The psychohistorian, Jay Gonen, notes that many suffering from this disconnection respond with the ‘hyper-vigilance of the haunted, the alert scanning of the insecure, and the continuous suspiciousness of the vulnerable.’¹ Could a better description of disconnection be spoken? The sadness of this condition is that the disconnection is primarily culturally induced, not the natural condition of humanity.

Moreover, extrapolating the worldviews, belief systems, and behaviours of those of us of a European heritage onto the rest of humanity is untenable, inappropriate, and leads to erroneous conclusions. Much of our so-called knowledge of human psychology and behaviour patterns come to us via studies in the behavioural science fields.

Yet, the majority of these studies are inherently flawed and biased. It is only recently that researchers in the behavioural sciences have thought to question the potential bias in these studies. Researchers in the Department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia did just that only as recently as 2010.² What they found is staggering, although probably not surprising. They found that in an analysis of the top journals in six sub-disciplines of psychology between 2003-2007 ‘…a full 96% of subjects were from Western industrialised countries, specifically North America, Europe, Australia, and Israel.’ Staggeringly, this analysis revealed that, ‘…a randomly selected American undergraduate is more than 4,000 times more likely to be a research participant than is a randomly selected person from outside the West.’

When these researchers compared the results of these westernised and Eurocentric studies with those from other parts of the world they were led to conclude that westernised, Eurocentric culture is weird. In fact, they were so stunned by this conclusion that they coined the acronym WEIRD as a label – Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, and Democratic. It is an apt tag, as weird also identifies those of us from these cultures as outliers, statistically speaking, in the expanse of humanity as a whole. In the Abstract to this research the authors warn that, ‘Overall, these empirical patterns suggest that we need to be less cavalier in addressing questions of human nature on the basis of data drawn from this particularly thin, and rather unusual, slice of humanity.’

The writer, political theorist, and researcher, Sarah Stein Lubrano was interviewed by Rachel Donald (creator of the podcast Planet: Critical) early in 2024.³ Lubrano cited the research mentioned above and took the next step. It’s ‘a weird fascination of our weird culture that we think the self is there and it’s the best and most likely explanation for human behaviour.’ Whereas, she went on, ‘…people in other cultures do not think this and that suggests that our sense of self is largely culturally constructed.’

Where does this leave our understanding of human psychology and behaviour? Certainly, we have to conclude that our (weird) ideas of humanity as a whole are flawed and may even be of little use. Where too, does this leave those of us who do trace our heritage in this (weird) way?

Somewhere along our ancestral path we began to disconnect from our selves, and we are continuing to suffer the consequences. Ominously, if Sarah Stein Lubrano is correct, then our Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, and Democratic sense of self is suspect and at variance with most of the rest of the world. Certainly, our weird construction of the self differs significantly from that of indigenous and nature-based cultures. Some self-appraisal and self-assessment would seem to be in order for those of us living in Western, Eurocentric cultures.

Any self-reflection of this sort must surely begin with a rejection of our notions of inherent evil, ill-will, nastiness, brutality, and selfishness at the heart of all humanity. Such notions are blatant errors.

Holding onto this falsity has saturated our culture with an enormous array of mental health issues, social behavioural problems, and sociological harms. The Hungarian-Canadian physician, researcher, and writer, Gabor Maté, has devoted an entire 500-page book to this topic. The Myth of Normal,⁴ according to Maté, is that ‘…what passes for normal in our society is neither healthy nor natural, and that to meet modern society’s criteria for normality is, in many ways, to conform to requirements that are profoundly abnormal in regard to our Nature-given needs – which is to say, unhealthy and harmful on the physiological, mental, and even spiritual levels.’ (emphasis in the original)

Writing almost 100 years before Maté, Sigmund Freud noted this same abnormality. Although Freud also subscribed to a base nastiness in humans, he did recognise that 1) it is civilisation itself, not the individual psyche, that disrupts the true nature of people, and 2) the social ills of the world are symptoms of this. Distressingly, Freud noted that, given the first two observations, ‘the psychoanalytic approach, or any individualised approach to psychological healing, may in the larger scheme of things offer no more than superficial relief.’⁵

No doubt this, and our weirdness, is why the Jungian psychologist James Hillman and the novelist Michael Ventura were able to provocatively title their co-authored book We’ve Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy and the World’s Getting Worse.

Notes:

1. Cited in Shepard, Paul. Nature and Madness

2. Joseph Henrich, Steven J Heine, and Ara Norenzayan, The Weirdest People in the World? Working Paper 139, University of British Columbia, 2010

3. Planet:Critical, interview with Sarah Stein Lubrano, The Cognitive Dissonance Crisis, Feb 1, 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYPBzHLjgw4

4. Gabor Maté with Daniel Maté, The Myth of Normal, 2022

5. Cited in Chellis Glendinning, My Name is Chellis & I’m in Recovery from Western Civilisation. p 66

Mind Your Ps and Cs

Amongst all the conversations and papers relating to environmental and social collapse we will come across some P terms: problem, predicament, and (wicked) problem being the most prominent. As well as collapse itself, we will also come across some other C terms: complicated, complex, and chaos to name the most common.

Let us try to sort these out. What does each term mean, and how are they similar or different from each other.

