Intolerable Darkness Is The Singularity

The question of where and how man went wrong has plagued philosophers for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years.

In modern Western philosophy, the basic view of human nature has alternated between the fatalism of the 17th century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, and the romanticism of the 18th century Swiss-French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Proffering superficial optimism in these understandably pessimistic times, anthropologist and activist David Graeber, and professor of comparative archeology David Wengrow, take an oddly Rousseauian view in their new book, "The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity."

They start out with the right question: "Were we always like this - war, greed, exploitation and indifference to others' suffering - or did something, at some point, go terribly wrong?"

The authors do not attempt to address the question however, but try to counter the widespread pessimism about the human prospect with a feel-good story of human history centered on the first cities at the dawn of agriculture.

Indeed, in what amounts to a whitewash of human history, Graeber and Wengrow exclaim: "A surprising number of the world's earliest cities were organized along robustly egalitarian lines."

After stating the obvious, that "the past cannot provide instant solutions for the crises and challenges of the present," they aver: "though the obstacles are daunting, our research shows we can no longer count the forces of history and evolution among them." Really?

From that very dubious premise they absurdly assert, "What we need today is another urban revolution to create more just and sustainable ways of living."

Their analysis is at best wishful thinking, at worst disingenuous. The archeological evidence for their claims is scant, and the philosophical soundness of their view of human nature is nonexistent.

Furthermore, by denying the validity of the core question of how man went wrong, they contribute to the crisis of human consciousness.

Why is having insight into how man went wrong necessary? After all, no explanation, however accurate, will change anyone, much less the basic, disastrous course of humankind.

Even so, gaining insight into how a single, supposedly sapient species, which evolved along with all other life in the seamless wholeness of nature, could be bringing about the Sixth Extinction in the history of life on earth, may point us in the right direction.

Rousseau's notion that "once upon a time we were hunter-gatherers, living in a state of childlike innocence, as equals," was naive even in his time. Graeber and Wengrow implicitly agree, and go even further; they vainly attempt to refute the idea that human classes, power differentials and disparities of wealth began with the emergence of the first cities.

Their underlying claim is that humans didn't actually go wrong, and that all we need to do is return to the model of the first cities to bring about a global revolution. That isn't just Rousseauian; it's purblind.

So did man go wrong, or did nature go wrong in evolving a creature like Homo sapiens? After all, evolution gave us the supreme adaptive strategy of being able to make separations from the seamless whole of nature at will. That eventually permitted us to fragment the earth and ourselves all to hell.

Even so, the responsibility is ours. Human beings face an unparalleled crisis of consciousness. Could humankind have taken the right course before this critical juncture?

My feeling is that the human species could have changed course before, since there have been many other crossroads. Now however, for ecological, AI/VR and genetic engineering reasons among others we appear to be stuck at this juncture. It may not be humanity’s last chance to change course, but clearly we have to act as it is.

Radical change will not come at the political level, through protest and activism, or at the technological level, through innovation. What will bring it about?

Essentially this is a crisis of human consciousness itself, epitomized by man's decimation of the earth. Though present to some degree throughout human history, it has never been as global and dire as it is at the present time. Despite the plethora of shallow diagnoses and prescriptions like "The Dawn of Everything," are there now enough serious and self-knowing people to change the course of man?

Though the evolution of 'higher thought' made us fully modern humans, symbolic thought is the problem. However the human brain has the capacity for consciousness not based on thought -- on separation, symbol and memory.

No amount of knowledge will save us. We have the capacity for consciousness flowing from the human brain’s potential for insight. Not merely problem-solving insights, or new scientific insights adding to the accumulation of knowledge. But self-knowing, which is not a function of knowledge.

There is a state of insight that arises when thought is attentively, effortlessly still. Then the mind is bathed in the silence and emptiness of being instead of becoming. Then there is freedom from the past, the personal, collective and ancient past that is suffocating the human spirit.

Martin LeFevre

lefevremartin77 at gmail.com

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