Philosophy: Where did Homo sapiens go wrong?

Dec 17, 2017 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

The question of why people violate others has plagued civilization from day one. Two great 20th thinkers had opposing ideas about the answer.
Arthur Koestler explained that of all animals, an evolutionary mistake occurred with Homo sapiens. Koestler’s assessment is not for the faint-hearted. It is lugubrious, depressing stuff, but intellectually persuasive. He argues that unlike all the other species in the animal kingdom, the evolution of the human nervous system is inherently flawed.
He compares the nervous system of Homo sapiens and animals, and thinks that there is an inhibitory factor in the use of violence in lower animals that is missing in Homo sapiens. He concludes that this evolutionary line-fault drives Homo sapiens to be cruel and violent, and that Homo sapiens sees violence as a normal feature of a person’s physiology. Koestler concludes that this is what civilization is about. Homo sapiens is a lower species; is a beastly species.
The brilliant French existentialist, Jean-Paul Sartre had a replacement for human’s bestiality in the absence of God. Existentialism suffers from a perpetual fear of those that encounter it. If there is no Almighty, then how do you check Homo sapiens’ inhumanity? How do you stop selfishness from morphing into savage opportunism?
Thomas Hobbes wrote that in such a condition there will be, “no arts, no letters, no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”.
According to Sartre, since there is no God, then people can and must create their own god. He calls it “the project.” “The project” is our dedication to ourselves and others that we will do for each other what God would have done for all of us. “The project” is something each of us will create to contribute to meaning in life. We do this because Homo sapiens possesses what the Roman philosopher, Cicero, discovered – reason. Reason makes us logical and rational.
As Cicero puts it; “reason alone raises us above the level of the beast and enables us to draw inferences, to prove and disprove, to discuss and solve problems and to come to conclusions.” The essential point existentialism makes, is that there cannot be a ghastly, ghostly society, because Homo sapiens is conscious of his/her role. We feel pain, we know what happiness is, so we do not cause others pain, and we want happiness for each other. In other words, a world without God will still be a godly world, because people will play the role of God.
When we trace the history of civilization, we see the presence of Koestler far more pronounced than Sartre. The senseless violence that has dominated the world from time immemorial, compels us to ask the question – why people violate others. Today, the psychotic terrorism in the name of Islam, the mind-boggling sociological mayhem in the United States, seriously call into question how civilized is Homo sapiens
The question takes on a disturbing complexion in a poor, obscure country like Guyana, the latest manifestation being the discovery of a teenager with her face smashed in. A certain type of savagery, a certain kind of bestiality has crept into this country. Guyana is still a small, agrarian-based territory, but we are seeing sadistic violence that is common place in large industrial lands with hundreds of millions of citizens. Is there any hope?
I leave you with a lovely philosophical song I once dedicated in one of these columns to my friend Andaiye. It is one of my favourite songs, and can be found in the Burt Bacharach song book. Its title is “Love is still the Answer.”
“Twenty years ago
I could have told you
that the world was round
Good and Sound
Freedom bound
Our future was secure
Now I’m not so sure
It seems like gravity
has been reversed
and getting worse
Nothing works
And everybody hurts
Yes there’s a trail of tears
Down through the years
of broken hearts
it’s still so hard
to let the sun shine in
Love’s the answer
No matter what I swear
Love is
Still the answer
Just like it always was
Such a simple truth
Love never changes
or betrays a friend
From the start
Love was part of some fantastic plan
Some brotherhood of man
Now it’s down to us
We either shine the light
or darkness rules
Our children lose
We’re free to choose our fate
To find our way
Beyond this veil of tears
the sky is clear
and every star
stands for the heart
that lets the sun shine in
Love’s the answer
No matter what I swear
Love is still the answer
Just like it always was”

1 thoughts on “Philosophy: Where did Homo sapiens go wrong?”

rs dasai December 17, 2017 at 7:18 pm

Go east young man and find what ye seek.

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