An Essay on the History of Homo Sapiens
by Peter Randell
- Synopsis
- Survival
- Migration
- Civilisation
- War and Genocide
- Conclusion
- Appendix I Homo What
- Appendix II Homo Psycho
1. Synopsis
The! purpose of this essay to explain a theory whereby the exponential growth of the early human populations, not only drove the diaspora out of Africa, but when the hunting grounds were full, the resort to farming, settlement and civilisation, and, ultimately, the descent into war and genocide.
The diaspora started and was driven on by competition for hunting grounds. To succeed in this competition our ancestors had to be better armed and better coordinated. This drove both human intelligence and human cooperation. Thus our civilisation became more and more inventive and mutually cohesive. It is no surprise then that we believed we were the consequence of a special creation distinct from that of other animals until Darwin opened our eyes.
It is an almost universal and immutable law of nature that all species reproduce at a rate in excess of that required for replacement. As a consequence, only the fitter survive and the rest perish; this is the main driver of evolution. Those that perish do so mainly from predation or a lack of food. If these elements of selection are somehow suspended for a particular species, the population of that species will grow exponentially. This is essentially the story of mankind.
Whether it comprises vegetation or other animals, food requires space in which to grow. In fact, space and food are so closely linked they could be referred to as the space-food continuum. Another such law of nature states that if food or space is limited, all animals will compete with, and eventually fight with, other members of their own species. Domesticated animals, bred over millennia for their docility, can resort to fighting if their food supply or space is sufficiently restricted. For animals that are neither nomadic nor migratory, that space is their territory in which they feed and breed. Whilst many solitary animals have territories, social animals are better able to patrol and protect their own exclusive areas.
In the case of Homo sapiens, by far the most social of animals, he overcame his predators with weapons and strategies described below. He then secured his food supply by first becoming the most omnivorous of animals, then by spreading throughout the world and, finally, by taking up farming and continually making it more productive. Throughout this process, man has come into conflict with man, first for space to hunt and later for space to farm. As a consequence of this inter-human conflict over millennia, war has become lodged in both his culture and his genetic inheritance. If there is any doubt about this, then consider the number of armed forces personnel and the stockpile of weapons that each nation maintains. It is the purpose of this essay to show how this might have happened.
Any study of man’s history shines a light that both illuminates his present and guides him into his future. Thus, in the Conclusion, the necessity in the future to eliminate (and, if possible, put into reverse) population growth is outlined, together with the consequences for mankind if this should fail. Any discussion of population brings up the question of family size, the main source of population growth and a subject so contentious that it has become taboo. The only time that governments ever talk about population is when they fear it is in decline. One of the purposes of this essay is to break this taboo once and for all and to get discussion about population onto the political agenda. If families do not limit the number of their children, then this scarred and looted planet will become further degraded. If they can be persuaded to limit their family size, then the planet will be able recover its health and the natural world will be restored.
Note
It is virtually impossible always to refer to Homo sapiens in a gender-neutral way. Any attempt to paraphrase Robert Burns’ immortal line, ‘Man’s inhumanity to man’, in accordance with modern sensitivities will demonstrate the problem. I have therefore decided not even to attempt the impossible and to use the biblical ‘man’, together with ‘mankind’ and ‘he’, to cover both genders.
2. Survival
The first human ancestors to emerge from the forest and walk out onto the savannah were taking a huge risk. Their skin probably had little hair and was certainly thin and, compared to both their predators and prey, they were relatively slow. Their teeth were neither long or sharp enough to deliver even a defensive bite, and they had no claws. They could only survive by combined action and clever strategies. However, not only did they have an early capacity to communicate (probably by a combination of hand signals and vocalisations), they also possessed an ability unique in the whole animal world – the ability to throw. Not just to lob or bowl but to throw at a low trajectory, accurately and fast. This required a unique grip involving the thumb and fingers having the capacity to act independently. Add to this the ability in one action to rotate the shoulder, flex and extend the elbow then the wrist with a final flick. This unique adaptation would have taken a long time to evolve but, once acquired, it provided man with the capacity to keep his predators at bay and ultimately to dominate all other species. No predator on earth would willingly withstand a sustained salvo of well-aimed stones.
Like many other primates such as the chimpanzee, man already had a taste for meat. Equipped with ordinary, unshaped stones of the right size and weight, a determined group of men could drive predators from a kill and then crush the bones and eat the marrow. They could also tear off and dry small pieces of meat (biltong) for later consumption without the necessity of fire. They must also have tried, and often succeeded, in killing many small prey species with stones. It is interesting to see today how unsupervised boys will throw stones at virtually anything and that boys of all ages find it hard to resist activities that involve throwing, such as snowball fights. In addition, it is interesting to see how an angry demonstration confronted by the police or army will readily resort to throwing any missiles to hand – a modern reversion to a prehistoric tactic. Some of the citizens of the town of Churchill, which lies on the migration route for polar bears along the shores of Hudson Bay, have been known to take stones with them in case of a chance encounter with the world’s largest land-based carnivore.
It could be said that an ‘age of stones’ preceded the Stone Age by which time man had learnt how to shape stone axe-blades and arrowheads and how to fix them to a wooden shaft. The throwing of an axe or spear would have been even more effective in driving away predators and killing prey. Later, extra propulsion would be gained from a sling or a catapult in the case of stones and a bow to propel a light spear or arrow. Unshaped stones would not appear in any archaeological record of man’s activities and neither would the other artefact which would have had a critical role in man’s advance which was twine (from thread to light rope). This can be made simply by twisting suitable dried vegetable fibres or animal hair together between finger and thumb to create threads. These in turn would be twisted again to make string and so on. Thus, man could make nets and snares by which he could extend his diet to fish, birds and other small prey. He could also sew together animal skins for cover and clothing, using a splinter of wood or bone to make holes. Twine would also be used to bind a stone arrow-tip or axe-head to its shaft. When considering how early man would be able to carry enough stones to scare off predators or kill prey, it is thought that an effective bag could be made from animal skin fitted with a strap of twine or skin so that it could be hung over the shoulder. Later, this would be adapted for carrying spears and, later still, to make a quiver for arrows.
Already a seed, fruit, leaf, stem and root eater, man was thus to become the most omnivorous species on the planet. While at this stage he would best be described still as a scavenger-forager, he had nevertheless acquired the ability to find food in the most diverse conditions. Man had become so adaptable that he could easily survive on a diet of only a very few of these foods, even to the extent of being either wholly carnivorous or wholly vegetarian. Accordingly, he was able to survive in almost any part of the world from the Arctic tundra to the jungles of the Amazon basin, from the edge of the desert to the remotest islands.
