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..:: Predation ::..
By
Alan Schneider
The subject of this essay is frequently
perceived as quite gruesome in character – the process whereby
individuals within species, and also whole species on occasion, are
removed forcibly from the gene pool – predation. Although this would
seem to be the arena of biology, and I have no argument with this, it is
also the implicit subject of spirituality – that which does not survive
cannot experience, cannot learn from that experience, and cannot
communicate about what was experienced and learned.
Our conscious experience of
the world is the direct result of the process of biological evolution on
this planet, as the immediate forum of the Physical Plane of
manifestation. Animals may have one extent of experience of
consciousness or another, but, with the possible exception of dolphins,
this experience appears to be substantially less developed than ours. We
have evolved to be a total organism that sustains and enhances
conscious manifestation – our hands have opposing thumbs and extended
fingers that support tool use, we stand fully upright, and have (for the
most part) bimodal sense organs. We have one of the largest brains in
the animal kingdom, and, again with the exception of dolphins, the most
structurally complex – a complexity that supports extensive symbolic
thought and communication. This latter capacity is expressed both
vocally and pictorially in words, images, and script. We have also
evolved an integrated sense of individual presence – the ego – existing
in both a social and physical environment.
All of our extended
capabilities have been driven into manifest form by evolutionary
pressures – scarcity of resources, the inherent violence of the
elements, and, most significantly from the perspective of this article,
the threat of predation. We have ascended to the peak of the food chain,
consuming even our possible brothers in consciousness – the dolphins –
and all other species of interest on the planet. We have become the
dominant species on Earth and – as Shakespeare has remarked in Hamlet
– are “The paragon of animals.”
And, like our ocean-going
brothers, the dolphins, we are predators. In the case of humanity, this
predatory behavior customarily takes the form of total
consumption of all available resources in an area, coupled with the
conversion of those resources into more human beings through the action
of yet another of our ascendant characteristics – a heightened and
voracious set of appetites, including our sex drive and attendant
prolific reproductive cycle. New human beings possess the same
behavioral traits as their parents, augmented by an additional
evolutionary cycle of development. If this development is more
aggressive, they will almost certainly survive to reproduce even more
aggressive offspring – if not, they will not compete as well, and will
not be favored to reproduce as efficiently.
The observant reader will
probably, upon pondering what has been presented thus far, realize that
this evolutionary mechanism of change is concerned neither with the
comfort of the participants, nor with their well-being, but
arbitrarily with individual and interspecies dominance over the
available resources present in the environment. What we see in evolution
is the mechanism of change on Earth – a machine that
automatically determines outcome based on individual and species
advantages statistically across time. Nor is the inherent meaning of
this process at issue. As Jung has said, and I have quoted often in
these articles, “The meaning of life is that it is a battle.” We can
explore our condition and identify other meanings as we see fit, but
this meaning remains basic. And from the evolutionary perspective,
the fact that we all individually lose this battle eventually at death
is also not as important as the fact that we must compete for the
available resources while still alive, and the successful competitors
will survive and pass on their characteristics to successive generations
in the ever-advancing gene pool. It is the gene pool that is the
meaning of evolution and life’s endless battle, not the individual.
It is a matter of some
perplexity that such an automated, arbitrary process could have resulted
in sentient self-awareness as the apparent current peak of its
manifestation. It would seem that consciousness was inevitable as
a consequence of evolution on this planet. Since this conscious
manifestation has only recently differentiated from the general animal
background consciousness – estimates place our emergent ancestry
arguably from about one hundred thousand to one million years ago based
on available fossil evidence and various schools of interpretation – we
can surmise that self-aware consciousness has just begun, and will
continue to evolve with our species into the foreseeable future,
provided that we continue to develop alternative resources and conserve
the existing ones carefully. This is the crux of a major question
regarding evolution. Since we are inherently automated consumers of all
available resources, the evolutionary process may be an eventual dead
end for our species – we may end up blindly consuming everything
available and collectively end our days in violent strife and starvation
as a race of beings. The evidence suggesting this outcome scenario is
abundantly apparent in the form of the burgeoning human population
present everywhere on the planet, coupled with a dwindling resource
base.
