March 1, 2003
FROM HOMO SAPIENS
TO THE NAKED APE
In the middle of the 18th century the
botanist
Carolus Linnaeus bestowed the title Man the
Wise
on our species and genus. This sense of pride and optimism seemed to be
justified because of the phenomenal strides which were being made at
that time
in the sciences and humanities. It was the era of the Enlightenment
which laid the foundations for our modern world. The fundamental laws
of
physics, discovered in the previous century by Newton and Huygens, were
refined. In medicine Boerhaave introduced bedside teaching; Halle wrote
the
first modern textbook of physiology; Morgagni introduced the anatomic
concept
into the diagnosis and treatment of illness; Réaumur not only
invented the
thermometer but also showed that the first stage of digestion results
from the
action of stomach acid, rather than fermentation or contraction of
muscle walls
as had been assumed previously; Galvani demonstrated that muscle can
contract
as a result of electricity, and these are just a few names from a long
list.
It was, however, the social philosophers starting
with Locke,
and subsequently Hume, Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Voltaire who led
the
fight for reason over religious dogma. All of the then current
knowledge was compiled in a seventeen volume encyclopedia to make it
available
for the people at large. As Diderot one of the editors remarked, "Our
children,
better instructed than we, may at the same time become more virtuous
and
happy." D'Alembert, the other "encyclopedist," remarked:
"Our century is the century of philosophy par excellence. If one
considers
without bias the present state of our knowledge one cannot deny that
philosophy
among us has shown progress." It was probably no coincidence that at
the
same time harmony was added in music
to
the previously prevalent polyphony, and in the decorative
arts what was termed rococo, which stood for
lightness,
grace and elegance, became dominant.
Nevertheless the fact that all was not well with Homo sapiens
was
hinted at in politics, which went on as usual.
Frederick II of Prussia, who became known as Frederick
the
Great, started his "preventive war" in 1756.
He had previously exploited Austria's weakness after the death of
Charles VI by
taking Silesia away from the young Maria Theresia who had inherited her
father's empire. Austria's coalition with France and Russia in 1756 was
supposed to have rectified that situation and to put Frederick in his
place.
But nobody expected that it would last seven years. When
der
grosze Fritz (Hitler's model) had finally won
with the assistance of British money and the fortuitous death of the
Czarina,
which removed Russia from the alliance, the face of the world
had
changed. France had lost most of her
overseas
possessions in America as well as India to the Brits and was
financially exhausted. Austria had not only
permanently lost Silesia but the House of Habsburg
which had
supplied the German Emperors for the past several centuries was now
challenged
by the Hohenzollers of Prussia. The conflict between Berlin
and Vienna
as to who was to have the dominant voice in German
affairs had
begun and found its culmination on March
15,
1938 when the German army paraded before Hitler over Vienna's
Ringstrasse.
The ultimate symbolic irony was that the reviewing stand had been
erected in
front of the monument to Maria Theresia who had led the fight against
the great
Fritz. She had to stare at Hitler's rear end who represented everything
that
was abhorrent to the Austrian spirit.
Apart from Prussia, the other winner
was Britain
because the foundations for her empire, which lasted
somewhat
less than two hundred years, were laid with this treaty of
Paris in
1773. While they basked in glory for a few years they soon
found out
that the American colonials were now no
longer content
to remain colonials but in the spirit of the enlightenment
wanted their
say-so in the London parliament. British arrogance refused to
talk
to these uncouth upstarts with the American War of
Independence the
outcome. It was a given that the colonists could not have won
their
war against the British had the French not smelled a chance for revanche
and supported Washington. All the rest is, of course, known but if
one
were to ask any American High School graduate today
what role
Montesquieu had played in this whole drama one would
get a
"Monte who?" Yet it was he, who in his The Spirit of
Laws had laid down the principles how a state should be governed.
It was
precisely this document that gave rise to the American Constitution,
which is
so sadly abused today.
To return to the consequences of the 1773 Paris' treaty.
While
in the short run the British prospered,
it laid
in the long run the foundation for the demise of their empire.
