From the nature to the culture From the natural primate to the builder man As you surely noticed in the previous chapters of our philosophy, a large part of our explanations compares what I call the natural primates (the social primates who live under the nature rules) and the cultural primates (the man who lives under the culture rules).
We already saw in the first part of this chapter (behavior) that our specie, different from other primates, tends to make the humans’ behavior better for each other. In this part, we want to explore the whole evolution ways around the control of the environment. The control of the behavior and of the environment has an influence on the fall in the specie’s global aggressiveness rate. In fact, as Odile Petit wrote about chimpanzees: the life in group is going to situate the individuals in a competition situation towards essential resources such as food, water or sexual partners. The aggression is the result of this competition and contains an important risk for every potential opponent.  The control of the environment (in other words the management of the essential resources and their fair sharing out between men) is thus a necessity. It is an absolute obligation to reach a definitive peace in the heart of the human group. The waste, for example, has to disappear completely from the human way of life… The resources are enough for the well being of the whole humanity, it is just a question of management and sharing out, and so it is more particularly a question of conscience. Because in fact, we already know how to manage essential resources, we already have the means to do it.
If we wanted to offer to every human being the minimum for living – food, water, education – without submitting them to the competition principle, we could do it. But voracity, aggressiveness or dominion desire of a few ones prevents the appearance of such a balance. Facing this fact, we should adopt Spinoza’s point of view: try to understand the world such as it is instead of wanting the world such as we would like. The world is unfair, the dominants are unable to surrender their privileges, to begin trust relationships between each other (and so the make peace). It is the capacity to deal with the aggression which is the tool to resolve the question: the superior attitudes resulting from the aggression – reconciliation, consolation, forgive – enlarge, at the end, the group cohesion.
From the nature to the serenity Destruction in one side, construction in the other one  It seems there are always several powers that work for the evolution of humanity. Some of these powers seem to pull the humanity towards back and the others push it forwards. In fact, the whole negative and positive activities make progressively better our behavior and our adaptation to the environment.
For example, even if in one side, the contemporary society distress the human being to catch its substance, in the other side, the progressive control of the dangers inherent to the environment raises our potential of serenity, quietness and peace of mind. It is not so easy to evaluate correctly what the progress brings to the peace of mind because it also brings troubles.
Nevertheless, between the Middle ages, the last century and the current period, the domestic comfort widely progressed in the whole planet. Our homes fill with utensils for saving time, energy, health, etc.
At the same time, this sum of new objects engenders a sum of new anxieties, a quantity of small contrarieties. Nevertheless, even without knowing correctly the way the big monkeys comprehend the world; our little restraints have nothing to do with the constraints and the dangers faced by the natural primates. If we just talk about the practical life conditions between nature and civilization, about the particular difficulties inherent to both ways of life and about the problems resolved by the humanity, the human life seems to be very most preferable.
The natural attraction towards the modernity  The spontaneous tendency of the man is not directed to a return to the tribal, to the nomad life, to the jungle life.
Most of the human beings, on the contrary, aspire to be city dwellers (when they live in uncomfortable places).
For a long time, the individuals migrated when they were able to do it, from the tribe and the village to the city, from poor countries to rich countries.
For a long time, the human beings living in uncomfortable countries wish for themselves and for their children to migrate to countries that have many ways of progress, and this is perfectly normal.
Personal note: under this optics, the animals of zoos (when they are treated well), or the primates Odile Petit takes care, for example, would be happier than the free monkeys … And Washo was the happiest of all. In this circumstances, when they are sure they work for own good of the animal cause, the organizations that are militantly in favor of send the wild animals back to nature, the ecologists who fight for reintroduce the predators where they disappeared, would be probably in the wrong way. The predators, such as human image, would rather be pampered and nourished than having to hunt. We could consider that these organizations opposes, in reality, to a general wish of the living to always look for more comfort, quietness and serenity. But this matter is obviously a topic to discuss.
Comparison of living conditions
 Natural primates, cultural men
In any case, we can evaluate a few interesting benefits of the progress between the human being and the natural primate: First, the natural primates have to sacrifice themselves to the predators, this does not happen with the human population.
Then, the natural primates cannot appropriately protect themselves from the climatic disasters (drought, forest fires, torrent, etc.).
They are also vulnerable to injuries and diseases.
They are unable to extract themselves from a reduced confinement in a certain place.
Finally, their life expectancy is globally less than the man’s one. On the contrary, the man, thanks to his control of the environment, succeeded in being almost totally free from the predators. He learns better and better to protect himself from the climate vagaries.
He is less and less vulnerable to injuries and diseases.
He can travel without constraints on the whole planet (when it is not the case, it is because of the wars provoked by the dominants) and his life expectancy does not stop to increase.
The relations inter community had constantly amplify (from the tribe to the city, to the country, to the nation; and now we are talking about universality). To understand the interest in manage better and better our control of the environment, we have to imagine a future period where this managing would reached its perfection, in other words, imagine a period where the progress will not be a constraint any more for the man.
According to mecaniqueuniverselle, we evolve toward this period.
2001
pessimism
|
The humanity is destined to reach its perfection.