Beginning with the Ps:

A Problem can be thought of as a difficulty or puzzle that has a solution. This does not imply that the solution is always obvious.

Problems normally have clearly defined (although some may be ill-defined) components, parameters, and boundaries. The links between these are also usually able to be defined and enumerated. Logic and reason can be applied to solving a problem.

(Wicked) Problems can be thought of similarly. The main difference however is that any solution is likely to create further problems. Solutions to wicked problems have a ripple effect. Sometimes the ripples can be unforeseen in advance. Thus, although the original problem may have been solved, the solution has left us with further (wicked) problems to contend with.

Predicaments are worse. A predicament has no solution. The word predicament is related to being able to make a prediction which seems to suggest that a solution is possible. However, somewhere in the 16^th century it took on the now familiar sense of predicating an unpleasant outcome. In that century it may have derived from the Middle English word lurken (or lorken) meaning to lie in wait, to remain hidden, and to ambush.

This Middle English etymology makes its present day meaning apparent. Predicaments lie in wait and hidden ready to ambush us. Just when we think we may have a solution, a predicament jumps out from its place of hiding and surprises us. Predicaments rob us of any thought of being able to solve anything. We are left stranded and bereft.

A predicament, however, may have an outcome. But that outcome is one that we cannot predict, cannot plan, and certainly cannot control. This is why the environmental and social collapse is referred to as a predicament.

Now for the Cs

If something is Complicated then it consists of many parts, often linked in linear, predictable ways. Each component can be recognised. An analogy could be an engine. An engine is a complicated piece of machinery, and all the parts interact in an intelligible and purposive manner. If the engine stops working, a mechanic can determine which part is at fault and thus make the engine run again.

A Complex system also has many parts, but unlike a complicated system, not all the parts are identifiable, and the links between them are immeasurable. A complex system is non-linear and is also self-organising. Being self-organising means that if one part of the system is interfered with then the rest of the system will attempt to redress the harm by altering other parts of the system. The changes made by this self-organisation are often unforeseen, unpredictable, and have consequences that may be unintended.

Chaos Theory is a branch of mathematics that attempts to analyse systems that are dynamic in nature. The most widely known aspect of Chaos Theory is the Butterfly Effect which is stated in various analogous ways. The most common is that Chaos Theory tells us that a butterfly flapping its wings over Tokyo can cause a thunderstorm in the Amazon. This is known in the Chaos Theory jargon as ‘sensitive dependence on initial conditions’; a small change in initial conditions can have an enormous impact on the final outcome.

Implications

It is important to note that when we attempt to explain, and then intervene, in the environmental and social context of today we need to understand what sort of system we are dealing with.

The systems we face today are not simple complicated problems; they are not even complicated (wicked) problems.

The systems we face today are complex predicaments and are chaotic in nature.

Hence, we cannot solve our way out of this predicament. Furthermore, none of the individual problems that we might identify can be solved without, at the same time, causing other problems to arise.

Our thinking then must be systemic, rather than piecemeal. Homelessness, for example, cannot be solved by housing alone. Warfare cannot ceased simply by reducing the armaments. The environmental crisis cannot be solved by focussing exclusively on carbon emissions.

Even with a systems analysis, our interference in the complex system that is the Earth, may not result in the outcome we would choose.

That being the case, the best way we can approach the future is to learn (Radical) Acceptance. But that topic is for another blog.

Meantime, we can try to mind our Ps and Cs.

It’s Urgent: We’d Better Slow Down

Slow down enough to see the
simple beauty in a small leaf.

Things are getting urgent, aren’t they? The average global temperature is getting dangerously close to the 1.5 deg C limit signed in the Paris Agreement. The closing of the Strait of Hormuz has shown just how unstable the world’s oil supply is. The divide in political polarisation is growing precariously wide. The Arms Race has not abated. Geopolitical tensions are on the up.

In our own personal spheres, levels of anxiety, depression, and isolation are rising. The mental health of people is deteriorating, sometimes at an alarming rate.

We’ve got to do something.

The train known as humanity is rushing headlong, and with great urgency, toward a precipice. For some members of the human race, the train they were on has already tipped into the chasm.

The urge to do something may be the very factor that impels us closer towards disaster.

The words urgent and urge contain within them the dubious assumptions leading towards the abyss. The Latin word from which the words originate – urgere – means to press hard, push forward, force, drive, compel…

Yet, it is this pushing forward, characterised imprudently as progress, which has been one of the major features driving us to this point.

Thus, urgent as it is, we must slow down.

That’s a contradiction, isn’t it? Surely, if it’s urgent, we have to hurry up and do something about it.

Contradiction – no. Paradox – yes.

Paradox is ubiquitous. Our own lives attest to it. We see paradox almost everywhere we look. At the macro level of the multi-level crises alluded to above it is no less prevalent.

Yet, we do not seem to be capable of recognising the paradox that we should be awake to.

Simply put: Everything is Urgent: We Must Slow Down.

