Evolving Strangers

We often look out at the world today and wonder why there are so many instances of kindness and so many examples of cruelty. We look at some of the horrific things people do and we ask “Why?” We are told to recognize that anything that can be found in the most evil person is also a reflection of ourselves.

I don’t agree, and I believe telling people we are all capable of incredible cruelty creates a mindset that pushes us into tolerating or excusing the intolerable and inexcusable. Creating a mindset that tells us we are all capable of unspeakable cruelty and callousness compels us towards allowing the monsters to remain in our midst, preying on the vulnerable and defenseless.

I believe when many of us look upon evil we are seeing not a reflection, but a past. Not a possibility for all of us, but a genetic difference. Not a human characteristic, but an aspect of our distant past that we no longer all accept or even are.

The function of evolution is adaptability. At some point in time, callousness contributed to our survival. We were vicious in order that we and our small families and tribes might survive. We huddled in caves, fearful of the night, frightened by thunderstorms, cautious towards strangers of our own kind and the predators that lurked behind each tree or turn in the path. We evolved to “win” in such an environment and winning meant callousness, viciousness and cruelty.

Centuries passed. Using our adaptations, we thrived in every environment, conquering everything around us, bending all others to our will. We were the apex predator, the top survivor.

And then, something changed. Survival no longer meant viciousness could create a winning scenario.  Cooperation and collaboration became the best strategy for survival.  Evolution is not stagnant. It is not ended. Evolution is not “survival of the fittest” but survival of the most adaptable, the most fit to survive. There is a great difference between these approaches. And we are at a crossroads when we must look at which evolutionary path we will celebrate and support.

While psychologists and sociologists are trying to convince us that we are all capable of great good and great evil, it might be time to explore another possibility: that we are actually a species still undergoing evolution, a species dividing from within itself.

Most of us find it easier to accept that we are capable of cruelty and callousness towards each other and other species than to accept that we may not be the same as our neighbor after all.  Because we do not want to think there may be real differences, because we want to think that even the worst person can become better “if only he or she understood”, we reject the possibility that we are not alike,  that we are not all capable of the same cruel acts or that  that some people are cruel because they simply lack any capacity for empathy,  or worse, that they derive satisfaction from the evil they commit, a sense of godhead from the cruelty they inflict. For some psychologists, these persons are identified as sociopaths or psychopaths, and no doubt there are such persons who exist. But it is telling that recent studies show that psychopaths can be safe in society depending on nurture.

So are psychopaths and sociopaths just a product of bad genes, bad nurturing or environment, or is it possible they are a product of a no-longer-viable genetic evolutionary path? Is the Dark Tetrad of personalities (sadism, narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy) inherent in all of us, or are they unique to a select DNA from the past? Are these fed by nature or nurture? Are they gaining a foothold, or weakening their hold as we evolve?   Are these the remnant traits of ancient humans that were once needed for humans to survive as a species? And what does that say about the mass of humanity who are capable of callousness, who lack awareness of the suffering of others and other animals? I will return to this question in later blogs.

This is not to say that many people cannot be driven to cruel acts, or driven beyond sanity to participate in cruelty. Any mammal can be driven to fight back, can be broken by continual stresses; many people can be broken or worn down through social pressures to conform to political or religious systems that demand a person be cruel to conform or face punishment, and it is these behaviors that we tend to study and focus our efforts on towards understanding.

But we may well be looking at the wrong people- we might do better to study those who always resist,  who have the self-strength and control not to be broken, who refuse against all pressures to participate in cruel practices, those who are neither influenced by, nor succumb to, extreme pressures to conform when callousness is demanded. We should be studying those who steadfastly, no matter the threat of punishment or death, refuse to yield to cruelty, refuse to participate in barbaric practices or callous actions.

Because it is only by studying those persons that we will begin to understand where evolution might be taking us, and what we might become.

We tend to think of evolution as something happening only on a physical level, but nothing in evolution makes that a rigid law. Is it possible that evolution can also take place on a deeper level? It may well be that on a deep level, we are no longer a single species, but a species separating from within, some remaining in the primitive past, some at a modern evolutionary stage where they can be bent towards cruelty or led to kindness, and others evolved beyond the mass of humanity to a different understanding of themselves, other living beings and their interdependence on the whole.

I am not speaking of the attempts to make racial differences denote superiority or inferiority, nor am I speaking about eugenics- the deliberate attempt to improve a group of people. Organic beings are not just a fixed accumulation of cells- we are a tripart organic entity: body, mind and spirit. As such, there are many levels upon which evolution can work. I am speaking of the inexorable process by which a species slowly adapts to its changing environment on multiple levels.

If evolution within the species is taking place, where might it lead? What impact might it have on the larger mass? How long a process might this be and what might the impact be on the future? And what might we become in the process?