They had
nurtured Prussia into a semi-great power but the Hohenzollerns
were
not satisfied with that and when they demanded full equality with the
British.
This had to be denied to them because the Kaiser was "evil." The
result was WWI, which led in turn directly to the second one. The other
phenomenal
irony of history is that Hitler actually wanted to
help
preserve the British Empire because it held the "inferior
races" in their place and because he was a man of the infantry rather
than
a sailor. Overseas possession could be safely left to the Brits as long
as they
acquiesced to his taking the European East for German colonization. But
Churchill, the navy man, was suspicious and wanted
to
preserve the empire under American protection. That Roosevelt
had no use for empires, except his own, dawned on him too late
when
England was no longer in a position to refuse American demands. Churchill
had survived the war, one really shouldn't say won, but
he had lost his job and the empire. The real winners
were
America and the Soviet Union. Our President should ponder this fact of
history
when he contemplates the picture of his hero which supposedly hangs in
his office.
He might also keep the fate of both Churchill and that of his own
father in
mind. After they had been successful in their wars, they were removed
from
office!
By 1789 and 1793 when kids started playing soccer with decapitated
heads in the
streets of Paris under the name of liberty, equality and brotherhood
some
doubts as to the perfectibility of our species were bound to arise. As
the
sciences progressed Lamarck developed the concept of evolution
in form of a ladder. At the bottom resided the ameba and Homo
sapiens
was still on top. Darwin subsequently substituted the
ladder
for a tree and established the close kinship between man and apes.
Interestingly enough he called his epochal book the "Descent"
of Man rather than "Ascent" and as history has proven
subsequently this was amply justified. Even more apt was the date when
the book
was published. The Franco-Prussian war had also started in 1871. The
quick
victory with the resultant unification of Germany under the Prussian
king, who
became German emperor, pushed Austria irreversibly into the Balkans and
was as
such another cause of the Great War slightly over forty years later.
The
humiliated French wanted revenge, the Brits didn't like the arrogance
of Cousin
Willie, and the Russians had no use for the Austrians in the Balkans.
Nationalism had become the rallying cry of
the age.
Nations had to be liberated from their "oppressors,"
and the way was paved for what Grillparzer (Austria's
greatest
19th century dramatist) called, "from humanism,
through
nationalism to bestialism." Small wonder that Nietzsche
appeared
on the scene a few years later with the Uebermensch as the
solution to
the problems of the human race. The will to power
where the
stronger dominate, and if necessary exterminate, the weaker in
perpetual
warfare provided the justification for the events of
what has
been called the "execrable" twentieth century.
Although Darwin had already disabused us of the
notion that human
beings are something special and had shown that our emotions
find their
counterpart in other animals it was up to Professor Desmond
Morris to finally put us in our place. Homo
sapiens was gone and The Naked Ape emerged in
1967.
The book with the same title was an instant bestseller and it is still
rightly
regarded as a classic. In it Dr. Morris detailed with great care how all
of our behavioral traits in regard to: child rearing,
exploration,
fighting, feeding, and comfort seeking are in no way unique but simply
the expression of our animal heritage.
As a zoologist Dr. Morris did not address himself to the problem of
verbal and
written language, our proudest achievement. For a neurologist like me
language,
and its function in health and disease, is of course of paramount
interest and
it has become obvious that the abuse of language is
nowadays the
greatest danger to our civilization. The spoken and written
word
allows us not only to express our desires, fantasies and opinions but
it has
also enabled the naked ape to create a truly staggering array of lies,
with
which he threatens and deludes himself as well as others. This brings
us to our
current century which has all the hallmarks of
becoming even
more "execrable" than the one we have left behind.
Why should this be so and why do wars repeat in endless
cycles? The
simple answer is that human passions have never
changed and only the excuses for war have.
As is
apparent to anyone who has a grasp of history wars never solve
a
problem they simply pave the way for the next one.