The two essential elements in evolution are the natural exponential growth in populations and the variations in genetic inheritance. As not all progeny can possibly survive to reproductive adulthood, the inevitable result is the selection of those individuals whose genes provide them with the best chance of survival. This gives rise to adaptations to existing species as they react to changing circumstances, and ultimately, given the right conditions, to new species. As explained in the Synopsis, with no effective predators and an endless supply of food, the population of any form of life will increase ad infinitum. Thus mankind began his relentless growth in numbers. There remained only one problem, that of the space required to provide for sufficient quantities of prey species and/or edible vegetation. When the space runs out, there are only two options, to fight to retain territory or to move on.
If populations increase because of the lack of any limiting factors, then there will be little or no survival of the fittest and no more evolution. Accordingly, man is probably both physically and psychologically very much the same creature as he was when he first conquered his predators and secured his food supply. The one significant evolutionary change that would have occurred was that which favoured man in conflict with his own species for hunting grounds and, later, agricultural land. In this case, the genes contributing to both aggression and intelligence, and thus success in battle, would be favoured and man would have become increasingly inventive and bellicose. Any other changes that appear to have occurred in his genetic heritage, e.g. resistance to disease, were the consequence of man giving up hunting and living in settlements where it could be said that germs and parasites became man’s new predators. Perhaps the most striking effect of having no obvious predators and being in competition with one’s own species for space and resources is that man himself had become his one identifiable enemy. As a hunter-gatherer, what early man would have feared most was not the big cats, bears or wolves but another hunting party made up of known enemies or even just strangers.
Place any animal, wild or domesticated, in a limited space and gradually restrict their space or limit their food supply and, sooner or later, they will begin to fight amongst themselves. From this point on, man’s history is a history of that struggle. While man’s altruism towards his own family, tribe or nation is remarkable and no sacrifice can be too great, for those outside this circle, for the hostile tribe on the savannah or in the forest, man is fearful and ultimately aggressive.
A man on his own in the savannah is dead meat; as an individual he cannot possibly survive his natural predators. Belonging to a hunting group, and ultimately a kinship tribe, is essential for his survival. This simple basic psychological need for belonging still survives today, although the original reasons for it have largely disappeared as his predators now no longer pose a danger. But because other Homo sapiens might, he still has to be with his own kind, to belong to his group, his tribe, his nation.
Having escaped from his predators, man can now wander freely and occupy any part of the world. As a consequence, he will increase in numbers without any further limitation – a successful species that has achieved world dominance and its own unique destiny. In the Book of Genesis, God’s instruction to his new creation was; ‘Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.’ Whoever wrote those words was accurately describing what man had achieved by that time but they could not possibly have had any idea of the ultimate, devastating consequences of such multiplication and such dominion.
3. Migration
In his long history, mankind has undertaken three great migrations of significance. The first in which he was preceded by some of his earlier ancestors was out of Africa, estimated to start at anything from 150,000 – 200,000 years ago. This eventually led to man populating the whole planet.
The second, starting about 500 years ago was the movement of Europeans out to north, central and south America, eastern and southern Africa, and Oceania. Here they encountered both hunter-gatherer societies and fledgling civilisations, notably in Central America and Peru, most of which were effectively destroyed. Europeans also travelled to many other, mostly tropical, areas particularly West Africa, the Middle East and the Far East where they discovered long-established civilisations. They did not settle in these areas but stayed temporarily as traders and administrators because the climate was unsuitable for permanent settlement by Europeans. These civilisations ultimately benefited from trade and contact with Europeans despite the experience for some of colonial status.
The third and ongoing migration, which started in earnest only about seventy years ago, flows from mostly poor countries lying in a tropical belt from central America through northern and central Africa to the Middle East, the Indian sub-continent and beyond into SE Asia. The majority of the people from these parts are intent on moving to the developed countries of North America, Europe and Oceania to escape poverty and/or conflict borne of political instability. This last migration is meeting resistance and its future is problematic. The pressure is building all the time and fences and walls are going up but it is not possible at present to see how or whether it will ever end.
This section is primarily concerned with the first of these migrations. As a result of man’s escape from his predators and his capacity to survive on a huge variety of foods, his numbers were increasing exponentially resulting in a shortage of hunting grounds. As a consequence, man moved on and eventually out of Africa. His journey took him to the furthest corners of the world from the bleakest parts of the Arctic tundra, ultimately to the southern tip of South America, Tierra del Fuego after the longest possible walk from Africa. The inhabitants there never showed themselves to the first Europeans to travel round Cape Horn but the sailors knew they were there because they saw their fires at night; hence their name for the area, ‘the land of fire’. This is the most southerly cape in the world and the nearest to Antarctica. It is a desolate place swept by heavy rain and fierce winds, much of it covered by snow and ice for a large part of the year. The people were fearful of other human beings having been driven down to the furthest extremity of the continent by the burgeoning populations behind them. It was the miserable condition of their descendants that so upset Darwin when he encountered them on his journey to the Pacific in the Beagle.
Imagine a hunter-gatherer on the grassy plains of Africa and see the gazelle as they play by the pools left after the rains. Life for a hunter-gatherer could be very easy there. One is therefore bound to ask oneself how the descendants of the same creature enjoying life on the African savannah could end up struggling to survive in such a desolate place as Tierra del Fuego. The only conclusion must be that the pressures of population drove them from the Elysian fields of Africa all the way to the furthest and bleakest point of land in the world. Some anthropologists have argued that man’s migration out of Africa was due to environmental or climatic factors or even from an innate desire to travel, to which one is bound to reply ‘and all the way to Tierra del Fuego?’
There can be little doubt that there must have been such pressure on the land that wave after wave of hunter-gatherers pushed out from Africa. Together with the growth in numbers of migrants already in occupation of the lands on the way, this became an irresistible force driving the forerunners on and on until the whole of the inhabitable space on the planet was occupied. And even then, the numbers continued to increase. It should be said that the human diaspora was not a steady advance, but both haphazard and irregular. Interrupted as it was by successive ice ages, it is likely that, at times, it was stopped, diverted and even reversed. It is interesting to note that Homo sapiens apparently reached Australia before making much progress into Europe
It may be difficult to imagine how Africa could become so full of hunter-gatherers that they felt compelled to migrate but this is because of the way exponential growth operates. It is surprising to many people that a growth of only 2% will mean a doubling in less than 35 years. Einstein himself described compounding as the eighth wonder of the world but then, of course, he was thinking of money not populations, though the same principle applies. Interest on capital at 4% will double one’s money in less than 18 years which means we could all be rich but for inflation and taxes!
Bacteria reproduce by splitting and, if this occurs on a petri dish, say, every day until it was fully covered, then half the dish will be covered in the last 24 hours. Perhaps the best example of exponential growth can be seen in the introduction of rabbits to Australia which occurred in 1879 with the import and release of 24 to provide sport for shooting. As with Homo sapiens, there was an absence of effective predation and an endless supply of food. Within ten years, it was possible to shoot and trap over two million rabbits without any noticeable effect on their numbers. In an interesting corollary, the myxomatosis virus decimated the population in the 1950’s until herd immunity was ultimately established. Of course man does not breed as fast as the rabbit but he had hundreds of thousands of years for the effects of exponential growth to become apparent.
