In the previous blog on racism I suggested that a change in attitude is more likely to occur when the message is positive: Look at the benefits of…. rather than the negative: You shouldn’t, or mustn’t, do or believe that… The current topic in the news in Australia is abuse of women, in Parliament, in businesses and in the home. There is a strong male culture in parts of this society that continues to view women as weak, inferior and, in certain circumstances, open to exploitation. The certain circumstances often involve alcohol, isolation and lack of power. In cases of sexual assault, the tendency of many males, including some in authority, is to blame the woman – She was asking for it as she was: drunk; provocatively dressed; on her own at night, etc.

Once again, the proposed solution is expressed in a soft negative way: Men shouldn’t take advantage of women. Men should respect women, and so on. Interestingly, the abuse of children produces a different response. The beating, and sexual exploitation of children engenders a positive rejection of these behaviours by nearly all of society, by both male and female, and this is supported by the Law. We don’t say to paedophiles that they shouldn’t behave in that way, we deem it a criminal action and lock them up!

So if we want to stop the abuse of women, we need to create a positive attitude towards them in all males. And this has to start from childhood. It will take much more than an ‘increase in respect’ – a very nebulous concept. As in tackling racism, any change has to be based on the fact that we are all members of the same species, and whether male or female, or other gender, all equal, and equally entitled to human rights and safety.

Education has to be the answer, and the learning must take place in the presence of both boys and girls. Single sex schools may appeal to some sections of society for various religious or elite reasons, but societal attitudes are established in childhood. How can a boy, who is isolated and educated in a one sex school, learn to regard and treat girls and women as equal? Out of sight is out of mind.

Racism is inherent in many organisations and often a topic in the news. Wherever and whenever it is identified the usual response is to ‘fight’ it. The racism has to be rooted out, stopped, and the people involved reeducated. But this response is a negative reaction to a negative situation, and two negatives will not lead to a positive outcome. Racists are being asked or commanded to stop feeling racist; it’s likely to be no more effective than asking a gambler to stop gambling, an alcoholic to stop drinking, or a child to stop being afraid of the dark.

Let’s look at the human animal from another perspective. Archaeology is revealing that Homo sapiens did not develop directly from an ape ancestor – there is no straight line of evolution that links us with chimpanzees. We didn’t descend from the trees and take up a vertical way of life. Instead, the evidence is increasingly in favour of a much more messy evolution. There were many pre-human (hominim) species and, later, several distinct human species with individuals who would not look out of place in a modern city. Instead of a single simple line of descent, there was a tangled web of interactions and frequent interbreeding between various human species. We may claim uniqueness but we are mongrels.

So instead of tackling racism by denouncing it as being inhuman and inhumane, why not persuade people to value the great diversity of physical structure and skin colour encompassed by our species. Let’s get excited about our origins and respect human differences rather than claim superiority for any one of the many outcomes of our evolution.

As outlined before, and from many points of view, the contraction from the large earlier kin group to the tiny nuclear family has been a backward step. However, this change has not been worldwide or complete and many societies have retained the group structure or aspects of it. Australian aborigines have been living in kinship groups for thousands of years and still cherish this way of living despite the pressures of modern society. The inhabitants of middle eastern countries such as Lebanon place value on, and gain much support from, their extended families even when they do not occupy the same building. Polynesians, Maoris for example, also value extended family relationships and frequently congregate in their tribal groups for social occasions. The concept of the private nuclear family seems to be confined to the northern countries of the northern hemisphere, especially the UK and USA, and appears to be more associated with the Protestant religions.

This is not to say that living in a kin group or extended family is all good. There are disadvantages, especially if the group is allied to a religion or sect with rigid beliefs about the roles of individuals. When women and girls are treated as inferior to men and boys, capable only of rearing children and keeping house, confined to the home and prevented from getting an education, the attitudes and behaviours of such an extended family can be very restrictive. This is, as is the nuclear family, a distortion of the function and value of the kin group. In Australian aboriginal tribal groups, and in Maori society, women and men have equal status and both contribute to the stability of their communities.

There is a close association between the nuclear family and capitalism. The need for individual houses on private land, separate family cars, furniture, kitchen and bathroom equipment, garden tools, cooking utensils, children’s toys, and so on, is supported, promoted and exploited by commerce. Retirement homes, childcare facilities and private schools are opportunities for commercial organisations to profit. And then, of course, there are the many other businesses that benefit from the nuclear family, through legal services, house and car sales, house construction and maintenance, garden maintenance, counseling, taxis, and the myriad of other peripheral props of this way of life. When governments, corporations and private organisations extol the importance of the nuclear family and the need to support this social arrangement, it is certainly not for moral or ethical reasons. but just good for business.