In
addition the last century has shown that wars
have
become increasingly vicious and that the lines
between
combatants and the civilian
population
have become thoroughly blurred. When cities are
bombed and the
infrastructure for the population is destroyed in order to eliminate
the enemy
one should not be surprised that adversaries who lack military power
will use
guerilla tactics, which have never differentiated between civilians and
soldiers. When the "terrorist" leader
of the Irgun Zvai Leumi, Menachem Begin, blew up the King
David hotel
in Jerusalem in 1946, because it was the headquarters of the
British
mandate forces, and killed 91 people the end, namely
the
creation of a Jewish state, justified the means. By
1977 he was Prime Minister of Israel and in 1978
he
received the Nobel Peace prize, jointly with Anwar
Saddat. The
fact that he was in violation of numerous UN Security Council
resolutions
urging Israel to vacate the territories conquered in the 1967 war
(which was
likewise waged for "preventive" reasons) was obviously of no concern.
One need to choose one's "friends" wisely and when one has the
backing of the United States one can safely ignore the UN.
Saddam Hussein was not so lucky. He
thought
that he could get away with an invasion of Kuwait but that was not to
be
condoned and our erstwhile friend and ally against the Ayatollah of
Iran became
the "Butcher of Baghdad" who not only had to be give up his
ill-gotten gains but has been under quarantine ever since. Currently
the Bush
administration regards it as imperative that he be removed from power
within
the next few weeks, come what may. As is obvious from the foregoing power
politics are as old as civilization. What is
somewhat
new is that it is no longer admitted to but couched
in
moral language. Saddam is not just
another
despot, with a long history of others of his ilk, but
he is profoundly evil and it is this evil
that our morality requires us to lead a "just war"
directed towards his removal.
At this point Homo sapiens has fully abdicated
and
the naked ape has come into his own. Some of today's newspaper
headlines are telling, "The True Ethical Position Is
to
Give War a Chance and Vanquish Evil;" or "Time to Go
to War and Exterminate the Evil Butcher of Baghdad." Although
Saddam has no means to significantly harm the United States while Kim
Il Jong
of North Korea does, we are told that it is "moral" to remove
Saddam but it would be "immoral" to apply the same
treatment to little Kim. The latter could
retaliate
and cause significant casualties while our losses in Iraq, apart from
"collateral damage" to Iraqi civilians are likely to be minimal. With
other words it is moral to go after a weak bully but you
better stay
away from one who could significantly hurt you. This is the law of the
jungle
and has nothing to do with morality.
In order to make an Iraq war palatable the American public
is
currently being subjected to an incessant barrage of fear and
hate.
During the "hadj" our government had decreed that we have to live
under "code orange" of serious danger and which is only one step
removed from code red, where presumably the whole nation comes to a
grinding
halt. This alert sent people scurrying to stores for duct tape and
plastic
sheets to make their homes terrorist proof. Two days ago the risk was
reduced
to yellow which indicates only "significant" threat conditions. Since
yellow is a color which is in the popular mind not particularly
associated with
heroism, Osama can congratulate himself on how our leadership has taken
and
continues to take his bait.
As far as hate goes the same author, who wants to "exterminate"
Saddam also wrote this week that "Bush Must Bring Hammer Down
on
Militant Muslims in our Midst." In the previous installment
"Rhetoric of War" I have mentioned that Hitler and President Bush
used the same type of language to influence their respective audiences.
Now Cal
Thomas, the author of the two mentioned pieces, chimes in with phraseology
right out of the Goebbels kitchen. In
1938
we could have read in the Stuermer that
"We must smash the Jewish Danger in Our Midst." By the way Mr.
Thomas regards himself as a Christian, whose wish
for
the Israelis to expel all the Palestinians from their homes in
the West
Bank and Gaza so that the Jews might finally enjoy most -
Jordan and
Syria would still be missing - of their promised land, was
discussed in
the July 2001 installment.