When we examine the various crises, we can see that one of the drivers of most, if not all, these crises is speed. Getting somewhere quicker. Obtaining material objects at a faster and faster rate. Speeding here, speeding there. Rush to work, speed through the in-box, get things achieved quickly (there’s a deadline to be met – urgently!) Rush home, maybe pick up the kids from school on the way. Buy fast-food for dinner, or a pre-cooked meal that can be prepared quickly. Take the dog for a quick walk around the block. Switch through channels on the TV or surf the internet. Head to bed and turn on the alarm; no time to sleep-in. Do it all again. Faster, faster, faster.

At an industrial level the same patterns get repeated. Make more and more stuff, at a quicker, more efficient, speed so that more money can be accrued. Exploit the earth and extract so-called “resources” to get ahead of the opposition and position the company at the head of the pack. Pay no attention to “externalities” (such as the birdlife, water quality, air quality, or soil erosion), so long as the “fuel” for continuous growth of the economy is ever present.

What if we slowed down enough to recognise and acknowledge the beauty in the world? Slowing down we would notice more beauty, like the beauty in a small dying leaf as shown in the illustration accompanying this blogpiece. What if we slowed down enough to feel love and empathy for our human and non-human co-inhabitants of this planet? What if we slowed down enough to listen to our children? What if we slowed down enough to sit quietly with an elderly relative? What if we slowed down enough to feel the beat of our own heart?

If we did these things, would we continue to exploit, destroy, and degrade the natural world?

I somehow don’t think so.

We would probably also enjoy our lives a lot more.

We would probably also allow many others around the world to enjoy their lives a lot more also.

Slowing down would also slow down, and in same cases halt, the crises that surround us.

If this all sounds too much, perhaps start with just one day a week. Make one day a Slow Day.

Kaitiakitanga – A Beautiful Word

Kaitiakitanga has recently been named the most beautiful word in the world according to Babbel, the subscription-based language learning app. Babbel, a German company founded in 2007, has sold more than 25 million subscriptions since its inception.

The company analysed online discussions and came up with 223 words from 75 languages. Babbel then asked an international panel of linguists, authors, and cultural experts to rank these words. The panel used four criteria for ranking the words: sound, meaning, rarity, and cultural significance.

The word kaitiakitanga topped the list.

Kaitiakitanga is a Māori word in the language of the indigenous people of Aotearoa/New Zealand. Its meaning can be summarised as guardianship and protection. It is particularly associated with guardianship and protection of the environment and natural places, although it also has a wider compass. The word is closely associated with the Māori worldview of people and nature being one and the same. People are not simply part of nature, people are nature. Māori recognise various natural features (e.g. rivers, lakes, mountains) as being the embodiment of ancestors. Such features are living entities, they are not resources, assets, or possessions. Kaitiakitanga then, indicates a responsibility to protect, nourish, and heal natural places.

The Babbel language expert, Estaban Touma Portilla, noted that the word resonated with those experiencing the effects of climate change and that the repeated sounds within the word brought to mind ‘our planet, its natural cycles, and our place within them.’

Although the idea of a competition between words is a bizarre one, the word kaitiakitanga, and many of the other top-ranking words offer a space for reflection on what is important in the world.

The top 15 words all evoke feelings and meanings that resonate with deep human yearnings. None of them speak in mechanistic, economic, or managerial terms indicating control, manipulation, exploitation, or extraction.

As examples, here are four of the other words that made the top 15.

• Iriy (Ukrainian) meaning a mythical, warm place where souls and birds migrate for winter.
• Ubuntu (Zulu) meaning ‘I am because you are.’ It indicates the relationship we all have with each other, and that I am only who I am because of everyone and everything else.
• Hiraeth (Welsh) meaning a deep, bittersweet, longing for a lost, or never-truly-known home or time.
• Yakamoz (Turkish) referring to the silvery shimmer of moonlight on water.

All of these are words arouse, and remind us of, our true nature and yearnings. They all echo the underlying concept of kaitiakitanga – viz., that humans are part and parcel of nature, we are not separate from nature.

We all have a responsibility and the honour to be guardians of this planet. These words, and many others, remind us of this.

Sacred Revolt (a Review)

I began writing this weekly blog over fourteen years ago. In that time more than 60 book reviews have been posted. Never before have I reviewed a single academic paper, although many have been referred to. This review, however, is of an academic paper. I am reviewing it because I think it is one of the most important contributions to the discourse about the poly-crisis (aka, multi-crisis, ecological-social collapse) and/or sustainability issues.

The author, Sam Alexander, Ph.D., is the Director of the Simplicity Institute and lecturer in Environmental Programs at the University of Melbourne in Australia.

The full title of the paper is Sacred Revolt: Why Reverence Before Restraint Transforms the Limits-To-Growth Predicament. The paper was published just one week ago, on 8 July 2026. At the end of this review is a link to the paper where it can be downloaded. I strongly suggest reading the entire paper.

The Review

As the full title alludes, the current ecological crisis is often framed in terms of limits, how we keep within them (if at all) and thus become sustainable. Framed in this way, the questions that are asked are of the nature what do we do? These types of questions often comprise technological and mechanical answers on the one hand. Or, the answers suggest restraint, limitation, and self-control.

Neither answer satisfies Sam Alexander. We are failing with both approaches he claims. We need to ask an entirely different sort of question. We need to ask, he states, ‘How might humanity learn once again to love the world enough to not destroy it?’

