Instincts and Evolution
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Sub-Groups and War
Once we begin to withdraw in consciousness from identification with our human sub-groups, the propaganda efforts that in the past coerced us into wars of aggression will no longer work, and we'll begin to see the waging of war as the insane enterprise that it really is. Just as decades of consciousness raising among women and African Americans led eventually to most universities establishing Women's Studies and Black Studies Departments; in the not too distant future we might see the emergence of Peace Studies Departments springing up in our institutions of higher learning... And once we more objectively deconstruct the wars of the last century, we'll begin to see that almost all of them were caused by the machinations for geo-strategic influence of a small global elite with too much money, and too much power in their hands. It will also become clear that many of these 'World as a Giant Chessboard' power-plays backfired and blew up in their faces... These dispassionately pre-meditated wars led to consequences that their planners neither anticipated or desired in their short-sighted and arrogant scheming behind the closed doors of wood-pannelled terrorist organizations such as AEI, PNAC, and The Brookings Institute, (aka 'Think Tanks') where mass death and destruction are cold-bloodedly strategized on a scale that no 'official' terrorist group could even imagine.
But until 'The Fog of War' begins to get the scholarly and academic scrutiny it deserves; its various stages categorized in much the same way pathologists can now routinely identify the various stages of cancer, we must begin this study ourselves. We must begin to look more closely at how past wars are still 'framed' and as a result, de-sensitize us to the horror and insanity of war. For example, most schoolbooks today still gloss over WW1 as having been incited by the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Serbia. Rarely is mention made of the fact that 15 million people were killed as a result. To seemingly justify this tremendous loss of life as a result of one man's murder is mind-boggling. The term 'Manifest Destiny' is another example. It's still being used in schoolbooks to justify the genocidal killing of millions of Native Americans during the 18th and 19th Centuries, and rarely challenged in classrooms. And what about all the strife in global 'hot spots'?
It was the small European/Americanl power elite who drew up the national borders of many post-Colonial countries within the Middle East and Africa after World War 1, their hodge podge of arbitrary borders designed to promote internal strife in order to maintain their economic and political strangehold over these areas. In their racist arrogance, they took it upon themselves to partition Palestine. The establishment of Isreal was intended to act as a surrogate policeman to maintain Western control of the increasingly important commodity of Middle Eastern oil. Most people in the West assume that Isreal was established in an empty desert, when in truth over 480 Palestinian towns and villages existed in the area 'bequeathed' to others. Of these over 480 Palestinian towns and villages, over 380 were destroyed, and over a million Palestinians forced into refugee camps where many of their descendants still live today, 50 years later... When it comes to World War 2, most historians agree that Hitler never would have come to power were it not for the support of wealthy American, British and German industrialists who having seen the rise of leftists in Spain's Civil War, feared the growing popularity of the German Socialist Party and cast their lot with Hitler, assuming a fascist was at least better than a socialist.
The Korean 'conflict' which killed upwards of one third of the civilian population of North Korea (up to 30 million people) was also totally unnecessary. The Vietnam War which killed more than 50,000 American soldiers and 2 million Vietnamese, was another unnecessary war that should never have started in the first place. The current Iraqi War, which has killed over 650,000 Iraqi citizens (according to Lancet, the British medical journal) and over 3,000 American soldiers, most now agree, also should never have started in the first place. .. Yet at the time all these conflicts were taking place they were 'framed' by the leaders of the day, and the media, as noble and necessary causes.
"War cannot be humanized. It can only be abolished."
Albert Einstein
Through Planetization we'll finally begin to challenge and overcome the dual nature of this instinctive urge to form into sub-groups. We'll begin to weaken the hold of this instinct and the conflicted jumble of idealism, loyalty, honor, pride, sacrifice, etc., that it stirs up in us at the same time it seduces us into becoming brutal killers, or to sanction coldly pre-meditated campaigns of mass terror and death directed against 'others' whose territory or resources we covet. In every war ever fought; common sense dictates that at least one side has to be the aggressor (or both sides can instigate a conflict)... No war can ever start once we, as a species, refuse to participate any longer when it becomes clear that our leaders are the aggressors. If we don't do so, then young men and women everywhere will continue dying needlessly as all the ugliness, horror and senseless bloodshed of yet another, and another, and another unnecessary war is 'spun' into a noble cause.
"Not through external pressure but only from an inner impulse can the unity of Mankind endure and grow."
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Status Hierarchies
We're all aware of the proverbial hen house 'pecking order'. We've all seen TV nature shows where individuals in various communities of snow monkeys, prairie dogs and any number of other creatures fight in competition for their place in the status hierarchy of the group. In our species, this instinctive template to form status hierarchies expresses itself in different ways, in different cultures. In some indigenous cultures for example, members of a family or clan of high social standing will have exclusive right to embroider certain designs on articles of clothing to designate their place in society. In Europe in centuries past, family crests often served the same purpose. In Spain, signet rings of a certain design are still sometimes worn by members of families of high social rank, even as this instinct is beginning to wane in humankind as a whole, for various reasons.
"The more we allow ourselves to believe in this possible superorganisation of the world, the more shall we find reason to believe in it, and the more numerous will become the believers. It seems that already a collective intuition in that sense, which nothing will be able to arrest, is on the move."
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Even if our society's commitment to equality and a 'fair playing field for all' has yet to be realized, as an ideal; it still encourages us to rise above our instinctive drive to find meaning in status hierarchies. And through our co-habitation in 'the global village', we're becoming less ghettoized within our respective culture's status hierarchies. But the persistence of this instinct, though considerably weakened, is still for many an obstacle to achieving the Oneness of Planetization.