There is no doubt that a small number of militant Muslims who plan to
wreak
havoc exists in our country. But who defines a "militant"
Muslim? What must he have done to earn the label of
terrorist
suspect, let alone terrorist? This is the slippery slope we
are on and
which allows the government through hasty legislation to undermine the
freedom
the fathers of this country have fought for and which the majority of
the
people want to see preserved. But this becomes impossible when a
climate
prevails where "The Virtue of Hate" is advocated. An
article under this title appeared in the
February
issue of First Things and the author, a rabbi,
declared
that, according to the Talmud, a Jew is "obligated to hate" a
"hopelessly wicked" individual. I happen to know that the
Talmud is an encyclopedia where you can find anything whatsoever to
prove your
point and I know also that Jesus did not die for the Talmud!
Furthermore who
is going to play God, and certify someone as "hopelessly wicked?"
Our current war against terrorism is as I have
mentioned
repeatedly a war of religious opinions and we must
now be
honest and specific. Osama bin Laden as a self
appointed
representative of Muslim fundamentalism has at his goal to bring his
brand of
religious fundamentalism to the Muslim world. After the recent tape was
made
public I received an e-mail which stated that Arabic speaking people
got a completely
different impression as to what bin Laden had actually said. I followed
up,
typed "bin Laden tape" into Google and presto there was his speech
as reported by the BBC. I have a fondness for this
network
which dates back to my youth when, as reported in War&Mayhem,
I
sat glued with one ear to the radio in the afternoons to hear: Hier
ist
London mit der Sendung fuer die deutsche Wehrmacht. Had I been
discovered
it would have meant KZ but it was the only way to get correct
information as to
how the war was going. It is gratifying to know that at least the BBC
can still
be trusted so many decades later.
At this point I shall let him speak for himself rather than putting
words in
his mouth. But I will only give brief excerpts because anyone
interested can
readily find the full text on the net. Bin Laden emphasized
that "fighting should be for the sake of the one God," rather
than for "championing ethnic groups,
or
for championing the non-Islamic regimes in all Arab countries,
including Iraq." Osama has no use for Saddam and his
"socialist" regime but the "mujahadeen brothers in Iraq"
should not be afraid of the American weapons because the Americans are
fearful
of engaging in hand to hand combat and trench warfare. He also
exhorted
"honest Muslims" to "incite, and mobilize the [Islamic]
nation, amid such grave events and hot atmospheres so as to liberate
themselves
from those unjust and renegade ruling regimes, which are enslaved by
the United
States . . . to establish the rule of God on earth." The
states
which fell into this category were listed as "Jordan, Morocco, Nigeria,
Pakistan, the land of the two holy mosques [Saudi Arabia], and Yemen."
He
also urged "patience" during the fight because Americans are known to
have little, and "martyrdom" because there is no effective defense
against it. Furthermore, "fighting in support of the
non-Islamic
banners is forbidden" and "Socialists are infidels
wherever they are, whether they are in Baghdad or Aden."
The
support of Saddam is, therefore, simply a marriage of
convenience just as the one between Churchill and Stalin was during
WWII. The enemy of my enemy is my friend was the slogan and as
Churchill put it at the time, "If Hitler invaded hell I would even find
kind words to say about the devil."
Apart from infidel Arab regimes the other
main enemy
of Osama is the state of Israel. Let us remember that
the
entire raison d'être for
the re-establishment
of the state after two thousand years in the Middle
East,
is a supposed promise to the Hebrews by the same one God of
Osama.
That this promise exists only in a book written by Jews for Jews is of
no
concern for fanatics who cherish dogma more than reason. The
predominantly
Christian U.S. is involved because of our unquestioned support of
Israeli
policies to the detriment of Palestinian Arabs. Instead of
Christians
acting as peacemakers the evangelical group,
to which
according to a recent book by his erstwhile speech writer David Frum -
author
of the infamous "axis of evil" phrase - President Bush belongs, supports
the Israeli side as outlined in the May 1, 2002 installment
under The
Unholy Alliance.