Furthermore, the persistence of the nuclear family, and its inherent problems and associated disadvantages for both adults and children, results in the need for ‘retail therapy’. When we get a new lounge suite, bigger TV, spa pool and barbecue, and all the children have their own computers, bikes, skate boards and video games, we will be happy. More possessions, more distractions and more time spent apart in separate rooms is seen as the answer to the tensions and frustrations of living in a nuclear family and within the confines of the private home.

Despite all the rhetoric about the importance of the integrity of the human family as a unit and the frequently stated belief that the ideal family unit should consist of mother, father and offspring, there are many problems that arise in families. Marriages break up, affairs are common, children are born outside of the family unit. And then there is the abuse, by parents of each other, and by them of their children. Solo parents are common. A housing estate may present on the exterior as an ordered collection of individual families ensconced in their separate housing units as if all is well and normal, but much is wrong behind too many of the front doors. If, as is claimed by governments and religions, the family unit is the rational and appropriate way to organise society, why are there so many breakdowns and disruptions of the system?

And then there is the constant ‘problem’ of old age. How does this precious family unit manage grandparents who not longer provide an income, who may be physically and/or mentally incapacitated, and incapable of looking after themselves, and when the family house has been designed to accommodate only two parents and one or more active children? We pack the oldies off to an unfamiliar retirement home or hospice to live with a bunch of strangers in the same plight and be looked after by even more strangers who lack any relationship with them and who are working on low wages. A similar problem arises when one member of a family is disabled.

How has this fragmentation of society come about? Let’s step back ten thousand or more years. The archaeological evidence is that the basic human group consisted of perhaps a hundred or hundred and fifty individuals occupying an area of land wide enough to supply them with sufficient resources – food, water, fuel, tools and shelter. They were ‘hunter gatherers’. Many groups migrated yearly or more frequently to conserve and renew their supplies. The critical aspect of this way of life was the group structure which provided security and knowledge for all. A nuclear family consisting of only mother, father, children, and perhaps grandparents, would have had far less chance of survival.

But there is much more value for humans when living in groups, rather than in isolated solo families. The constant proximity of a hundred or more kinfolk, would have ameliorated the tensions that inevitably arise within the modern isolated family. There would have been relatives for the parents to discuss problems with, and traditional and acceptable ways to behave within the group. Children would have had others to play with, and their aunts, uncles and the elders would have looked out for their safety and contributed to their education. The yearning for membership of a larger group and its benefits is still within us, as evidenced by the myriad associations, clubs, discussion groups, religious congregations and political parties.

So what is the cause of the unfortunate social contraction from group to family? The answer is wealth. Previously, when a group had an excess of a resource such as fruit or tools it could be traded with another group. The introduction of agriculture around fixed settlements and the need to stay around for the harvest and then to store and protect the products produced in this deliberate and intensive way, meant that resources were no longer owned by a group but by the family which did the work. Land and resources became private and their value was passed on to the next generation. The private family had accumulated wealth that could be, as well as through the invention of coinage, used to acquire other goods. The capitalist society was born.

Once this private family structure was in place, the public tensions which it generated could only be managed through general laws and religious strictures. The nuclear family was born. More later…

The last blog left a critical question unanswered: What are we for? or in other words: Why are we here? It is easy to answer by ascribing our existence to evolution – we are the result of change and adaptation firstly by our ape-like, and later, pre-modern human ancestors. They moved out of the tropical forests onto the plains of Africa, perhaps because a change in climate led to fragmentation of the plant food sources and the need for greater mobility. Hence the change to an upright stance and loss of the grasping ability of our feet. But as before, with the cicadas, this is only the HOW, not the WHY.

Evolution has no goals; it is only a process leading to a variety of outcomes, some of which persist for a while, others are unsuccessful – the species of plant or animal fails to survive because it is not sufficiently adapted to its environment. We are one of its outcomes, and depending on how we manage our existence, we too may persist or die out. However, we are the first product of evolution which is fully conscious, can think and has the ability to make changes to our environment.