Overpopulation is a much over-used word and, in this context, needs a precise definition. For any given area, there is a maximum population that can be sustained without stress leading to either conflict or migration. For a hunter-gatherer kinship group, the space required can be measured in a large number of square miles depending on the availability of prey animals and edible vegetation. If the numbers increase beyond this point then a state of overpopulation exists. For nomadic herders, this would obviously be much less and, for a similar group of farmers, it would be measured in acres depending on the fertility of the soil and the availability of water.
The rise of civilisations resulted from the settlement of land and the production of food surpluses. This led to the division of labour and the development of a modern economy. As settlements grew, those not producing food depended on employment by other means and space ceased to be critical. In fact, an urban worker could live and earn a wage from work all within a few square feet. So long as that employment was available, those employed would be as content as hunter-gatherers or subsistence farmers with sufficient land to sustain them. A state of overpopulation in this context exists when there is insufficient urban employment for the increasing numbers, though the reasons for this are not a matter of space but of economics. Without that employment, people will react in the same way as hunter-gatherers or subsistence farmers denied sufficient space, they will migrate or they will resort to conflict. To provide employment for all, a growing population requires continual investment. The real trouble occurs when nations cannot or will not invest enough to provide employment for their rising populations. Not only do these disaffected and, mostly, young men set up stresses within society but, unless they can migrate, they will provide willing recruits for anyone who wants to lead them into conflict. This simple reality drove both the second of the great migrations of Europeans to hunter-gatherer lands and the third from the undeveloped countries back into the developed countries.
Overpopulation can also refer to the point where the concentration of people leaves insufficient land available for two vital requirements. The first is for food security. If there is insufficient space to allow a country to feed all its citizens, they will have to rely on food-exporting counties for their survival and it is possible that the effects of climate change and global population growth will reduce or even eliminate food surpluses at some point in the future. The second requirement is for recreational space and areas where wildlife can flourish. Mankind has an emotional and almost mystical attachment to the country of his birth, and, in particular, to its rural scene. Interestingly, the word ‘country’ applies to both to the countryside and to the nation itself. Both provide the citizen with an identity that binds him to his homeland and his fellow citizens. It is the defence of this idea that will cause man to risk his life to defend his homeland from an invader.
It is interesting to speculate on how much conflict there was during the first migration. Did man fight man before he moved on? There is little evidence to show that there was more than minimal fighting before migration relieved the pressures, but it may have been enough to lay down a genetic propensity for conflict which was then magnified when man ultimately filled all the space available for hunting. But certainly, while unpopulated, habitable land continued to exist, conflict in which man fought man was nothing compared with what was to follow when hunter-gatherers were spread over the whole planet.
4. Civilisation
The word ‘civilisation’ is derived from ‘civis’, the Latin for a city dweller. Man, who has divided all other animals into ‘wild’ and ‘domesticated’, has reserved for himself the term ‘civilised’ by which he also means well-mannered, self-controlled, fair-minded and considerate. This appears to be more of an ideal than an achievement and it may be more accurate to use ‘wild’ for man in that no one has, as with domesticated animals, selectively bred Homo sapiens for useful or desirable qualities.
Civilisation itself started when people began to settle in permanent dwellings and to till the soil. In due course, food surpluses were sufficient to sustain those not engaged on the land, thus providing for the division of labour. Homo sapiens, with his infinite good sense, invented civilisation so that he could ultimately enjoy the benefits of central heating, cheap air travel and modern dentistry – or did he? If stone age man was to take up farming, he would first have to clear the land, dig drains and/or irrigation channels with wooden and stone tools and build walls, or otherwise fence his land to protect the crops from both domestic and wild animals; all this before he actually starts tilling the soil and planting his crops. Early tilling involved the use of stone picks and basic wooden ploughs which were at first pulled by hand; draught animals did not come into use until much later. Before they could produce surpluses to exchange for other goods and services, early farmers had to make and repair their own tools and implements.
Anatomically, man was simply not adapted to the type of heavy manual labour which farming involves such as working bent over for hours at a time and lifting and pulling heavy loads. These activities put undue strain on man’s physique, designed as it was for walking, running, climbing and throwing, and thus gave rise to many crippling ailments of both spine and joints. Did man really give up a free and relatively easy, if spartan, life of a hunter-gatherer for one of such back-breaking and unremitting toil, and all for some unimaginable benefits in ages yet to come? Surely such a change in man’s existence could only have been driven by an irresistible force.
As we have seen before, man having overcome his predators and having developed an omnivorous diet, was expanding in ever-increasing numbers. Having spread to all corners of the planet, there came a point when the land could no longer sustain any more hunter-gatherers and had to yield more food if they were to survive. Mankind had in some areas already started to domesticate wild animals to the point where they could run sheep and goats protected and controlled with the aid of dogs. These nomadic herdsmen would have achieved a much greater yield of food from a given area than by hunting and would thus have become more settled. It was a short step from this point to the actual growing of the types of cereals and legumes which man had already collected wild as part of his diet. As populations continued to increase, serious crop growing began in the fertile valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, the Jordan and the Nile (the Fertile Crescent) assisted by irrigation with river water. Settlements sprang up to house the people and their animals and to store the food produced. This basic housing was made mostly of mud bricks or daub and wattle while stone was reserved at this stage for tombs, temples and fortifications. City life bestowed some immediate advantages and disadvantages. Cities provided shelter, safety, the storage of food supplies and, ultimately, the opportunity for art, learning and entertainment. First, however, people had to be gainfully employed in activities other than agriculture, each providing goods or services required by others. These then had to be traded and, although barter could cope with much of this trade, its limitations soon led to the establishment of a basic form of coinage. Successful traders and producers could them accumulate wealth and thus be in a position to employ their own workers. With city populations always on the rise, wealthy men could build dwellings for renting to their workers and others, giving them power over those in need of employment and housing. This basic imbalance of power between worker and his employer and landlord, unknown in hunter-gatherer communities, continues to concern politicians in all societies to this day.
When city dwellers depended on others for their food, they became vulnerable to deprivation to a degree unknown to hunter-gatherers. Families could starve despite food being available to those with the resources to buy it. Many old people would become destitute and many unsupported women had no option but to do the most menial work or sign up for the oldest profession. There is evidence that all early civilisations depended on slave labour sourced from prisoners of war, criminals and children sold by their destitute parents. Life in cities also gave rise to endemic diseases which were unknown to hunter-gatherers. All early cities suffered from more or less permanent infestations of parasites and vermin. The streets would tend to fill with all forms of waste and the air would be polluted with fumes from the burning of wood and oil for cooking and heating. Crime, also unknown in hunter-gatherer communities, became widespread as food stocks and possessions accumulated. Thus, while the well-off could live life in relative security and comfort, most citizens would seem, if anything, to be considerably worse off than their hunter-gatherer forebears.
