THE ULTIMATE PARADOX AND CONSUMMATE IRONY OF HUMAN EXISTENCE

Today, July 5, 2009, I believe I have conceived and dimly perceived the most important idea, the most important item of information in the long march of human history. Through a glass darkly I have limed the most important discovery psychologically, socially and politically that has ever been made or that will ever be made.
An ideology, a world view that constitutes the ultimate paradox and consummate irony of human existence; one that I have been seeking to concretize for three decades, one that is so significant, so earthshaking that I must immediately attempt to share it even in its rough form because it too important to exist in the mind of a single human being, more specifically it should not exist for any length of time only in the mind of single human being who is sixty four years old; who may expire at any moment; so the moment I conceived it shortly after I awakened, without drinking or eating anything, I have set about sharing it.
What I want to explore in some detail is the implications of the notion that human behavior is learned.
At my best, I am most truthful and most honest so I am constrained to report that I first encountered this paradigm in a science fiction short story whose author I have no memory of but whose thesis stuck in my mind, as do most ideas that I consider adequate to the existing reality.
In this story a man, the sole survivor of the human race, was being chased by a pack of animals who sought his death. The pack of animals were human children whom had been deprived of direction and education by a competing species from space who had determined that the most efficient way to eradicate human civilizations was simply to kill all adult human beings, which would precipitate a new age of savagery.
The point this makes, and the point I use this paradigm to communicate, is that human sentience, human civility is never a given, it is always a potential to be realized.
What I want to attempt to communicate is the wondrous complexity and sophistication of the adaptation that is the human mind, of the human psyche that is divided into two compartments, the conscious and subconscious.
The conscious compartment creates a near unlimited potential for learning and creating innovations, for actions mediated by intelligence and limited by the dictates of conscience; the subconscious compartment creates, in the same organism, a limitless capacity for the unrestrained savagery and capacity for violent action required for competing with other denizens for existing energy resources in the ‘state of nature’ in which all life must originate and from which all life must evolve.
At this point, I wish to introduce an exceedingly controversial topic, the genesis of a sentient species in the context of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution:

Darwin's Theory of Evolution - The Premise
Darwin's Theory of Evolution is the widely held notion that all life is related and has descended from a common ancestor: the birds and the bananas, the fishes and the flowers -- all related. Darwin's general theory presumes the development of life from non-life and stresses a purely naturalistic (undirected) "descent with modification". That is, complex creatures evolve from more simplistic ancestors naturally over time. In a nutshell, as random genetic mutations occur within an organism's genetic code, the beneficial mutations are preserved because they aid survival -- a process known as "natural selection." These beneficial mutations are passed on to the next generation. Over time, beneficial mutations accumulate and the result is an entirely different organism (not just a variation of the original, but an entirely different creature).
Darwin's Theory of Evolution - Natural Selection
While Darwin's Theory of Evolution is a relatively young archetype, the evolutionary worldview itself is as old as antiquity. Ancient Greek philosophers such as Anaximander postulated the development of life from non-life and the evolutionary descent of man from animal. Charles Darwin simply brought something new to the old philosophy -- a plausible mechanism called "natural selection." Natural selection acts to preserve and accumulate minor advantageous genetic mutations. Suppose a member of a species developed a functional advantage (it grew wings and learned to fly). Its offspring would inherit that advantage and pass it on to their offspring. The inferior (disadvantaged) members of the same species would gradually die out, leaving only the superior (advantaged) members of the species. Natural selection is the preservation of a functional advantage that enables a species to compete better in the wild. Natural selection is the naturalistic equivalent to domestic breeding. Over the centuries, human breeders have produced dramatic changes in domestic animal populations by selecting individuals to breed. Breeders eliminate undesirable traits gradually over time. Similarly, natural selection eliminates inferior species gradually over time.
Darwin's Theory of Evolution - Slowly But Surely...