So we can say that we are here solely because of evolution, but that still does not answer WHY? Perhaps that is a pointless question – do cicadas or dogs or trees ask themselves why they are here? Unfortunately, because we are thinking animals, we are not satisfied with the only possible answer – that we are here because we are here. We seem to need a purpose, a reason for our being. Our early ancestors probably did not pose the question WHY? as they were too fully occupied surviving. Their purpose was just to thrive and breed. Later generations moved on from there to wondering what all this living, striving and reproducing is for. The easy answer was to blame the whole shebang on a higher power. ‘God knows‘ and her/his pronouncements/teachings, as relayed by various prophets, are sufficient explanation. All we need to do, they said, is believe they are true. Whichever faith is adhered to, it usually includes the belief that we ascend to another plane of existence after death, and the purpose of our living is to prepare for the move. I wonder if any of our unenlightened, less-evolved, faithless ancestors made it, and if not, where they are now!

We are here because we are here, and if we want a purpose we will have to find, or make one. This leads back to one of my original premises that, as members of the same species, we are all equal and all deserving of respect. Ensuring the security, nurture, education and health of ALL our fellow humans is sufficient purpose. And, because all living beings, plants and animals, are the outcome of the same process of evolution that resulted in H.sapiens, they also deserve our respect.

During a discussion over a meal the topic changed to cicadas. This has been a bumper year for them in the Blue Mountains. The ground is pockmarked with the holes from which they have emerged after 7 years of sap-sucking underground; the husks left after molting are scattered along the fences; they fly recklessly across the garden and the air is full of their sounds broadcast in looking for a mate. I have rescued dozens from being run over on the road, or tormented by our dog.

One participant in the lunch discussion, knowing the rigours of a cicada life cycle, asked: But what’s it all for? This has to be the main existential question – why is Nature what it is? Why are there millions of forms of life, large and small, each with its own way of propagating offspring and ensuring their survival. The answer lies in the process of evolution whereby organisms change to adapt to new environments and opportunities. Homo sapiens was no different, having evolved from earlier hominim species, which had ape-like ancestors. We are as much the product of evolution as cicadas. But this is the ‘how’ and not the answer to the ‘why’ in the question.

If you are religious, you can ascribe the whole process of evolution to a god – she or he created the diverse wonders of Nature, and who are we, mere mortals, to question why. But if a god created the present diversity of life on earth, why would she or he use the lengthy and often wasteful process of evolution to do so. Many more species have gone extinct over the previous millions of years than exist now. And even the religious still can’t answer the question – What is it all for?

The best answer we have is that it is what it is. We, the only fully aware species, can benefit from knowing and wondering at the many and diverse forms of plants and animals, accept that evolution has occurred, that the result is magnificent, and that we are also one result of the process. The inevitable and more important question then is: What are we for?

Returning again to the concept of equal respect for all humans. for all members of our species, then one aspect of modern society needs further consideration – the uncritical adulation of certain individuals by the public. There are three main aspects of this phenomenon. Firstly, adulation for those people who are in prominent positions because of their inheritance. Royalty and members of the aristocracy with titles are often admired, reported on and their activities and exploits regularly described in the Press and other media, as if they warranted special attention. Secondly, there are those who achieve prominence through being promoted to high levels in their spheres of work, such as government, business and religion. And thirdly, there are those who achieve notoriety through being exceptional at sport, acting, singing, writing, and other endeavours.

Royalty and the aristocracy deserve no special respect because of their unearned positions and titles, but only as individuals if they use their leisure and funds to benefit other humans. Traditionally acquired positions and associated wealth only serve to reinforce discrimination through the existence of classes in populations, and devalue the aspirations of others born without rank and privilege.

When considering prominence in government, business, religion or sport and the arts, one has to take into account the factors that lead to certain individuals rising ‘above’ the rest of us. Skills are acquired, whether in leadership or physical prowess, and developed through practice and experience. Our roles in society are mostly determined by birth, family, ancestors, ambition and opportunity. Genetics may contribute to some physical abilities, but whether or not they are taken advantage of still depends on individual circumstances. Some of us are encouraged to strive to reach ‘higher’ positions, most are content to live a stress-free life. We are what we are; no one warrants worship, but all deserve respect.

Previous blogs made two claims, that our existence does not persist outside the parameters of birth, life and death, and that as members of the same species Homo sapiens, we are all entitled to equal respect. If both are accepted, and it is difficult to imagine any valid scientific argument to the contrary, there are profound implications for most aspects of society, including laws, health, education, ethics, psychology, politics, international relations, finance and so on. I am not sufficiently arrogant to suggest how societies could change, or provide new answers to the problems of the world; I leave that to the clever people in the various areas which need to change. All I can do is draw attention to some of the inequities which need re-examining and make a personal response in the light of the two claims. Let’s look at a couple of issues.