But there could be no return to the happy hunting grounds. Imagine a nomadic herdsman with his sheep and see him as he watches his flocks moving across the green hills. Life could be sweet with such an existence. How then did he become transformed into a city dweller, all but few of whom had to perform hard manual labour for their living in what we would now describe as a slum. Despite the many benefits for some, surely such a change could only have been due to the irresistible force of population pressures requiring the hunting and pastoral ways of life to give way to the unceasing and relentless toil of agriculture and urban manual labour.
The earliest civilisations in Mesopotamia and the Nile valley were followed by those in the Indian subcontinent based on the Indus and the Ganges, and in China on the Yangtze and Yellow rivers. Civilisation came to Europe much later following the Danube into what is now Hungary and then spread around the eastern Mediterranean where it was dominated by the Greeks and later by the Romans who eventually controlled the whole Mediterranean. It was in Europe that agriculture made its most rapid advance. As a result, the population there grew at its fastest giving rise ultimately to the second of the great migrations, from Europe to the lands of the remaining hunter-gatherers.
This rapid progress in agriculture is now called the green revolution but it has been going on ever since farming started. It results in the production of progressively more food from both worker and acre. It started with improved plant and animal breeding and more efficient implements. Improved drainage and irrigation and better fertilising and soil management added to yields. In modern times mechanisation, crop rotation, chemical fertilisers, herbicides and insecticides have increased productivity. The proportion of the population engaged in agriculture has consequently fallen as the cities have grown and this process continues to this day. For instance, in the United States, the largest food exporter, 50% of the population were directly engaged in farming 150 years ago while now it is less than 2%. Furthermore, developments such as genetic modification and gene editing in both crops and animals means that man’s food supplies may now always meet the needs of our population to whatever levels it grows. It may be a case not so much of Malthus postponed but of Malthus denied.
5. War and Genocide
If one looks back at mankind’s unique history of intra-species conflict, one can imagine that its earliest manifestation would amount to little more than stone throwing. After man acquired the capacity for tool-making, fights would have involved stabbing, slashing, gouging and bludgeoning. With the beginning of the iron age, swords and lances would have made it easier to inflict injury and death.. But men fought on. Then everything changed in the 14th century when gunpowder came into battlefield use giving rise to cannon, flintlock and musket. Now injuries became ever-more lethal and could be inflicted over great distances without any eye contact between combatants. But men still fought on.
Everything changed again in the middle of the 19th century with the invention of high explosives giving rise to bombs, shells and mines. This indiscriminate long-distance killing also put non-combatants into the firing line and injuries took on a new dimension. There was mayhem in which bodies were literally blown to pieces without warning. Heads, arms, and legs were separated and could not be accurately re-assembled for burial. Horror was piled on horror as eyes were blown from their sockets and leafless trees were draped with human entrails. And still men fought on.
Then the ultimate killing machine was invented, the nuclear bomb. At Hiroshima in 1945, all that remained of one human being who was out painting his house was his silhouette left on the wall – literally the shadow of a man who once had been. But he was lucky compared with those thousands who died in agony from radiation burns as their skin slowly sloughed off. And still men fight on.
When Europeans first made contact with hunter-gatherers in the second great migration, they found that many were engaged in inter-tribal conflict, notably on the prairies of North and Central America, in the Amazonian jungle and across much of Africa. In addition, there is considerable archaeological evidence to support the view that battles were fought between tribes for access to hunting grounds, once they were fully occupied. Man was already equipped with lethal weaponry, which had been devised for killing prey, such as stone-tipped spears and arrows, stone axes, daggers and clubs. It is probable that these battles were particularly bloody and it has been suggested by some that the chances of being killed violently have been falling ever since. Whatever the case, it was a short step from the survival of the fittest as a hunter to the survival of the strongest in battle. This does not necessarily mean physical strength so much as better weaponry, communications and tactics; in other words, greater intelligence. These basic advantages in conflict would gradually end up lodged in man’s DNA and in his culture, and thus a state of continuous conflict would almost certainly have made him more intelligent as well as more aggressive. There is also speculation as to whether inter-tribal conflict would have led to ever larger tribes but ultimately the advantage this would confer would have been balanced by the greater likelihood of the departure of breakaway elements. However, it is probable that natural selection would favour those tribes that had not only intelligence but also the capacity for social cohesion in ever greater numbers.
Once man took up farming and permanent settlement, further population increases inevitably led to more serious, large scale conflict over the occupation of land. The first recorded wars occurred in the very same places that farming and hence civilisation started, notably Mesopotamia in about 2700 BC and, later, in the Nile valley around 1500 BC. Thereafter, as populations continued to rise, great waves of human conflict engulfed the world. The main theatre of early wars was in the wider Levant area bounded by Greece, Persia and Egypt, where warfare was almost continuous. If eastern Africa can be said to be the cradle of humanity then this region is surely its crucible. Eventually, power in the Mediterranean shifted to Rome and some sort of order was established with the coming of Pax Romana but only at the price of oppression. Later, the Ottoman empire achieved a similar result in the Middle East but its break-up after the First World War led eventually to the bloody confusion that lasts to this day and, to which, there is no end in sight.
Thereafter, large-scale wars ranged across the settled world until the last century. After the fall of Rome and the chaos of the Dark Ages, among the most significant of these were, perhaps, the Crusades in the 12th and 13th centuries, the Mongol invasion by Genghis Khan in the 13th century (in search of ‘the abundant green pastures of Europe’), the Thirty Years War in the 17th century, the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century and the two World Wars. The total number of deaths of combatants and non-combatants is notoriously difficult to establish. For instance, in the Second World War, which was the best documented, deaths have been estimated from 50 to 80 million. However, what is clear is that fatalities resulting from war have been on an ever-increasing scale. All these major conflicts occurred against a background of smaller, local conflicts which continue to this day – just look around.
Wars are usually fought over issues such as territory, religion, ethnicity, dynastic feuds or politics. But whilst these issues constitute dangerous fault lines, our capacity for deadly conflict often also requires a flash point to set off a conflagration. Perhaps the most famous flash point was the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in 1914. The fault lines were the existence of the supposedly defensive treaties between Germany and Austria-Hungary on one side and Britain, France and Russia on the other. The latter was an attempt to contain what was seen as aggressive German militarism while the former was due to the fear of being encircled by hostile neighbours. Interestingly Germany, with little seafaring experience and no history of significant colonial emigration, made ‘lebensraum’ (living space) an objective during the First World War and one of its declared policies in the Second. Even today people still wonder what it was really all about; what were they trying to prove that justified the wholesale slaughter of so many young men. Our long history of conflict resulting from population pressures had left us with a propensity for war that, like a tinder-pile, only needed a spark to set it off. It is interesting that all nations say that they have armed forces for defence only. This position is mirrored by the gun lobby in the USA which argues that citizens have to be armed because criminals have guns. When everyone has guns then, sooner or later, they will be used.
