Stop It Already With the Existential Questions, MILLER!
"What if not everything I've done is so evil?"
So, here is the question (of this moment):
Are human beings, as we have held for the entirety of this nation's existence, essentially good?
Or are we, at base, essentially swine?
This is not meant to be a depressing question, as some will read it. In fact, if the latter is true, something very lovely comes to the forefront of the argument.
If every individual human man and woman is, at their core, self-serving and BAD, than how have we existed for so long? How have we progressed and innovated? What are our big brains good for?
The answer, I would like to posit (not without help from much smarter people than I), comes from our brain's entirely unique sense of morality. We are not the only creatures on earth to possess morality. Ask anyone who has studied the social behavior of most mammals. However, as strange as it is, as clinically as we can pick it apart, our brains have developed in a way in which an unparalleled quality becomes the forefront of all that makes humankind as a whole "good."
Empathy.
Where it came from, we still have no idea. Even as exciting discoveries are being documented all over the world, the landscape of our brains is still the biggest mystery.
We may be swine. We may be selfish. However, because of this beautiful thing, this mystery, empathy, we can grow and change and evoke good in others, and others can encourage good in us.
Humanity, as a collective, can be at the core, good. There are no saviors of mankind. There is no reward and punishment system from a vengeful creator in any concrete sense. There is empathy.
Some scientists who have been studying "love" for years and years are starting to believe that we are evolving as humans in the following way:
Survival of the fittest becomes subject to de-emphasis.
The pursuit of happiness literally becomes the vehicle of our evolutionary change.
The research is disarming, exciting, and absolutely gorgeous (if you ask me).
Over the next billion years, empathy will be the quality that drives us forward as a species.
Imagine the potential. I just love it.
So, here is the question (of this moment):
Are human beings, as we have held for the entirety of this nation's existence, essentially good?
Or are we, at base, essentially swine?
This is not meant to be a depressing question, as some will read it. In fact, if the latter is true, something very lovely comes to the forefront of the argument.
If every individual human man and woman is, at their core, self-serving and BAD, than how have we existed for so long? How have we progressed and innovated? What are our big brains good for?
The answer, I would like to posit (not without help from much smarter people than I), comes from our brain's entirely unique sense of morality. We are not the only creatures on earth to possess morality. Ask anyone who has studied the social behavior of most mammals. However, as strange as it is, as clinically as we can pick it apart, our brains have developed in a way in which an unparalleled quality becomes the forefront of all that makes humankind as a whole "good."
Empathy.
Where it came from, we still have no idea. Even as exciting discoveries are being documented all over the world, the landscape of our brains is still the biggest mystery.
We may be swine. We may be selfish. However, because of this beautiful thing, this mystery, empathy, we can grow and change and evoke good in others, and others can encourage good in us.
Humanity, as a collective, can be at the core, good. There are no saviors of mankind. There is no reward and punishment system from a vengeful creator in any concrete sense. There is empathy.
Some scientists who have been studying "love" for years and years are starting to believe that we are evolving as humans in the following way:
Survival of the fittest becomes subject to de-emphasis.
The pursuit of happiness literally becomes the vehicle of our evolutionary change.
The research is disarming, exciting, and absolutely gorgeous (if you ask me).
Over the next billion years, empathy will be the quality that drives us forward as a species.
Imagine the potential. I just love it.