A simple sounding question, isn’t it? Deepening the question poses more questions and a variety of answers.

Much of the literature in this field offer technological/mechanistic answers to the question, what do we do? A smaller section of the literature present critiques of these answers.

An even smaller segment of the library suggests kerbing consumption and the growth imperative.

Both these approaches are failing Alexander tells us.

The restraint approach fails because it does not adequately address the psychological and spiritual underpinnings of modernity. Modernity constructs and reinforces a strong worldview in its subjects (us humans) that coerces us into believing that our purpose can be found in continued progress, a success orientation, and an eternal future hope of betterment. Our self-identity, modernity tells us, is wrapped up in more; more possessions, more money, more power, and ultimately, more growth.

Against this, the restraint message comes across as limitation and having to give up something. Rather than restraint, our psyche receives the message as deprivation and scarcity.

Psychologically then, the message of restraint gets interpreted as a denial of our human destiny, whether we understand this consciously or not.

So, what does Sam Alexander prescribe?

Prior to submitting a prescription, Alexander notes that modernity has desacralized the world. Alexander is not advocating a religious revival here. He makes his position clear. ‘A desacralized world is not merely a world without gods. It is a world emptied of wonder, awe, and intrinsic significance.’

Sam Alexander reminds us of psychotherapist Erich Fromm’s classic 1976 book To Have or to Be? in which Fromm declares that modernity promises happiness and freedom via material possessions and a domination over nature. This is the have mode. The Be mode, on the other hand, he posits as more fulfilling.

To Be is to partake in the world in a reverential manner. Furthermore, as Alexander notes, ‘reverence deepens rather than expands.’

He elaborates on this by explaining that ‘The ecological question cannot ultimately be separated from the question of what human beings consider sacred.’

This leads Alexander to offer the phrase Sacred Revolt, which he describes as ‘a cultural and existential rebellion against the reduction of existence to commodity, utility, and exchange-value.’

A sacred revolution then results in sufficiency becoming not just necessary, but beautiful.

How many of us are willing to hear this calling and become Sacred Revolutionaries?

This paper is only 12 A4 pages long, so can be read easily in a short amount of time. Implementing its invitation may take a little longer. The paper can be found at this link:

https://samuelalexander.info/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Sacred-Revolt-Samuel-Alexander-1.pdf

Alex and the Rainbow Warrior Bombing

In memory of Fernando Periera.

Today (10 July 2026) marks the 41^st anniversary of the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour. The Rainbow Warrior was the Greenpeace flagship and was preparing to sail to Mururoa to protest the testing of atomic bombs by the French.

To mark this anniversary, I am posting an excerpt from my historical novel Alex and the Rainbow Warrior Affair. This novel is aimed at the tweenage (ages 10-13 or so) market. The novel follows the adventures of Alex, a thirteen-year-old boy, who time travels trying to find his father. Along the way he gets caught up in the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior, even though this had happened before he was born.

In this extract from the novel Alex experiences the bombing firsthand.

Alex and the Rainbow Warrior Bombing

Out in the harbour Alex heard an engine puttering.  Peering out past the ships and the docks Alex could see some ripples in the distance.  Someone had an outboard engine running.  That’s weird he thought.  Not too many small boats go out at night.  Never mind, I’ve got more important things to think about.  Alex kept walking.

Somewhere close by there was music.  Someone must be having a party.  Alex could hear the strains of “Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday to you…”  It appeared to be coming from one of the boats a couple of wharfs further on.

Alex passed a woman walking the other way.  “Good evening,” he said.  “Evening,” she replied with a foreign accent and kept walking.  Strange, thought Alex, am I in some foreign harbour?

Alex sat down on the side of a wharf with his feet dangling over the edge. 

All of a sudden there was an almighty boom and a plume of water shot into the air from the next wharf over.  Shouting began.  It came from the boat that Alex had heard the party on earlier.  Alex ran towards the boat.  He could hear the ship’s warning horn blaring out short blasts.  Aaa..uu..garr!  Aa..uu..garr!

Racing towards the boat he saw a large white dove painted on its bow and rainbow-coloured stripes along its railing.  “Shit,” he said to himself, “this is the Rainbow Warrior.”  The Rainbow Warrior was the flagship of Greenpeace; the international environmental group opposed to French testing of nuclear weapons.

When was he?  It was… when was the Rainbow Warrior bombed?   He remembered it was not long before he was born.  His mother had told him about it.  She’d been in her mid-twenties and a volunteer with Greenpeace at the time she was pregnant with Alex.  She’d told him about the Rainbow Warrior being blown up by French agents.  Alex remembered she’d also said something about one of the crew being killed in a second explosion.  Perhaps if he got there in time, Alex could save the crewman.

From the wharf Alex yelled, “Get out, get out, there’s going to be another explosion.” 

A few of the crew were climbing off the boat onto the wharf.  A large man with a bushy beard heard Alex and coming over to him demanded that he tell him what he was talking about.

“The explosion.  There’s going to be another one,” Alex said.  “You gotta get everyone off the boat.”