Then there is genocide, the most recent example of which was the Rwandan massacres in 1994. It is significant that this country was the most densely populated in Africa where the inhabitants were predominately engaged in subsistence agriculture and where the mounting pressure on the land of an increasing population could not be sufficiently relieved by urban employment. The fault line here was the existence of two tribes, the Hutu and the Tutsi living side by side. The flash point was the apparent assassination in a plane crash of the Hutu President. The result was the massacre of an estimated 800,000 innocent Tutsis and their Hutu sympathisers in a few months using predominantly iron-age weapons.
It is also interesting to consider the earlier genocide in Cambodia in the period 1975-79. This was another country largely engaged in subsistence agriculture where the population had increased by nearly 70% in the previous 25 years. There were no significant ethnic or religious divisions but there was a crazy revolutionary calling himself Pol Pot who took control of the country following a very bitter civil war, itself part of the fall-out from the neighbouring Vietnam war. Inspired by Marxism, he was intent on creating an idealistic peasant society at the expense of the educated business and professional classes. In the chaos following the civil war, in which the peasantry in particular had suffered grievously, he was able to create an entirely false fault line between town and country. In pursuit of his policies he decided to move large parts of the urban population to work in the countryside and in the process, he persuaded the peasants that the urban population had become rich at their expense. Those who resisted, both townspeople and peasants, were to be killed and, in the chaos that followed, an estimated two million were slaughtered or died from starvation. To save bullets, many were buried alive in waterlogged pits in the rice paddies which became known as the killing fields.
Both world wars were accompanied by major genocides. In the First World War, and after years of persecution of what was a religious minority, Turkey was responsible for the deaths of an estimated one and a half million Armenians, most being driven into northern Syria to die in the desert. During the Second World War, again after many years of persecution, the Nazis slaughtered an estimated six million Jews from Germany and conquered Europe, together with uncounted numbers of Romanies, Slavs, homosexuals and those too physically or mentally ill to be deemed worthy of further care. Hitler, whose policies could be summed up by the catchy slogan ”Make Germany great again” was undoubtedly responsible for the greatest crime in the history of mankind involving the highest number of deaths.
On the other hand, Stalin was the most prolific killer of his own people. Under his rule an estimated 20 million died between the two world wars. Of these over 700,000 were executed and millions more died as a result of torture and of the conditions in his infamous prison camps (gulags). An estimated six million died in the Ukrainian famine of 1932-33 deliberately engineered by Stalin as a punishment for the peasants’ opposition to collectivisation and for their support for Ukrainian independence. There is evidence that grain was deliberately seized from the Ukraine to finance the industrial expansion of the USSR, showing that Stalin favoured urban workers over the peasantry who were generally opposed to communism and collectivisation. Wars have often been fought to acquire territory and so relieve population pressures but the relief of such pressures can also be pursued by the extermination of unwanted minorities within the existing population.
Throughout history, criminals, those participating in rebellions, prisoners of war and unwanted minorities have been executed by a variety of means including stoning (unsurprisingly). crucifixion, drowning, burying alive, burning, stabbing, disembowelling, poisoning, throwing from heights, garrotting, hanging, beheading by axe, sword or guillotine, gassing, lethal injection, electrocution and firing squad. Murderous mankind displays boundless ingenuity.
It is interesting to consider what has happened in Middle East where the 70-year-old conflict following the creation of Israel has defied everyone’s efforts to resolve. It is worth noting that the population of Israel has increased from a little over one million at its recognition in 1948 to nearly nine million and that Israel has, in the process, illegally and by force, occupied large parts of existing Palestinian territory. It would be interesting to consider how different the situation might be if there was sufficient land for all. There is little doubt that this conflict has yet again helped to destabilise the whole of the Middle East where the fault lines are religious (Judaism, Shia and Sunni Muslim), and the superpowers are backing different sides, but where the availability of more land and/or fewer people would significantly reduce tensions.
It is worth noting that there have been many genuine efforts to promote peace and resolve conflicts and that there has not been a major war on the scale of the World Wars for over 75 years. One does, however, entertain the suspicion that this could be due to the sobering effects of nuclear weapons on governments who could be destroyed, together with the leaders of their armed forces, as soon as war broke out. Nevertheless, there must be pessimism about the future. If population pressures, operating directly or through our genetic and cultural heritage, are ultimately at the root of all conflict, then the future must look very bleak indeed. Meanwhile it could be said, paradoxically, that MAD (mutually assured destruction) has so far helped to keep the leaders of the nuclear powers sane.
6. Conclusion
To recapitulate, any study of the planet and the species calling itself Homo sapiens must come to the conclusion that man’s unique ability to throw, first stones and then spears, had led ultimately to his dominion over all other species. Combined with his widely omnivorous diet, this resulted in a population explosion that continues to this day. As a consequence, man has spread across the whole planet occupying nearly every habitable space to its furthest extremities, up to the edges of both deserts and polar wastes and to the remotest islands. In the process, most other species have been decimated and many are now extinct or facing extinction. Finally, when all the hunting grounds were fully occupied, continuing population pressures left man with no alternative but to take up farming and permanent settlement. Eventually, the limits to agricultural land led to war and genocide. However, the green revolution has kept pace and has managed to feed a population that continues to increase to this day.
There is no better example of the human predicament than the story of Easter Island which lies at the eastern extremity of the Polynesian diaspora. It appears that the first settlers arrived in twin-hulled, ocean-going canoes, probably sometime in the latter half of the first millennium. The whole of this diaspora was driven, like all human migrations, by population growth and this small group was no exception. However, Easter Island was the end of the line; there were no more habitable islands until the coast of South America well over 2,000 miles away. As the Easter Islanders survived and multiplied, the land was progressively deforested to grow crops. The islanders’ main protein source was originally fish (mostly tuna) and porpoises but the archaeological record shows that this eventually changed to sea birds and their eggs, a much less nutritious alternative. The most likely explanation is that, having cut down all the trees, there was no more wood left with which to repair and replace their boats. When James Cook arrived in 1774, he reported that the islanders had no seaworthy boats. Eventually the sea bird population declined to the point where they had to rely entirely on their domestic animals for which they had to grow yet more crops. As the pressure on the land increased and soil erosion took its toll, the people divided into two tribes who fought each other over land. Having no natural fault lines, bizarrely they divided into the ‘short ears’ and the ‘long ears’ based on their custom of grossly extending their ear lobes. By the time the first Europeans arrived to deliver their ‘fatal impact’ of defeat, disease, exploitation and enslavement, the numbers had already dropped from an estimate of over 10,000 to a few hundred. This story is a parallel of that of mankind and planet earth – an ever-increasing population with nowhere else to go. It dramatically illustrates what would have happened to planet earth but for the green revolution.
