Change That Matters
It has been a few days but I have finally felt the urge to go continue a discussion that left off here and here. I’d like to start by thanking nettie for providing the real knowledge suitable for quelling what surely would otherwise have become an annoying tangent. In a discussion of social change, somehow the emphasis got train-wrecked into a discussion of genetic variety.
On another note, I used the word “unfortunately” somewhere in the post in question. And, well, it is ever so important to define one’s terms, especially when they are complicated technical terms like the word “unfortunately.” I had said that the inhibition – lets call it an inhibition since the definite absence of it is probably debatable – the inhibition of evolution in the human species is brought about by the fact that though little Timmy may be deformed at birth and severely retarded, we love Timmy, so we do not wish to see him go the way a natural world would likely have him go – we ensure his survival where nature would not. Timmy isn’t a good example, because Timmy isn’t likely to breed. Furthermore it isn’t really fair to say of someone who is retarded that they are of “inferior quality” – it also isn’t fair to try and do nature’s job for it and, say, execute anyone judged (by whom?) to have lesser natural abilities. That’s what the nazis did and it was deplorable. There are several billion of us, and one sure mark of civilization is the number of those billions who manage to escape the natural law and survive no matter their natural proclivities toward the ability to survive. THe unfortunate part of it all is that there are simply too many of us.
I do think, though, that it IS fair to say that it is possible in human society to cheat natural selection, or that perhaps we are domesticating ourselves – is the ability to become a wealthy movie star really natural cause to earn enough resources to support an endless number of offspring? Is the inability to survive in a money-based system justification for an inability to continue a family? What about the people who can survive in our system and yet are not possessed of the good sense enough to survive for one week in a natural environment. I’m not really talking about “Timmy” here – maybe I’m talking about the check-out clerk or the bank president. What about the willfully ignorant? I’m not talking about those without the good fortune of an excellent education, i’m talking about the willfully ignorant - they get to breed, too, thereby potentially increacing the liklihood that there would be more ignorance in their wake.
There I go contributing to the train wreck… The original point that I was trying to make was that we can not rely on social change or evolution to make things better for us. As domesticated creatures, our progress is a conscious one. That means do it yourself! I hope to develop THIS idea some more, and leave the rest of that stuff alone, as it is only tangental.
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