The man yelled out something in a foreign language to someone still on board.  Whatever he’d said it was too late.  Another enormous explosion shook the ship.  Within seconds the Rainbow Warrior started to list to starboard, towards the wharf.

Alex heard someone on board yelling “Abandon ship, abandon ship!”

Three more men clambered off the boat, one of them half naked.  Someone from somewhere threw blankets on them and a photographer took a snap.  Doesn’t take journalists long to sniff out a story, thought Alex.

“Where’s Fernando?” shouted one of the men who had just got off the boat.  “Fernando, where is he?  He was right behind me.”  Alex knew what had happened to Fernando.  Alex had been too late.

Fernando Periera, the Portuguese photographer, was standing in his cabin doorway when the man had last seen him.  That was when the captain yelled out for everyone to abandon ship.

Another man was also screaming, “Fernando’s down there, he’s still down there.”

“No he’s not,” argued the half-naked man.  “He went to town.”

The other man joined in, “You’re wrong, Captain, he was there,” he groaned, “right there; he had his camera gear round his neck.  Why the hell didn’t I just grab him by the neck and pull him?”

“Don’t blame yourself, Martini.”

“But I could have saved him, I could’ve damn well saved him.”

“You had to do what you had to do.”  The half-naked man was trying to reassure the other man.  Alex realised that the half-naked man was the captain.

The large, bearded man came over and put his arm around Martini to console him.  That was when he remembered Alex.

“Hey, you,” he yelled at Alex.  “Come here.”

Alex walked over, a bit shaken.  He kept looking at the Rainbow Warrior.  It was almost completely under water.

“You told me there’d be another one.” The big man glared at Alex.  “How did you know that?”

“I…I…I just knew,” said Alex.  How could he tell them how he knew?

“I don’t believe you; I reckon you had something to do with it.”

“N..no, really, I… I just knew.”  Alex was worried; he could see that the man didn’t believe him.  He’d believe him even less if he tried to tell him he was a time traveller.  How was he going to get out of this mess?

Shipwrecks and Rafts

Acali raft

How often do we hear that the base nature of humanity is pretty nasty and brutish? We may not hear it in our day-to-day conversations, but the belief is not far below the surface.

With the westernised culture based very much on Judeo-Christian teachings and credos the idea that humanity is basically flawed has been taught from early on.  The phrase original sin is not used in the Bible, but the implication is there. It was Saint Augustine (354 – 430 CE) who coined the phrase original sin and the term and its connotations have harassed and tormented us ever since.

Not only have theologians persuaded us of the nastiness of humanity, so too have philosophers over the ages. Thomas Hobbes 17^th century claim that life is ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’ is well known. In the 20^th century we hear the Italian philosopher, George Santayana, claiming that, if you ‘dig a little beneath the surface you’ll find a ferocious, persistent, profoundly selfish man.’

Psychologist too, could not resist the urge to tarnish our human nature. Consider this quote from the grandaddy of modern psychology, Sigmund Freud. Writing in 1930 he asserted that ‘the inclination to aggression is an original, self-subsisting, instinctual disposition’ of humans.

All this can be summarised in the oft-quoted line, ‘Man’s (sic) inhumanity to man.’ Many of those quoting this are probably unaware of the source of the quotation. It is from a poem by the Scottish bard, Robert Burns. The poem was written in the late 18^th century amidst a time of social upheaval and economic gloom and reflects the pessimism and despair of the times. Even though the poem was written about a particular place and time the words have come to suggest inhumanity is the general nature of the human psyche and being.

In literature too we find this idea well established. Lord of the Flies (1954), by William Golding, is often cited as portraying the base nastiness and brutality of humanity if left without authority and any ethical grounding.

Yet, all these beliefs and worldviews are fictional, imaginary, and false.

At least two events indicate the spurious nature of the claim that we are nasty and brutish by nature.

A Shipwreck …

In June 1965 six Tongan boys (aged between 13 and 19 years old) stole a boat to run away from the boarding school in Nuku’alofa. Unfortunately for them a storm arose and the boat’s sail and rudder were destroyed. The anchor rope was also broken. For eight days they drifted in the Pacific Ocean aboard a steadily disintegrating boat. Eventually they sighted land, the uninhabited island of ‘Ata.

There they remained for the next 15 months before an Australian fishing boat captain noticed them. They were rescued and returned to their homes and families. By this time their families had given them up for dead.

The remarkable thing about the 15 months they spent castaway was that, contrary to the Lord of the Flies narrative, the boys remained in good spirits and shared out any resources and work that needed doing. Working in pairs they tended a garden, collected rainwater, and kept guard. They shared out cooking duties; one of them had built a fire by rubbing sticks together and they kept that fire going throughout their isolation.

At night they kept their spirits high by singing and playing an improvised guitar. Over the 15 months they wrote five original songs.

Following their rescue all six of the boys were found to be in good health.

A Youtube re-enactment with the boys was filmed in 1966. It can be seen here.

… and a Raft

Almost a decade later, in 1973, an experiment was undertaken designed by a Mexican anthropologist, Santiago Genovés. Genovés had read about research suggesting that violence amongst monkeys often was about males sexually competing for females. He wanted to see if this applied to humans as well. Although his intention, of discovering the sources of human violence and hence being able to bring about world peace, may have been admirable, the design and implementation of the experiment was not. The experiment might well fail the standards of an Ethics Committee if presented for academic study today.