With oil as the final prize for some,
and religious
fervor by others, war seems all but inevitable in
spite of
the fact that our administration's rush has in the meantime hit some
speed bumps. Dr. Blix, head of the UN
Inspections
team, has proven less pliable than our hawks had hoped;
the French and Germans have voiced serious
reservations, and even the Turks were not
entirely happy to have their country used as a staging area
for
invasion. They not only wanted guarantees that the money we bribe them
with for
their cooperation will really be forthcoming but also that they have a
sizable
military contingent to take part in the invasion under their own
officers. We
chided them, of course, because all we really want to do, we say, is to
defend
them from Saddam, but nearly ninety percent of Turks are more afraid of
our
intentions than his. There is also the delicate issue of the
Kurds
who don't want the Turks to come in and they already threaten
with war if they Turks do.
In
addition within the Kurdish political groups we have the Iranian
Shiites on the
one hand and secular ones on the other who also vie for who gets first
to the
oilfields near Mosul. But our administration believes that all these
are minor
details which can be handled with money and threats. The fact that we
are
confronted with an increasing budget deficit also does not
enter into
the equation because as soon as the oil starts
flowing in
abundance our financial worries are supposedly over.
Nevertheless, apart from the street demonstrations at
home and
abroad there are additional voices of discontent
which include
among others the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Furthermore,
our regular military forces do not have
sufficient
personnel and the reserves as well as the National
Guard are
being mobilized to be sent abroad. This has a serious
impact
on families because these people hold jobs
which in
the current economic climate, may or may not be available when
they
come back. In addition many of these reservists
are either in law enforcement or firefighters and as
such in the first line of defense if a catastrophe were to happen here.
This leads to the absurdity that we
defend
our country by invading Iraq while at
the
same time reducing the forces we need for "Homeland Security."
Women are also going to war overseas now and
as one
little kid cried: "Why does mommy have to go? Why can't daddy?" Yes
indeed! This little one has to thank Ms. Friedan, Steinem and others of
their
ilk with the idea that a woman's first priority has to be herself
rather than
her children. But in some instances both mommy and daddy have been
called up
and left. Who will take care of these little ones who are left behind?
The
grandparents, if they are so lucky to still have them. Furthermore since
the professional military, even with
the reservists and National Guard, is seriously
understaffed to meet the global excursions we intend to embark upon
it
becomes likely that the draft will sooner or later have to be
re-introduced. At that point peace marches will erupt
to an extent that may dwarf the Vietnam era and the entire so
called
"Foreign Policy" of this administration will collapse. This
is the real state of our country and all the war propaganda cannot hide
these
facts.
The evening of February 25 was also instructive.
First we saw
a speech by President Bush to a selected audience
where he
laid out his vision for the future and about an hour later we
were
show an interview Saddam Hussein had granted an American reporter. As
we know
our President believes that Saddam presents an acute
and
growing danger, which must be eliminated before anything else can be
done. Once
the Iraqi regime has been removed the liberated people will joyfully
cooperate
with the necessary American occupation and the Iraqi oil
revenues will
flow into their pockets. Since the Palestinians will
no longer
enjoy Iraqi financial and emotional support they will give up
suicide
bombings and the Israelis feeling secure
will stop
building settlements and agree to the creation of a peaceful
Palestinian state.
President Bush is an honest man but if he really believes this
fantasy
he is grievously mistaken. Iraq is currently contained, has no
means
to successfully attack its neighbors - we are told that the Iraqi army
is only
a third of what it was before the previous Gulf war - and it
is
precisely the Palestinian problem which keeps fueling the anger in the
region.
The president seems to harbor the illusion
that there
will be dancing in the streets of Baghdad, when the GI's arrive
as
was shown on our TV sets when the Taliban were routed from
Kabul.
But the Afghans are no longer dancing, some of them
are taking
potshots at our peacekeepers and Karzai needs American Special Forces
for
protection. That is the reality. It is the long range effect
which
counts not the first few hours or days.
The interview of Saddam Hussein by Dan Rather was also
revealing. The Iraqi president handled himself in a
calm and
deliberate manner and was careful not to give cause for offense.