Firstly, with attention to the second claim, what should be done about the large numbers of refugees presently incarcerated in various camps around the world. At present, any amelioration of their plight consists of providing food, clothing and temporary housing in tents. And even these are often subject to the vagaries of the host countries and their politics, as refugees are, by definition, not accepted as temporary citizens and often have foreign languages and beliefs. But if, as claimed, all members of our species are entitled to equal respect, the care and resettlement of refugees should have high priority in the governments of all host countries and this needs to be an essential part of the mandate of the United Nations. Countries without refugees have as much responsibility for their welfare as those with refugees within their borders.

As to the first claim – that there is nothing beyond birth, life and death, there would be many arguments to the contrary, as is evident when one looks at the plethora of religions and cults in human society. The question is whether belief is more important and useful than reality. Given that the beliefs are often contradictory and many are even destructive in their opposition to others, it seems more logical to base our values, attitudes and behaviours on facts rather than beliefs. The ability to think, the supreme characteristic of human animals, is more rational and reliable than a mindless and unchallenged belief. As I have commented ad nauseam to family and friends, if something ‘spiritual’ bit me on the nose I wouldn’t recognise it!

Yes, we have more complex brains than, say, a horse or a mouse, and we are fully conscious. But all the rest is similar to other mammals. We all start as a fertilised egg which implants and develops in the female uterus to a baby human. Birth is similar to that in other animals and the new-born child is suckled like a lamb or a baby elephant. Development proceeds through similar stages of vulnerability and adolescence to mature adulthood. And as in other mammals, there are variations in physical stature, external features and in sexual orientation. Same sex attraction and transexual gender exist and are no less common in animals. Such variation results from the random blending of genes in the process of fertilisation and the opportunities for difference provided through evolution. We evolved from pre-human animals, and our species continues to evolve irregardless of our beliefs.

And when one compares the inner workings of humans and other animals, we have similar anatomical structures, nervous systems, nutritional needs, digestive activities, physiological processes, immune responses and so on.

Similarly, our social arrangements have a long and evolved history. Like chimpanzees and pre-human hominims, and our close relatives neanderthals and denisovans, early humans lived in small groups based on family relationships. This arrangement provided security, maintained knowledge of local resources and retained skills in making tools and weapons. Later, the groups joined others to form tribes. Much larger populations occurred after settlement and farming. As with grazing mammals, large groups could occur only when extensive and reliable food resources were available. However, modern humans still retain the earlier tendency of loyalty to close relatives and others in small ‘tribal’ groups.

So, given that we are 100% animal in everything but our thoughts and motivations, isn’t it time we reassessed our importance in this small world?

It is interesting, that while all humans are one species, Homo sapiens, and 99.9% structurally the same, there is so much interest and emphasis on our national and racial origins. In fact, all present H.sapiens have a common ancestry in Africa. There was a small input, in the distant past, of genes from Neanderthal and Denisovans, related human species, but contemporary humans have been the same species and interbreeding successfully for many thousands of generations. However, skin colour, stature and facial features, which constitute only 0.1% of what it means to be human, occupy most of our thinking about others. We concentrate on those differences which do not match our self image, make value judgments regarding mental abilities and motivations, and ignore the fact that we are all the same under the skin.

This is not rational – concentrating on the minor superficial differences in humans and ignoring the rest. Other species of animals do the opposite: a dog is a dog, no matter the breed and despite all the bizarre features we have bred into Canis familiaris. Furthermore, humans have been interbreeding for millenia, and often inbreeding within family and tribal groups. And more recently, given the lack of firm borders between nations in Europe, the Middle East, India and East Asia, there was much mixing of the inhabitants. Despite the claims of Hitler and his ilk, there is no such thing as a ‘pure race’. Even the separation between African slaves and their masters was fuzzy. The further we trace our ancestry back, the greater the number of antecedents which have contributed to our DNA. We humans are mongrels whether or not we would like to claim otherwise!

So to return to the concept of humans being a single species, instead of naming, blaming and shaming others on the basis of minor differences in appearance we should celebrate our diversity. This should also include diversity in gender. I was delighted to read recently that the skeletal remains of Cheddar Man, a long acclaimed ancestor of the British and someone who lived thousands of years before the slave trade could have brought him to England, was found, via analysis of his DNA, to have had a black skin!