Genovés chose a diverse group of five men and five women, all (according to him) sexually attractive, and all aged in their 20s and 30s. He had a raft built and named it Acali (from a Mexican language meaning house on the water. Using only the power of the wind and ocean currents the Acali took 101 days to sail from Spain to Mexico.

The voyage was a dangerous one, especially as they were heading into hurricane season. However, Genovés believed that in dangerous situations people would ‘revert to their baseline instincts.’

When violence between any of the participants did not eventuate within a week or so of leaving Spain, Genovés tried to provoke it by passing out questionnaires to the participants. Amongst the questions were ones such as; ‘who would you like to get rid of?’ ‘Who would you like to sleep with’, and other questions designed to ramp up the tension.

As the voyage progressed the participants, far from descending into their baseline instincts became friendly and more and more suspicious of the intentions of Genovés himself. At one stage they even debated whether to kill him and throw him overboard but decided against this.

The experiment did not bolster Genovés thesis that diverse groups of humans, when faced with danger, would descend into their baseline instincts of nastiness and brutality.

The experiment showed exactly the opposite.

At one point during the experiment Genovés retreated below deck in a depressed state. During this time he wrote perhaps the most insightful line in his journal that he had had during the entire journey.

He wrote: ‘Only one has shown any kind of aggression and that is me, a man trying to control everyone else, including myself.’

Genovés insight shows a keen observation and understanding of the nature of humanity.

Humanity’s instincts are not nasty and brutish.

But there are those amongst us that would use their power to manipulate and control others so that it would seem that way. We must continuously guard against this.

A documentary of the Acali Experiment is available on Youtube here.

The lesson from this shipwreck and raft experiment is that before we assume that the base nature of humanity is nasty, brutish, ferocious, or selfish, and that sinfulness is the natural state of Homo sapiens we might want to reflect on what these two events truly tell us.

Firmly Held Opinions

‘I’m not one of those who in expressing opinions confine themselves to facts.’ So opined the often acerbic Mark Twain.

Indeed, our propensity to mix facts and opinions is well established. Although we may know that an opinion may be based on fact; claiming a fact based on opinion is fallacious. Yet, we can all be guilty of such, can we not? Indeed, these blogpieces of mine are most likely full of opinions not based on facts.

Is this a problem? Maybe, maybe not. Having opinions, or views on subjects helps us gain clarity. Having clarity helps us make moral choices. Clarity helps us navigate the world.

Yet, holding on too dearly to an opinion can be a problem. It is when we grasp hold of an opinion and cling to it steadfastly that we create problems for ourselves and those around us.

It is the clinging that is the problem, not the opinion itself.

The first, and possibly clearest, problem with clinging to opinions is that in doing so we are almost compelled to disagree with someone with a different opinion. Continuing to adhere to our opinion is then likely to arouse an emotional response in both of us. In turn these emotions can lead to anger, and possibly even violence. All of this leads ultimately to a closed mind.

A second problem is that the opinions we hold may indicate culturally ingrained worldviews and belief systems. Hold onto these opinions too strongly means that we hide these worldviews and beliefs from ourselves. Holding beliefs rigidly stymies our critical thinking ability and thus our chance to examine where and how we come to hold certain beliefs.

Associated with this second problem is that if we hold onto our opinions too steadfastly then we can find it difficult to accept that the world is continually changing. Our learning potential becomes thwarted.

Perhaps the most damaging problem with clinging to our opinion is that we tend to then associate our opinion with what is “true.” We can easily tell ourselves that our opinions are “right” and that contrary opinions are “wrong.” We come then to associate our opinions with reality.

If we step back from our rigidity of thought we can recognise how deeply fixed we are to opinions, viewpoints, and belief systems. We can see it in ourselves and in others. Wider afield, we can see this inflexibility in larger systems, including geopolitics.

No wonder there are many “enemies” in the world.

As the English language developed the word opinion came to the language via Proto-Italic roots. The word opeje has the meaning of to choose. Intriguingly, opeje also meant to grab. It would seem that early speakers of what has become the English language knew the danger of opinions; they recognised that there was a danger in grasping onto opinions.

To recap.

Having opinions is not a problem.

Holding onto opinions rigidly is.

For my own part, I do find holding opinions lightly to be a difficult undertaking.

Solstice Reflections (A poem)

Here in the Southern Hemisphere the winter solstice is only three days away. For those of you reading this in the Northern Hemisphere it will be your summer solstice. This poem is written from the perspective of one living in the Southern Hemisphere.

Solstice Reflections

The day is short, the night is long

We mark it simply as another day, on

Calendars and watches, tick off time

Second by second, day by day

Never noticing the turning of our sphere

For we have turned the longest night, away

From darkness, dreams and from our fears

Made it resplendent with lamp and street light, this

Cycle we once knew

Day and night, night and day

Birth and death, death and birth

Where is our soul, where is our place?

We’ve torn ourselves from the earth

And now, another long night is here

We give it a number, give it a date

It is simply not as it was last year

Maybe I should go and mark the spot

Upon the horizon where sun does rise

Note the shifting of each rising sun, maybe

Then I would see, I would comprehend

My place, my time, is not marked by a line, but

By a circle, with no beginning, and no end.