Darwin's Theory of Evolution is a slow gradual process. Darwin wrote, "…Natural selection acts only by taking advantage of slight successive variations; she can never take a great and sudden leap, but must advance by short and sure, though slow steps." [1] Thus, Darwin conceded that, "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." [2] Such a complex organ would be known as an "irreducibly complex system". An irreducibly complex system is one composed of multiple parts, all of which are necessary for the system to function. If even one part is missing, the entire system will fail to function. Every individual part is integral. [3] Thus, such a system could not have evolved slowly, piece by piece. The common mousetrap is an everyday non-biological example of irreducible complexity. It is composed of five basic parts: a catch (to hold the bait), a powerful spring, a thin rod called "the hammer," a holding bar to secure the hammer in place, and a platform to mount the trap. If any one of these parts is missing, the mechanism will not work. Each individual part is integral. The mousetrap is irreducibly complex. [4]
Darwin's Theory of Evolution - A Theory In Crisis
Darwin's Theory of Evolution is a theory in crisis in light of the tremendous advances we've made in molecular biology, biochemistry and genetics over the past fifty years. We now know that there are in fact tens of thousands of irreducibly complex systems on the cellular level. Specified complexity pervades the microscopic biological world. Molecular biologist Michael Denton wrote, "Although the tiniest bacterial cells are incredibly small, weighing less than 10-12 grams, each is in effect a veritable micro-miniaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machinery built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world." [5]

And we don't need a microscope to observe irreducible complexity. The eye, the ear and the heart are all examples of irreducible complexity, though they were not recognized as such in Darwin's day. Nevertheless, Darwin confessed, "To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree." [6]
What I did to find this description of Darwin’s Theory is what I do to research any information I need, I connected to the Internet and searched and found the above under the heading Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, a theory in crisis.
I am being specific because I want to emphasize the point that this wondrous discovery proceeded from the perspective of cooperation, not competition; it proceeded from the mind of someone who completely rejects and renounces being an agent of coercion determined culture, whose culture is based on the ‘modernization ideals’ the value premises promulgated by Gunnar Myrdal in his watershed work, “The Asian Drama.”
This discovery, and I am aware that I need to get on with it, preceded from the mind of someone who is an agent of a different culture; of a design for human existence whose ethos is cooperation, which relies on positive reinforcements to motivate the other.
In 1974, I witnessed the conditions and circumstances that precipitated the tragic event that became notorious as the Fire at Orange Lane that resulted in the deaths of two small children; and, decided that such incidents that demonstrated man’s inhumanity to man were completely and totally unacceptable to me and decided to do every thing in my power to create a world in which such phenomena were the rare exception rather than regular occurrences.
I was willing to do anything to achieve this aim and one of the first things that I was required to do was change the perspective I had been socialized to while growing up in Jamaica, a small, relatively insignificant outpost of Western civilization; I rejected the notion that ‘beliefs were opportune, they conceal interests.’
What the individual was required to do to be successful is hitch his wagon to a star, an organization or institution, and support that entity no matter what; but the Fire at Orange Lane had been perpetuated by members of the political party that I espoused so one of the first signposts on my journey of discovery was to choose whether I was willing to excuse and justify something I considered an atrocity to further my political ambitions. I chose to follow the dictates of my conscience the first step in a journey that led me to eventually become the ultimate rebel, heretic and iconoclast, a destroyer of images.
I am well aware that there is another powerful, competing version of the genesis of the human species as described in the St. James version of the Holy Bible:
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2 And the earth was without form, and void; and the darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament for the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together in one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the water he called the Seas: and God saw that it was good.
11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.
14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: and he made the stars also.
It is clear that these descriptions are in conflict with each other, not the least because evolution occurred according to Darwin and others who hold this view over a period that spanned millions of years; while the Creationists believe that all was created in six days.
Note also that one perspective describes as absurd, the notion that the human eye was created by natural selection; as an objective observer might hold the fact that the creation of the stars, the sixty billion stars with their attendant planets were an afterthought in this description might also reasonably be considered absurd given that Planet Earth would be less than a dust mote when compared with the sheer magnitude of the universe.