To quote an old saying ‘The past is irrecoverable, the present is incomplete, the future is already upon us’. Man knows his past and is only too well aware of the present, but what of his future? By 1800 AD, Homo sapiens numbered around one billion. It took another 127 years to reach two billion and only 84 more years to rise to seven billion. By 2040 the population is forecast to reach ten billion, a rise of 30% over today’s figure. The green revolution has so far kept everyone alive except where local droughts and wars have affected food supplies. However, Homo sapiens will be packed ever closer together on his polluted and ravaged planet which will add to the stresses of life. What room will be left for other species is problematic.
Mankind is clearly not doing enough to curb climate change. Short term interests are winning out against the long term good for all and too many of the world’s leaders are unwilling to take action that they fear will be unpopular. All the current trends seem to indicate that we are headed for the worst of all possible forecasts. What will happen when ten billion people and rising encounter the consequences of such a worst case scenario with its rising seas, unpredictable weather extremes and expanding deserts? Might not this be the perfect storm for humanity, a real-life apocalypse with its attendant horsemen of famine, pestilence, war and death?
Sir David Attenborough is quoted as saying ‘Behind every threat is the frightening explosion of human numbers. I have never seen a problem that wouldn’t be easier to solve with fewer people, or harder, and ultimately impossible, with more’. The question of population should be seen as dominating everything. Whether it is deforestation, the extinction of other species or the burning of fossil fuels and the consequent warming of the planet and acidification of the oceans; whether it is the depletion of natural resources or the proliferation of waste or the vanishing water supplies; the damage to the planet is a function of the number of human beings. Although there are big differences in the degree to which different communities contribute to that damage, all do contribute and the poorer, who may do the least damage now, always aspire to the life-style of those who do the most damage. Similarly, there are great differences in the rates of population growth across the world and, while many advanced countries are at or around replacement rate, others are growing so fast that they will ensure that the increase is maintained. The main centres of growth are in Africa, where the population has doubled in less than thirty years, and in the Middle East and the Indian sub-continent. Of the top 25 countries with the fastest growth rates, all but one is in Africa. Egypt, for example, is expected to grow by 60% in the next 30 years. Ethiopia by 78% and Nigeria by 95% to over 400 million when it will be the third most populous state in the world.
It is difficult to understand why, with the exception of India and China, no country has made any attempt to curb population growth, contributing as it does to every human problem. In India, the policy has been largely confined to sterilisation with limited success, whilst in China the restrictions on family size have been abandoned as their fertility rate has fallen to something near replacement level. In fact, it appears that India will before long overtake China as the most populous country in the world. No other government or international body is active in this field beyond promoting the right of women to choose. This will have some effect in the long term but meanwhile there may not be a long term. It is not just a matter of the lack of action, the subject is not even on anyone’s agenda, it is never discussed.
The United Nations, that once great hope for mankind, has done nothing about the threat of over-population neither has it ever produced any coherent plans to prevent the scourge of war, the issues which can be seen as two sides of the same coin. It may be dismissed as naively simplistic but why has the UN never attempted to promote a plan under which a phased and verifiable reduction in arms would be accompanied by an agreement in future to respect all existing boundaries; current and later boundary disputes being the subject of binding arbitration. Sadly. one cannot see any of our existing superpower leaders ever considering such a move, even though they might enjoy spending the resulting peace dividend.
Looking back on the history of our belief systems, the most important deities were always those of fertility and of war. In more recent monotheistic religions, multiplication was a command and, although it was said ‘thou shalt not kill’, there was always the unwritten proviso that made an exception in the case of war. In fact, in nearly all belief systems and cultures, war is seen as a noble endeavour and warriors as heroes.
Without any plans for banishing the scourge of war, with humanity headed for ten billion in a few decades and with all the possible consequences of climate change, is not Homo sapiens in danger of risking the final Armageddon, all-out thermonuclear war? Or is just keeping his fingers crossed and trusting to luck sufficient to ensure that Homo sapiens (so-called) will not himself become the victim of a seventh and final mass extinction? To quote Einstein again ‘there are two things that are infinite; the universe and human stupidity’.
The following appendices are based on the possible reactions of a visitor from outer space observing Homo sapiens for the first time and there is inevitably some repetition from the previous chapters. In the Second Appendix, the need for rank and status which has existed since hunter-gather days is examined as it affects todays society.
7. Appendix I
Homo What?
A space traveller seeing planet earth for the first time would be amazed to find that a single species, Homo sapiens, had entirely overrun the planet to the point where virtually no habitable spaces remain untouched. This super-species, now numbering nearly eight billion, is in the process of decimating its fellow species. Most of the planet’s noblest and most iconic creatures are now numbered in their thousands whilst many face imminent extinction. At the other end of the scale, insects and other small invertebrates, essential for vital processes such as pollination and soil formation, are in rapid decline. Like plankton and krill in the sea, they are at bottom of the food chain and are thus the basis of much of terrestrial life. Recent estimates indicate that there has been a loss of land-based insects of up to 75% worldwide. Such is the disappearance of other species that man himself has termed this the Holocene or sixth of the great extinctions Whereas the earlier ones were due to variations in solar or volcanic activity, or meteorite impact, this one is due solely to man himself.
Homo sapiens can be seen to have ravaged and looted his home planet seemingly without any regard to the future. The world was once wholly forested except where the soil was too thin, or too wet or dry. There is some evidence of deforestation by stone-axe and fire from the earliest days to provide for more prey animals but this did not make much impact until agriculture started about 10,000 years ago. Since then it has spread across the world and now even the great rain-forests in areas such as the Amazon basin and Borneo are disappearing to make way for cattle, soy and palm oil, a substance that is said to be found in 50% of all supermarket products.
The oceans are being over-fished to the point where the survival of most food species is in almost constant danger. Pollution by oil and other shipping spillage and industrial effluent is in evidence everywhere while plastic debris, including fishing nets and lines, litter every shore and form great floating islands that threaten all marine life. The run-off from fertilisers and manure from factory farming can be so high that it creates ‘dead zones’, in areas such as in the Gulf of Mexico, where no marine life can exist due to a lack of oxygen. As a consequence of burning fossil fuels, the atmosphere is saturated with carbon dioxide, a powerful greenhouse gas, which is also absorbed by the sea. As the planet warms and the seas acidify, all wild life is threatened along with man’s own food supplies.
The earth’s finite resources such as oil, gas and minerals are being progressively depleted. As a result of climate change, the deserts are expanding and the ice caps retreating. The supply of fresh water, on which all terrestrial life depends, is becoming increasingly difficult to secure and conserve. For instance, new dams on the Tigris and Euphrates in Turkey, Syria and Iran will deny water to Iraq and the same is happening in Ethiopia where dams are threatening the supply of water to the Nile in Egypt. Perhaps the greatest threat to water supplies is on the Mekong where Chinese-built dams are threatening all the downstream countries, namely, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. As populations increase and climate change progresses, the supply of fresh water will be threatened in ever-increasing areas of the world and is high among the possible causes of future conflict.
