This is an extract from ' The Lost World' by Michael Crichton which beautifully brings out the destructive potential of the human trait to resist change and unconventional thinking:
"What makes you think human beings are sentient and aware? There's no evidence for it. Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told - and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is a fight for conformity, not an effort for insight. Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their 'beliefs.' The reason is that beliefs guide behavior, which has evolutionary importance among human beings. Behavior associated with beliefs, policies and conformity to it has made Human beings so destructive, that we may sometimes think we're a kind of plague that will scrub the earth clean. We destroy things so well that it makes one think that maybe that's our function. But at a time when our behavior may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion."
This is a particularly powerful thought-provoking write-up - a critic’s point-of-view that calls for serious examination of the human attitude. Quite remarkable facts to be found in fiction! Sometimes good ideas are lost just because they are a small part of a greater work of fiction and very easily left out unrecognized by majority of readers. But a moment of reflection would reveal the enormity of facts behind it. Facts based on valid philosophies that are not fiction by any means.
My more flamboyant friends may find this a bit depressing. The most uncomfortable revelation many times appears thus for the emotional mind! But it is generally observed that only 5% of the human population becomes leaders, while the rest 95% are followers. Among the leaders, 4% are those who are simply reiterating what has been said before – old wine in new bottles. The rest 1% are the ones who bring a radically different perception that threatens to overturn all our beliefs hitherto. Copernicus (he discovered that it is the sun and not the earth which is at the center of the solar system) & Galileo (he propounded the law of falling objects and proved that Aristole was wrong!) are just two examples who fell in such cadre. They did meet their share of revulsion during their lifetime for the ‘crime’ of initiating a radical change of perception, a different one than what the all-powerful Church held in those days. But these were, thankfully, the ones that changed the course of human advancement in the right direction. If you think that was too old a case, remember how the world responded when the first test tube babies were announced, cloning was reported or surrogate motherhood was debated. All of these breakthrough bio-techs are today seeing their critics calm down while the advancements have taken a firm foothold in the same world that surged out initially against it.
But what if it happens to be the other way round? What if a handful of destructive thinkers manage to lure a majority of followers to keep clinging to distorted, misinterpreted, hard-line, fundamentalist iterations of the past in spite of the fact that there is no hope of progress offered by those perceptions that have lived their lives and are now set to be replaced by newer ones? What happens when the Old comes in the way of the New? What if 1% of leg-pullers manage to swerve the rest of the population away from the path of progress by exploiting the human tendency to resist change?
What Michael Crichton has quoted based on research is not about you and me, or a handful of positive thinkers. It is a more holistic view of what the human world is today. It does not say there is no hope. It only says the proportion of people who do not want to change is alarmingly high in the human race. The result – a handful of destructive brains still hold the threat to take over the world. A handful of people deciding to use nuclear arsenal can even today wipe the earth clean of humanity. Where would you, me and all the technological advancements stand then? There is technology to utilize nuclear power, is there a technology to prevent a dropped nuclear bomb from setting off? Is there a technology to identify a terrorist standing next to us? The point is, all the material good happening outside is at great risk unless we focus on weeding out all the moral bad that is contained inside those who are not with us in the effort to change for good.
Contrary to the common man’s ‘all-would-be-good-in-the-end’ attitude irrespective of what happens in the mean-time, what concerns us in the immediate future is not who is right but who is mightier. If a single evil-minded fundamentalist has a hundred times more determination to wipe out the human race than all the noble men who have all the great dreams for prosperity on Earth, the noble intentions don’t stand a chance; thanks to us commoners who are happy keeping our heads buried in the sand and think we are powerless, not in the fight and hence safe!
"What makes you think human beings are sentient and aware? There's no evidence for it. Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told - and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is a fight for conformity, not an effort for insight. Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their 'beliefs.' The reason is that beliefs guide behavior, which has evolutionary importance among human beings. Behavior associated with beliefs, policies and conformity to it has made Human beings so destructive, that we may sometimes think we're a kind of plague that will scrub the earth clean. We destroy things so well that it makes one think that maybe that's our function. But at a time when our behavior may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion."
This is a particularly powerful thought-provoking write-up - a critic’s point-of-view that calls for serious examination of the human attitude. Quite remarkable facts to be found in fiction! Sometimes good ideas are lost just because they are a small part of a greater work of fiction and very easily left out unrecognized by majority of readers. But a moment of reflection would reveal the enormity of facts behind it. Facts based on valid philosophies that are not fiction by any means.
My more flamboyant friends may find this a bit depressing. The most uncomfortable revelation many times appears thus for the emotional mind! But it is generally observed that only 5% of the human population becomes leaders, while the rest 95% are followers. Among the leaders, 4% are those who are simply reiterating what has been said before – old wine in new bottles. The rest 1% are the ones who bring a radically different perception that threatens to overturn all our beliefs hitherto. Copernicus (he discovered that it is the sun and not the earth which is at the center of the solar system) & Galileo (he propounded the law of falling objects and proved that Aristole was wrong!) are just two examples who fell in such cadre. They did meet their share of revulsion during their lifetime for the ‘crime’ of initiating a radical change of perception, a different one than what the all-powerful Church held in those days. But these were, thankfully, the ones that changed the course of human advancement in the right direction. If you think that was too old a case, remember how the world responded when the first test tube babies were announced, cloning was reported or surrogate motherhood was debated. All of these breakthrough bio-techs are today seeing their critics calm down while the advancements have taken a firm foothold in the same world that surged out initially against it.
But what if it happens to be the other way round? What if a handful of destructive thinkers manage to lure a majority of followers to keep clinging to distorted, misinterpreted, hard-line, fundamentalist iterations of the past in spite of the fact that there is no hope of progress offered by those perceptions that have lived their lives and are now set to be replaced by newer ones? What happens when the Old comes in the way of the New? What if 1% of leg-pullers manage to swerve the rest of the population away from the path of progress by exploiting the human tendency to resist change?
What Michael Crichton has quoted based on research is not about you and me, or a handful of positive thinkers. It is a more holistic view of what the human world is today. It does not say there is no hope. It only says the proportion of people who do not want to change is alarmingly high in the human race. The result – a handful of destructive brains still hold the threat to take over the world. A handful of people deciding to use nuclear arsenal can even today wipe the earth clean of humanity. Where would you, me and all the technological advancements stand then? There is technology to utilize nuclear power, is there a technology to prevent a dropped nuclear bomb from setting off? Is there a technology to identify a terrorist standing next to us? The point is, all the material good happening outside is at great risk unless we focus on weeding out all the moral bad that is contained inside those who are not with us in the effort to change for good.
Contrary to the common man’s ‘all-would-be-good-in-the-end’ attitude irrespective of what happens in the mean-time, what concerns us in the immediate future is not who is right but who is mightier. If a single evil-minded fundamentalist has a hundred times more determination to wipe out the human race than all the noble men who have all the great dreams for prosperity on Earth, the noble intentions don’t stand a chance; thanks to us commoners who are happy keeping our heads buried in the sand and think we are powerless, not in the fight and hence safe!
We ignore the fact that there may be a 'bomb', may be one for cultural destruction ticking away right next to us...
We can check this precarious situation if we, as a united human race, unanimously and consciously embrace change in the right direction and weed out this earth of all such forces that are stopping or could stop progress in the direction of peace and perpetual happiness. As long as we are still fighting for survival in a world ripped by threats, as long as we do not learn to excel in a competitive world by merit and not by force, we have not come a long way out of the cave-dwelling savage psychology that we humans had started out with.
Hope that the best of minds would come together for social leadership of a new kind to make this happen.
Chiraag
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