Progress Is Lovely

Bernard Marx and Lenina Crowne,
characters in "Brave New World."

‘Progress is lovely.’ So declares Lenina Crowne, one of the characters in Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel Brave New World.

Brave New World, published in 1932, imagines a world set well into the future where citizens are controlled, not by an authoritarian “Big Brother” (as in George Orwell’s 1984), but by being fed a constant supply of a happiness drug (soma) and having been programmed from the time of artificially engineered birth via sleep-learning and conditioning. Each engineered person is assigned to one of five classes (from Alphas to Epsilons) and remain in that class throughout life.

Lenina is a Beta and enjoys this situation; she cannot do otherwise due to her conditioning. Her partner at the time of her statement about progress being lovely is Bernard Marx, an Alpha Plus and a sleep-learning specialist. Bernard is somewhat of a misfit; he is short and does not enjoy many of the pursuits and experiences that other residents of this brave new world do. Crucially, he does not enjoy the drug soma, completely at odds with his contemporaries. Bernard missed out on something in his conditioning. This makes him a non-conformist yet is tolerated because of his Alpha status.

Bernard’s non-conformism though, does mean he is sceptical of Lenina’s assertion.

He replies to her, ‘Five hundred repetitions once a week from thirteen to seventeen.’ Huxley has Bernard saying this ‘…wearily, as though to himself.’

Lenina does not hear him clearly and asks him what he said. Bernard restates Lenina’s own declaration, ‘I said that progress was lovely.’

In this short exchange we hear the majority habituated view, expressed by Lenina, that progress is to be desired. Bernard, on the other hand, alludes to this idea being a conditioned one; a thought that one is indoctrinated into throughout the teenage years.

Reading Brave New World today we might ask ourselves if the notion that progress is lovely has indeed been a conditioned one since our own childhood.

The idea that we, individually and collectively, must progress is deeply ingrained. Individually we attempt to keep up with the Jones’ and collectively we keep searching for the next great technological breakthrough.

Progress is a seductive notion promising that if we keep increasing our income and wealth, obtain more material things, grow the GDP, invest in new technologies, then the future will be better. Progress vows to help us live longer, happier lives.

If there are unwanted harmful by-products of all this, then progress claims that more progress will fix them.

But, all that is a sham, and Bernard Marx knew it. Sadly, he can only voice his reservation ‘…as though to himself.’

What is the goal of progress? What is our destination? When will we get there? Crucially, what will be the signposts to indicate that we have reached our journey’s end?

The creed of progress does not answer these questions. Progress simply offers more progress as if there is no destination. Significantly, as we are finding out to our detriment, the progress myth does not recognise any limits to the journey. According to the progress mantra we never reach a stage in the journey where we can say, this is it, this is where we have enough.

No, progress promises that the future is always better. The corollary of this is that there can never be enough.

Yet, Bernard Marx (and his creator, Aldous Huxley) saw through the conditioning and indoctrination that we are constantly fed through the media, advertising, and political campaigns.

In the early 1930s when Aldous Huxley was writing Brave New World, he imagined that such a world, if it was to come at all, would arrive well into the future. However, a little less than thirty years after Brave New World was published, Huxley wrote the non-fiction book Brave New World Revisited. Therein Huxley noted that the world of Brave New World was arriving much quicker than he had imagined.

In the time since Brave New World Revisited was published (in 1959) we would have to conclude that Huxley’s imaginative world has truly become more firmly established.

Is there a better future than that portrayed in Brave New World? Is it possible that we might progress (excuse the pun) toward a healthier world? Is it possible that we might dispense altogether with the endless desire for progress?

Aldous Huxley published his final novel, Island in 1962, a year before his death. Island is the utopian counterpoint to Brave New World.

In the years to come, can we divert ourselves from the dangerous mantra of progress, progress, more, more and direct ourselves towards something more akin to Island?

 

Note:

1. Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, Longman, Harlow, Essex, England, Second impression 1983 (text originally published 1932)

Let Goats Escape

In Leviticus 16:8 and 16:10 we read that Aaron (the brother of Moses) was tasked with separating, by lot, two goats. One goat was to be offered as a sacrifice for the sin of the people. The other was to be an atonement for the sin of the people and it was to be let free into the wilderness. This second goat effectively escaped being a sacrificial offering.

When William Tyndale (1494 to 1536) undertook the first translation of the Bible from Greek, Hebrew, and German into the English language he coined the word (e)scapegoat as a translation of the Hebrew words that referred to the second goat.

So today, in the English language Bible we read that ‘…the scapegoat shall be presented live before the Lord…’ and that Aaron was to ‘…let it go as the scapegoat into the wilderness.’¹

The scapegoat that Arron let go took with it the sins of the people. Leviticus 16:22 tells us that this goat ‘…shall bear on itself all their iniquities to an uninhabited land: and (Aaron) shall release the goat in the wilderness.’

The word scapegoat has now been part of the English language for almost 400 years. We are still making use of it, and doing so increasingly. In the early 1800s the word was used approximately 0.04 times in every one million words uttered. By 2019 it was being used 0.83 times in every one million words. That is a staggering twenty-fold increase in just 200 years.