It is believed that the changes in the atmosphere and the oceans due to man’s activities, together with the pollution of land and sea, will be detectable in rock formations aeons from now and some geologists have even suggested that this will give rise to a new geological era to be called the ‘Anthropocene’. Mankind knows very well what is happening and why, but is doing too little too late to have any chance of remedying the situation. As the ice retreats, the sea and land thus exposed absorbs more heat and the melting of the tundra and frozen sea-bed releases methane, the most potent of the greenhouse gases. It is possible that, if man-made greenhouse gases were to cease altogether, the effect of the changes already in progress would continue to heat up the planet on their own. Cities everywhere are growing rapidly and the air their citizens breathe is becoming increasingly polluted causing severe respiratory and other health problems.
Our space traveller will notice that, apart from the pillage and pollution of his planet, the other distinguishing feature of Homo sapiens is its treatment of its own – man’s inhumanity to man. Some species do kill their own but only in very limited circumstances. For instance, lions are known to kill the cubs when taking over a pride and this also occurs in some other species. But no other species treats its fellow members as mankind does. No other animal kills and oppresses its own kind on such a scale. Only man persecutes, dispossesses, incarcerates, banishes and enslaves. When other animals fight over territory or mates, one will usually give way and the victor will spare the vanquished. Deaths normally occur only by accident, usually when the loser dies of its wounds. Man, on the other hand, will deliberately torture, mutilate, murder and rape his fellow humans. On a larger scale, man has made war against man throughout history and the slaughter has ranged both within and across continents. Man will even pursue and round up his fellows with the sole purpose of exterminating them, so-called genocide. It would appear that Homo sapiens suffers from an uncontrollable instinct for killing. The history of man is a tale of continual war and persecution. Paradoxically man uses words like brutal and beastly when he compares the more cruel aspects of his behaviour to that of animals. In fact, the brutes and the beasts are innocent, killing only to eat, whereas man often seems to act only to satisfy his blood-lust.
What would surprise a space-traveller most would be the fact that man, which has classified and named every species, has the presumption to call himself ‘Homo sapiens’ – wise man! If ‘wise’ means not only knowledgeable but motivated to make good use of knowledge, then wise he is most certainly not. In view of his propensity for violence against all species especially his own, ‘Homo bellicosus’ might be more appropriate. To give him credit for what he obviously excels in ‘Homo ingeniosus’ might be considered because of his ability to discover, invent and to make things, from simple tools to instruments, medicines, machines and structures of great complexity. However, it would appear that man is actually beginning to believe that there is no problem that he cannot solve and is thus in danger of becoming the victim of his own hubris. ‘Homo insanus’ might be more appropriate when considering man’s devastation of his planet but perhaps the most appropriate and generous name would be simply ‘Homo imprudens’ – foolish man.
8. Appendix II
Homo Psycho
What aspects of the behaviour of Homo sapiens would strike a visitor from outer space as distinguishing him most from other species? Clearly the capacity to make things and the power of reason and language would be obvious but after that perhaps the power of his memory would be most striking. All species appear to have some memory in that they can learn simple do’s and don’ts to supplement their instincts in the fight for survival. The migratory routes of fish and birds are probably a mixture of instinct and learning whereby instinct provides the capacity to learn from the first journey. In other cases, the location of water holes or fresh pastures is probably all conscious learning which is then passed on. This type of learning from previous generations ultimately gives rise to ‘culture’ – a body of learned behaviours passed from generation to generation. The power of memory allows Homo sapiens to create oral histories and other stories which would have helped tribes to bind together.
Another feature of man’s psychology that is significant is self-awareness of which no other species has more than a glimmering. This happened when man’s brains developed to the point where he became aware of the working of other parts of his brain. This has been called the ‘inner eye’ which can observe some of man’s own perception and decision-making. At the same time this gave him the illusion that, somehow, he was actually in charge, making conscious decisions and exercising free will. This illusion was so overpowering that it became an assumption which is taken for granted to this day. What this inner eye cannot see is called the subconscious which is the area where our instincts and reflexes operate. Because it is not under the control of our conscious mind, it can be the most dangerous.
The next aspect of man’s behaviour that is significant is curiosity. While all animal species have some interest in what is going on in their surroundings, their questions are largely limited to the ‘what’ and the ‘when’. ‘What will eat me and what can I eat?’ are a matter of life and death which must be learnt quickly if it is not already instinctive. ‘When’ is also of prime concern – ‘When will it attack me or when should I attack it?’ and, in both cases, ‘When should I start moving?’ ‘Who’ is important to social animals who need to identify kinship and allies, and to establish and observe their position in the hierarchy. The other two questions, the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ are only of interest to Homo sapiens. The search for the answers to these is the source of man’s ongoing enlightenment.
The other facility without which civilisation could not have happened is imagination. Imagination allowed early man to see in his mind’s eye the shape of the blade that he hoped to make from a piece of stone and everything made since then. Imagination allowed him to accept various sounds as having particular meanings and simple marks to represent numbers and letters. Imagination gave him the capacity to see what might be the answers to all the why’s and the how’s. Every creative process depends on imagination but there is one consequence that has been disastrous for man.
There is an inherent but crucial weakness in man’s psyche which probably stems from the need for early man to accept their leaders’ orders without question, to act as one when a command is given. This resulted in a tendency to accept whatever they were told by anyone in authority. Today this is seen as gullibility amongst a large section of the population which makes the work of tyrants, cult leaders and other rogues possible. The more intelligent of the species can adopt a position of scepticism and doubt when being sold anything, whether it be a religion, a political ideology or a brand of soap powder. This gives them the autonomy that free men enjoy while gullibility makes men weak to the point where they are vulnerable to every persuader and this can lead ultimately to a state of mental servitude.
Curiosity as to the mysteries of birth and death, to the reasons for natural disasters such as plague, drought, famine and flood and for creation itself cannot lead to answers which can be found in everyday life. But imagination, which has always been the source of the stories that early man told himself, would be used to provide explanations. Thus were born the first superstitions which our ancestors seem to have accepted gratefully. Told persuasively by early shamans, these stories got a grip on the minds of early man that persists to this day in a variety of competing religions, each claiming to have the one true answer to all the unknowable why’s and how’s. But by establishing a proven form of knowledge called science, religion has been put into a slow decline. While religion grew out of our imagination, science was established by a process of observation, hypothesis, test and trial until it could be added to the accumulated body of existing scientific knowledge. The process of test and trial can go on indefinitely as scientific doubters always question what has gone before. While doubts always unite, beliefs can only divide.
As we have seen, early man’s survival was dependent on his membership of a hunting group without which he would soon be dead. In fact, there is evidence that banishment from the group was an early form of punishment, in effect a death sentence. To this day, man has a compulsion to belong, to be a member of a tribe, a nation, a race, a religion, a club, a society, a work place, anywhere where he feels he belongs, where he is provided with an identity which helps to define him. Without these props, man is insecure, at a loss, unhappy and prone to mental illness.