In the face of this
population “epidemic” that is overtaking the planet, we are witnessing
the exacerbation of what has always been the fundamental reality of life
on Earth – predation – in the form of social competition for
available resources. This competition has resulted worldwide in the
creation of a new class structure in the Post-Modern world composed of
privileged “haves” who constitute a very small minority of the total
population, and underprivileged “have-nots” who make up the vast
majority of humanity. In a word, today’s social predators tend to fall
into the privileged bracket, while their victims fall into the
underprivileged majority. One tends to see recognition of this condition
in the use of such phrases as “killer instinct” and “mopping up” with
reference to successful sales and contract activity in the business
world – the arena of choice for competitors today. There are remaining
pockets of so-called middleclass individuals around the world, but the
relentless assault of the privileged through the extension of credit and
market domination continues to affect attrition from above, while the
equally relentless activities of the underprivileged – robbery, drug
abuse, violence, extortion, and irresponsible breeding (to name a few) –
affect attrition from below. Welcome to the world jungle today...
If we make it that far,
a gene or gene complex that determines aggressive, predatory behavior
patterns will probably be scientifically identified at some point in the
future. This author is quite sure that such a complex exists,
represented in varying degrees in the human genome, and that this
phenomenon determines propensities toward aggressive human behavior.
Such a complex may exist in general in the animal kingdom as well.
Certain species are known for their aggressive behavior toward not only
other species, but each other as well. No species, however, is more
prone to intra-species aggression than is humanity. We became each
other’s predators with (and probably before) the advent of even
primitive civilization, and before the ascendance of our species to our
current dominant position in the food chain. The grand caveat of
evolution is that aggression determines resource acquisition, survival,
and reproduction, more or less in that order.
If left unchecked, our
aggression will be our undoing as a sentient race. We must
express self-interest as a consequence of individual identity, but this
needs to be enlightened self-interest, steeped in compassion for
each other, and tempered with the acceptance of eventual death as the
final arbiter of the ego and the senses. Blind aggression driven by
instinct has carried us up to the brink of destruction and will carry us
over that edge into oblivion very soon now if we do not find a better
way to carry on our interactions with each other. The question
confronting our race now is whether our instincts and animal nature can
be controlled by our wisdom and enlightened understanding.
It is quite possible that
genetic aggression has a built-in failsafe mechanism that results in
catastrophic termination when the process reaches a certain level of
intensity in a population, human or otherwise. But, when one takes the
most expansive perspective possible on human affairs – the perspective
of Ascension – certain features of life become apparent as causative
agents superseding even evolution. The continuum of experience that we
know through the senses – the Physical Plane of manifestation – is seen
to be fraught with difficulty and suffering for good reason – these
conditions call into question the assumptions through which the ego
conducts its affairs, opening the door to inquiry regarding possible
additional information lying beyond sensory experience. As soon as the
question “Why” is asked, the process of enlightenment begins, and may
continue through extended investigation of the many altered states of
consciousness that exist beyond the senses. This process of
investigation has the immediate de-emphasis of aggression as one of its
many benefits, along with the provocation of rational discourse as a
social problem solving tool. It may be that aggression is simply a
behavioral “bad habit” that can be adjusted to more positive levels of
activity through simply interrupting the manifestation loop involved
with another “good habit”, such as introspective therapy or meditation.
The action of aggression is often synchronistically interrupted
through spontaneous epiphanies that occur in the process of aggressive
manifestation. The Logos is continuously speaking to us on the Physical
Plane through such synchronicities, sending messages of guidance and
enlightenment to the embattled Soul that is the real focus of individual
human existence. It is our supreme challenge as sentient beings to learn
to listen to these messages, and turn our lives in the directions they
indicate.
When we do listen and act accordingly, the eventual result is a
permanent check placed on our instinctual aggressive tendencies as we
learn to act with enlightenment in accord with the best interests of the
Soul, and the Logos as the source of that Soul and the source ultimately
of all Being – including the mechanistic processes apparent on
the material Physical Plane. The process of evolution itself is the
result of the Divine Plan – this is the reason why it has culminated in
the conscious self-awareness of at least one, and possibly more, species
on this Earth. It is our challenge as thinking individuals to use our
awareness wisely, not impulsively, to ensure the constructive,
productive future development of our planet and, beyond that, the solar
system. We stand at the crisis of this matter today, as instinct is
pitted against enlightenment in what may well be the final contest of
humanity. May love and grace prevail!
- With Love, Alan -
(CR2008, Alan Schneider)
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