Why? we might ask.

Does the increase in the number of times we use the word scapegoat mean that we are more willing to atone for our sins? Does it indicate an increase in the number of scapegoats?

Or, through a subtle shift in the sense of the word scapegoat, does it suggest a keenness to shift the blame for our sins, and iniquities, onto someone else, and treat them as a scapegoat?

Today, the meaning has shifted subtly. A scapegoat is someone who is blamed for the sins and iniquities of another. Furthermore, in today’s world a scapegoat is not only blamed, but often punished. We see it often, don’t we; not only at an individual level, but also at a societal and even global level. Something bad happens and immediately we (individually and/or collectively) look around for a scapegoat – someone to blame.

That someone (the scapegoat) is then threatened in all sorts of ways. It could be a threat of personal violence. It could be the threat of exile. It could, as we have seen many times throughout the past century, be the threat of bombing and invasion of one country by another.

The scapegoat nowadays is no longer the means by which our sins, iniquities, and harms are let go into the wilderness. The scapegoat is the reason for those sins, iniquities, and harms.

When will we rediscover the courage to admit that we can be the authors of our own misfortune and not seek out a scapegoat to blame, accuse, and threaten?

If the world is ever to find some peacefulness and harmony then we will have to learn what Aaron was taught.

We will have to let the goats escape.

Notes

1. Holy Bible, New King James Version, copyright 1990 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Six Million Years of Power and Sex

We humans share 98.7% of our DNA with chimpanzees and bonobos, our closest relatives in the diversity of life on this planet. The common ancestor to all three of us existed around six million years ago. Chimpanzees and bonobos split into two species around two million years ago. This split appears to have coincided with a drastic reduction in the flow of the Congo River.

Today, chimpanzees are mainly found north of the Congo River in equatorial Africa. In the wild bonobos are found exclusively south of the river in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Why do the two species remain apart? Because of the Congo River.

Chimpanzees are reluctant, or unable, to swim. Bonobos are also reluctant swimmers, although they do sometimes forage waist deep in water.

The Congo River is the deepest river in the world, the ninth longest, and the third largest by discharge volume. It is also very wide, up to 19km across at its widest point. No wonder reluctant swimmers, such as chimpanzees and bonobos, have not crossed from one side to the other during the past couple of million years. But that drop in flow about two million years ago was just enough to enable a band of their common ancestor to cross the river.

Thus, for the past two million years, chimpanzees and bonobos have been evolving along separate trajectories. They may have had a common ancestor but nowadays they display dissimilar behaviours and identities.

Chimpanzees have been studied for much longer than bonobos and hence less is known about bonobos than chimpanzees even today, especially in the wild. As we have a common ancestor with chimpanzees from six million years ago it has been tempting to identify some of our human behaviours as similar to that of chimpanzees, and to trace these comparable behaviours back to that common ancestor.

These studies suggested that our levels of violence and male dominance have their beginnings in our common ancestral heritage. We have been seduced into thinking that such behaviours are innate in our DNA.

However, more recent studies of bonobos are calling this innateness into question.

Bonobos have sometimes been labelled as the hippie chimp. Bonobos do tend to display less aggression and a greater degree of egalitarianism than their chimpanzee cousins. This rigid distinction however, is simplistic. The reality is much more nuanced. Bonobos do become aggressive, although their aggression usually does not go as far as killing one another, as it can do with chimpanzees. Furthermore, bonobo aggression in the male of the species is normally restricted to male-on-male aggression. Chimpanzee males, on the other hand, more often direct their aggression towards females. Chimpanzee males are also likely to coerce females into sex, whereas male bonobos do not.

A further distinction between the two related species is in the manner in which they go about reconciliation after such violence. Bonobos use sex. In bonobo society sex is used to build close relationships, to calm one another down, and to resolve conflict. Sex is also used by bonobos as a way of greeting strangers.

Bonobos can be thought of as xenophiles, whereas chimpanzees act more from a xenophobic stance. Bonobo clans enjoy meeting another, sometimes unknown, clan of bonobos. It is often the females of each clan that initiate this contact, usually with sex.

The ways in which chimpanzees and bonobos deal with power and sex are noticeably divergent. So much so that the noted primatologist, Frans de Waal, quipped that ‘…(chimpanzees) resolve sexual issues with power, while (bonobos) resolve power issues with sex.’¹

All of this, of course, raises questions about the level of violence, and male aggression towards females within our own human societies.

Can we, as was once time thought, blame our genetic coding for male violence within the Homo sapiens species? Has our evolutionary history predetermined that men should be dominant over women?

When we consider the differences between chimpanzees and bonobos, the answer is clearly not.

We (chimpanzees, bonobos, and humans) have a common evolutionary path, yet we find that the two species that split most recently (two million years ago) have developed quite distinct behavioural traits. This suggests that male violence and male dominance is not innate. It is instilled in large part culturally.

If culturally imparted, then it can be culturally immobilised.

Let us hope that it does not take another six million years for that to happen.

 

Notes:

1. Frans de Waal, Our Inner Ape, Granta Books, London, 2005