A
telling small detail was when one of the Iraqi interpreters translated
a
sentence about the former President Bush as "Bush," Saddam
interrupted and said that he had said Mr. Bush, he didn't say president
because
he was no longer president, but he was Mister Bush. Saddam knows the
media, how
they will pounce on a small detail and subsequently distort it. This he
wanted
to avoid. His claim that his people will follow him to the death
because they
had given him recently a one hundred per cent vote of confidence was,
of
course, baseless. On the other hand his suggestion to publicly
debate
President Bush via satellite hook-up so that the world could
judge the
actions of these two leaders was a shrewd one.
The debate idea was, of course, immediately nixed by Washington
because the non-compliance of Israel with UN
resolutions and the obvious double
standard
which the Bush administration is applying vis á vis
Israel and Iraq would
have been brought up. Furthermore, Saddam might have
gone even
a step further and explained that he would gladly disarm and
keep the
inspectors in his country indefinitely if Israel got rid of its WMD's
under UN
inspection. Inasmuch as this is, of course, highly unlikely to
ever
happen continued warfare is assured. This is also
obvious because
our administration is unwilling to talk directly not only with "The
Butcher of Baghdad," but also the "loathsome pygmy" who is in
charge of North Korea. Thus the naked ape will persist with
what
Barbara Tuchman has called the March of Folly. By
not talking
to adversaries because they are beneath contempt and inherently evil:
pride,
greed and delusions will be the real reasons why history will have to
repeats
in endless cycles of ever increasing violence.
This is the point where we need to part with the naked ape and
allow Homo
sapiens to re-emerge from the shadows. We
ought to
say to our politicians: stop and listen, there is a better way. Yes,
we
have all the characteristics of other species' within us but we also
have
something in addition. This is the tiny spark of reason which
can lead
us to conduct ourselves not merely as lying, deluded naked apes but in
the
manner we were intended to act. Our geneticists have
now told us that we share more than ninety
per cent of
genes with mice. Are we, therefore obligated to
behave like
mice? Even if geneticists were to tell us in
the
future that one hundred per cent of our genes are identical
with
those of some anthropoid apes we can still say: So
what? A whorehouse, as well as a cathedral are built with stone, wood
and glass
but they surely have different purposes. We have
been
given free will and we can choose where we
want to
spend our mental time: in the gutter or in company of the divine?
But the
divinity that lives in some of us does not label
others as
good or evil who need to be rewarded or punished but
who sees homo sapiens both
as an
opportunity and obligation to strive towards a higher goal which unites
the
inhabitants of this planet rather than sets them against
each
other.
Once upon a time Homo sapiens
lifted
his voice in ancient northern India and declared: "think of
pleasurable objects, and you will become attached; from attachment will
come
desire, when desire is thwarted you will become angry, when you are
angry your
mind becomes confused and you lose sight of life's purpose. This fundamental
psychological insight was also formulated as the
Buddha's
first and second noble truth: Life is full of Suffering, and the Cause
of
Suffering is Craving. This is as valid today as it when it
first
uttered twenty five hundred years ago, but it is ignored. Yet ignorance
is not
bliss and will inevitably lead to further suffering even for those who
literally call the shots today on both sides of the fronts.
Our country is in great danger, not from the currently
identified enemies, but by being led down a road which
threatens to
destroy our soul and lead to despotism. The old proverb "the
road
to hell is paved with good intentions" is again proving true. Those of
us
who feel that the impending war against Iraq is a serious mistake also
know
that this is just the warm-up. After Iraq's defeat comes the turn of
all the
other "rogue-states" and there is no end to the corruption of our
souls. But in spite of all the fear and hate-mongering Homo
sapiens is not yet extinct in America. As
one
protester who took to the streets put it recently: "Bush must really be
screwing up to bring out the mainstream." We, as individual
citizens, are not likely to be able to change the course of history but
that
does not mean that we have to follow blindly and willingly to wherever
a given
administration wants to lead us. Homo Sapiens
differs
from the Naked Ape in this respect and will direct
his efforts
toward a reduction of suffering rather than inflicting more in the
mistaken
assumption of doing good.
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