Although man has always thought of the chimpanzee as his closest relative, his social behaviour resembles more closely that of the baboon, a largely omnivorous animal with a diet very like man’s. A troop is typically composed of fifty to a hundred individuals made up of several clans, each comprising a number of families. This number probably approximates with human tribes in hunter-gatherer days. A strict hierarchy is maintained and is expressed by the practice of grooming, the receiving and giving of which is one way by which the ranking order is maintained. The human equivalent to grooming is seen in all the ways man shows deference to his elders and betters, and tolerance of inferiors. This is mostly expressed in human society in verbal exchanges and in body language. In baboon troops, frequent scuffles break out when individuals are not actually feeding or sleeping, and these are normally about disputes over rank which gives priority access to food and to females. Major, and very noisy, battles occur between troops whenever they encroach on each other’s territories but, unlike man, these very rarely result in death.
Similarly, man has lived from the earliest days in groups where, as with baboons, a strict hierarchy was observed. This ensured that the best leaders emerged followed by an effective chain of command. For hierarchies to work, all must compete to rise in rank and to achieve the highest status that they can. Thus, man became very competitive and this urge to achieve higher rank became even sharper when men lived close together in cities. Rank can be determined by birth, wealth, occupation, possessions, age and a hundred other marks of esteem such as intelligence, wit, skills, looks, clothes, tastes etc. It is when previous, long established marks of rank, such as those based on gender and race, are no longer tenable that tensions are exacerbated in communities and competition becomes more fraught. Ordinary citizens can be persuaded to fight wars if they can be convinced they will win because winning will enhance their rank. Even more than 75 years after the last major conflict, the winners can still feel a glow of pride from winning, the losers a pang for losing. Membership of anything from a football club to a nation state can confer rank when that body is seen to succeed. Pride is what is felt when an individual rises in rank – shame when rank is lost. Self-esteem is mans’ perception of his own rank and this is a basic element in his happiness and mental well-being.
So all is rank and all is competition for rank. Notice how so much of our entertainment is in the form of competitions. Even slow and solitary activities such as fishing, growing vegetables and landscape painting can be turned into competitions. Listen to any group of people meeting for the first time and hear how they start by establishing that they belong and are accepted. That assured, they will then seek to establish their rank in any number of ways – describing recent travel, what their children have achieved and so on. Nothing must be too obvious, to be as seen seeking rank too blatantly will lead to immediate loss of rank. Self-deprecation is more effective, leaving the listeners with the feeling that the speaker is so secure in his rank that he can afford to understate it. True friendships exist only when rank is seen to be evenly balanced and ceases to be an issue.
Even man’s institutions can be seen to have been built on the drive to compete. Following the failed attempt with communism, nearly all the world’s economies are based on the principle of competition with many obvious benefits. But competition does not best provide some of man’s most basic needs such as clean water, drainage, the provision of roads, railways, power supplies, hospitals and emergency services, all of which are natural monopolies. Essentials such as clean air and healthy open spaces for recreation can only be provided by a central authority with the power to legislate.
In politics, the urge for competition has given rise to an adversarial form of government with opposing parties vying for votes. The winning party then governs alone without any need to recognise the needs of the losers, whose representatives then set up in opposition to attack and try to bring down the government. This system produces politicians selected on their debating skills in defending their party and attacking the other, rather than for their wisdom, experience, leadership and integrity. Aspiring politicians, seeing the behaviour of those already in power, are thus put off and choose other, less demeaning, professions. Are there any other institutions which man would choose to run in this way? What is destructive of the whole system is the continuing need by political parties for finance and access to the media which gives undue influence to the rich, particularly those controlling elements of the media. The rich also includes trade union officials with influence over the disposal of very substantial funds. Consensual politics would produce a stable and centre-ground government with continuity rather than abrupt changes in direction as governments fall and are replaced, but this would not appeal to mankind, addicted as he is to competition. In addition, the present system ensures that the rich run the world to their advantage, evidence for which can be seen in the continued survival of tax havens Because political parties are financially dependent on them, the world’s governments will never get together to abolish them. So the rich remain in command and continue to get richer whilst everyone else pays their taxes.
Perhaps the most disastrous application of the principal of competition is to be seen in the system of adversarial justice, so-called trial by jury which may be an improvement on trial by contest or by ordeal but has little else to commend it. Justice can only be served by establishing the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Yet under an adversarial system, a contest is set up whereby competing, highly-skilled advocates are allowed to exaggerate some truths and obscure others in order to make their case. In this process the real truth is often never established and the large number of miscarriages of justice is testimony to this. Again, the rich can buy the best advocates to speak for them. To top it all, the final verdict is left to the jury, a group selected at random who are not required to establish their fitness to make judgements or to give any reasons for their subsequent decisions – in effect, justice by focus group. For a start, counsel should be required to take the same oath as witnesses and juries should be required to give detailed accounts of how they reached their verdict and why they chose to accept some evidence and reject others.
Ibsen shall have the last word; ‘Who makes up the majority in any given country? Is it the wise men or the fools? I think we must agree that the fools are in a terrible, overwhelming majority all the world over’.
Biography
This essay was written by Peter Randell.
After a conventional upbringing in England, I took a degree in agricultural sciences. This gave me a basic grounding in zoology, botany, geology, biochemistry etc and I chose to specialise in agricultural economics. On graduating I went out to Africa where I worked on my brother’s farm in what was then Southern Rhodesia, later taking a government position as an agricultural economist. After six years there, I returned to England where I worked in a variety of employments. The longest and most significant of these was the 18 years I spent with the National Research Development Corporation, a statutory corporation charged with the task of financing research and development in the public interest. Here I was able to indulge my interest in science in a central management role and, later, as a director.
With my wife, I have travelled extensively in Africa, and also India and North and South America, where my main interest has been in learning about the indigenous fauna and the impact on it of the local people. We have travelled to both the Arctic and the Antarctic, and the Galapagos Islands. After many sailing trips in and across the Channel, Irish Sea, Hebrides, Mediterranean and Canaries, we sailed from Spain across the Bay of Biscay and up the Channel to London in a 37ft catamaran, and we have crossed the Atlantic in a clipper.
Specific trips were undertaken to see bears at the salmon run in British Columbia and to go whale-watching there and off Iceland, to get up close to polar bears in Churchill on the Hudson Bay, and to go both dog and reindeer sledding with Sami guides on the tundra from an ice-hotel in northern Sweden.
I now live a few hundred yards from my childhood home. As a child, my world seemed to be full of birdsong and butterflies and I became a keen naturalist. But, of the bird species with which I was then familiar, 35 have since completely disappeared from the area, together with uncounted numbers of butterflies, moths, beetles and other insects.
My main concern throughout has been the effect of the exponential growth of the human populations on the environment and, in my thirties, I tried unsuccessfully to set up a Society for a Stable Population in Britain despite much support. After many decades of interest, study and thought, I decided to summarise my ideas on the subject of population in a single document.
You can reach the author at peter.randell@populationhypothesis.com