Also, one might logically question why an Omnipotent God capable of constructing the physical reality which forms the context for human existence would care what any individual believes.
Is it not more likely that absolute belief is a requirement of religious leaders and functionaries whose livelihoods absolutely depend on the tithes collected from their congregations?
And if that Omnipotent God cared about what individual human beings believed would he not make his presence unmistakably manifest instead of depending on blind faith?
To achieve my objective I had to approach social reality with an open mind and discard beliefs in absolutes, belief that any social milieu could be analyzed in terms of black or white, I realized that to realize my magnificent obsession I had to be able to discern all the shades of gray.
I also had to see that the physical environment was composed mostly of absolutes, the sky is blue, water is wet, the sun each day rises in the East and sets in West each evening; and therefore it is easy to understand the preoccupation of human beings that human beings wanted to apply the same intellectual approach that they successfully used in the physical environment to the social milieu.
I had to develop a methodology that cleansed my perspective of the laming effect of biases and interests; I stumbled upon such a methodology when while drowning in the deep pit of depression occasioned by the break up of my marriage I decided to tell the truth whatever the future consequences for others or myself. This decision was arrived at because my contribution to break up of my family had been the numerous affairs and infidelities I had engaged in which had been facilitated by numerous lies and deceits, hence my donning the hair shirt of the discipline of truth.
After this overly long introduction I return to the examination of the implications of the fact that human behavior is learned. This implies that:
Precisely that behavior which is widely felt to characterize man as a rational being, or as a member of a particular nation or social class, is learned rather than innate. (Dollard 25)
What this implies is that human beings have awesome, near unlimited power to determine the personality of the other, if we accept the most ubiquitous description of culture that it is the ‘conscious and unconscious premises for thinking and action.’
If the most powerful habit of culture is ‘dependency’ then this is what those who socialize are most determined to teach the unlearned, the uninitiated.
Homo sapiens, the modern version of man, emerged on Planet Earth One Hundred Thousand years ago, and soon became the dominant species of the genus hominid; because they were better adapted for survival being more intelligent they replaced all prior members of this genus as dictated by natural selection.
The only model for social interaction that then existed, and one in which the strongest members of the group, hunters, daily participated; was the endless drama of predator and prey, in which one actor gave his all including his life, to satisfy the need for energy resources of the other actor.
During this period human tribes engaged in hunting and gathering to survive and were little different contemporary concentrations of predators, little different from contemporary prides of lions that today roam grasslands in Africa. They had harnessed and could utilize fire; they were capable of constructing and wielding simple tools and weapons.
What I want to suggest facilitating the communication of my watershed discovery is that during the One Hundred Thousand years during which human tribes languished in the ‘state of nature,’ they learned very little about the physical environment but during that monumental period of time they became powerfully habituated to a mode of social interaction whose ethos was competition, which relied on overt coercion to motivate the other, whose dominant roles were territorial predator and prey.
During that period the strong had the power of life and death over the weak because the strong were the hunters who would divide the proceeds of the hunt and were required to protect weaker members of the tribe from the incursions of other predators, it is logical to assume that they used their power to cause weaker members of the tribe to satisfy their needs.
What I am suggesting is that these habits, both because of the crucible of extreme conditions that existed; and, the unlimited degree of coercion that could be applied, were intensely learned and have resisted being unlearned up to the present day.
I present as evidence that Twelve Thousand years have since elapsed, for all but three hundred of those years the most popular form of government have been Absolutist regimes, in which an Absolute Ruler whether king, emperor or caliph has had the power of life and death over their subjects; further, that the three hundred years during which there have begun to be limitations on the degree and extent to which coercion, in any form, could be applied to the other, constitutes a blink of a eye when compared to One Hundred Thousand years, or, the Twelve Thousand years when unlimited coercion was acceptable and applied.
Also, I am suggesting that during the entire period, the One Hundred Thousand years in the ‘state of nature,’ as well as the Twelve Thousand years under Absolutist Regimes, the application of coercion occurred in the subconscious compartment of the human mind, it is something that was never mediated by intelligence or limited by the dictates of conscience functions that were confined to the conscious compartments of the mind.
This type of interaction did produce socially learned drives, guilt, remorse, shame and humiliation, these were reduced and catharsis attained subconsciously by Greek Theater, and, by rituals and ceremonies associated with religious observances in other Western civilizations which were processes that also occurred in the unconscious.
As further evidence of the accuracy of this hypothesis I ask that everyone consider the fact that for most of human history education has been the province of the few and that even today when many nations free secondary education the design for human existence has found ways to perpetuate illiteracy and semi illiteracy so that this has not significantly affected the status quo.
If I were wrong, populations would have been aware and sensible that overt and covert coercion is what has motivated the patterns of behavior required for societal functioning, order and progress and when limitations were placed on the application of coercion as democratic ideals and institutions were strengthened world wide, an alternative means of motivation would have substituted.
The fact is the application of coercion has been consigned to the subconscious compartment of the mind from time immemorial, it is something little considered; and, it is the major component driving the economic recession in the form of low levels of motivation in every social institution.
The best kept secret on the planet.
The ultimate paradox and consummate irony of human existence is that to survive in the ‘state of nature’ members of the human species had to become adept at utilizing coercion, with the development of morals and ethics they had to become unaware and oblivious that were doing this to continue to function.
Civilization and the development of weapons of mass destruction required an alternative means of motivating action be found; but human beings were oblivious of the fact that this is what they were doing so the drift towards self destruction grew stronger and stronger.
The most obvious example of this hypothesis is the decline in the education product in the United States of America.
When the Public School system was integrated in the Seventies, white parents could not bear the thought of black teachers being able to apply corporal punishment to their sons and daughters, so they agitated and had this means of preserving the order required for imparting knowledge removed from the Public School System, forcing teachers to develop corrupt means that made it appear that they were doing their jobs, which made it impossible to correct the situation because exposing these corrupt methods would mean confronting the powerful Teachers’ Union.
I have been trying to get Americans to perceive this vicious circle in Education since 1996 without success. I am constrained to note that a teacher who spent twenty years teaching in the Public School system in South Florida described this tragic scenario to me.
Fundamentally, telling the truth and doing the right thing, is diametrically opposed to what is required for function in a social system that is based on coercion determined culture; though this is obscured by the fact that in each individual’s life there is an ever increasing difference between concept and precept.
In concept telling the truth and doing the right thing is idealized, these values are considered sacred by Christians even though they practice them only for brief intervals on Sunday or Saturday, in precept they do whatever is necessary to put food on the table.
In reality, when I began to tell the truth and do the right thing I became everyone’s prey, a situation much aggravated by the fact that I would tell the truth, effectively bridging the gap between concept and precept in the minds of individuals, thus igniting their animus.
It has been a stressful and exciting three decades, a period in which I have endured extended bouts of poverty, homelessness, and, most of all, loneliness; again and again, I have lost everything of economic, social or psychological value in my life even while developing a capacity for love and gaining the possibility of happiness.
I wish to make abundantly clear that this has nothing to do with making money, it is my contribution to survival of my species; it is my attempt to ensure that we do not destroy the civilizations we have painstakingly built with the weapons of mass destruction we have devised.
It is not yet copyrighted and anyone or everyone may publish it without paying me one cent.
More than thirty years ago, I dedicated my life to building a fitting memorial to the two children who perished in the Fire at Orange Lane, my reward is my knowledge, my certain knowledge, that for more than thirty years I have kept faith to my promise to two small children who themselves will never know of my commitment, who can never reward my efforts in any way.
Despite the fact that this has been an exercise in total and complete futility as I have tried to communicate the value of telling the truth and doing the right thing; I live with the certain knowledge that I have, and had, no alternative my love for children would not have allowed me to do differently or regret anything but my failure; and, I will always glory in my fortitude and determination as I continue to persecute what has been the transcendent enterprise of my life.

Bibliography
Personality and Psychotherapy by John Dollard and Neale E. Miller published by McGraw-Hill Book Company, Third Edition 1965