Homo Narcissus – Our Inflated Species-Esteem, part 1 of 3)
Our species’ social nature, including its habitual creation and recognition of status, is certainly not the only factor responsible for the widespread belief in gods. It may, however, be an essential factor – particularly in the Abrahamic religions.
What keeps people from more readily identifying the roots of religious behavior? Why the seeming incapacity to break the spell — as Daniel Dennett put it? Many a critic of religion has blamed fear. Human beings are equipped with a consciousness that brings recognition of death. Including our own. And so . . . fear. Religion provides a cognitive loophole with which to escape this troubling awareness.
Maybe it is a real part of the belief equation – this fear of the fact that humans, too, go the way of all flesh. Humans are motivated to invent a spirit or soul or unseen essence that can evade the inevitable. How big a part plays fear? My guess: a large part for some, a smaller for many others, none for a noteworthy minority. Beyond fear I think it is possible that what we call pride, or something closely related, plays a role. Self-elevating sentiments may comprise an outer layer of the onion of emotion, perhaps protecting an inner sheath of fear. Or existing for its own purpose. Pure conjecture aside, a great deal of the energy of belief is expended maintaining the human animal’s high status of top o’ the heap. Actually, not just tops in the animal kingdom, but fundamentally different.
Are we primates of the sub-category Homo sapiens fundamentally different from all other species? Let’s see . . . we are conceived post sexual intercourse by sperm meeting ova; we develop in a womb and are delivered through a multi-purpose orifice; we need air, water and food to survive; we spend our days feeding ourselves, setting aside resources for times of scarcity, we perseverate about and/or blindly pursue procreative opportunities (real or imagined); we habitually develop and maintaining social relationships that may prove helpful in our quest for resources; we defecate, fall ill, and eventually die, etc. How are we different? How is the man who sculpts his body to impress other males and attract females fundamentally different from the peacock who less-consciously forms a showy tail? How is the female who dons make-up and a push-up bra fundamentally different from the monkey female who less-consciously exhibits labial swelling in order to attract attention? Refinement? Is that what it is all about? The sophistication and hence partial disguise of otherwise fully animalistic proclivities?
If human beings are unique, what makes us unique? Three things come quickly to mind: 1. we build stuff, 2. we wear clothing, and 3. we use a language. Do these three traits, alone or in concert, set is in a league of our own? Or are we merely a population of all-stars according to our own skewed measures?
One, we build stuff. True, multi-story skyscrapers and massive river damns are impressive. By comparison, a chimpanzee’s tree-canopy sleeping nest pales. Termite mounds in Africa may be relatively larger constructions, in light of the size of their builders, yet they have no indoor plumbing. But here’s the thing: never are human constructions completely individual accomplishments. Instead they manifest the success of dozens of minds and hundreds if not thousands of hands. Human inventors stand on the shoulders of other humans. While we acquire our genes from a mere two others that preceded us (two parents, and four others before them, grandparents, and eight before them and . . . ), we are free to borrow, copy and steal from the genius of thousands upon thousand of predecessors. It terms of building stuff, maroon an unschooled human on an island and he or she will fail to impress you with ingenuity. Minus culture human genius falls to earth. Our kind is unique thanks to a mind with very big pockets.
Two, we wear clothing. I guess you could add deodorant and perfume to this category, for they likewise mask the naked muskiness of the animal beneath. News flash: the pope has both a penis and an anus. Dressing him in finery may distract some. Fortunately, others are not so easily fooled. Are we ashamed of our nakedness, in part, because it so blatantly reminds us of our basic carnal nature? To the person with aspirations beyond the mortal, is clothing a curtain with which to cloak the humble truth? Do not look behind the curtain!
Three, we use language. One could argue that language is the third dimension, or extension, of social behavior. The first dimension of social behavior would be physical interaction; the second, gestural/vocal interaction (received by the eyes and ears at a distance in space); and the third, symbolic (received by the mind at a distance in space and/or time). A human being doesn’t have to hit another person to get a point across, or even growl, he or she is able to speak or write, “I will bury you.”
Beneath the bell-and-whistle of productivity that language has provided (quite an amazing bell at that!) you will find that the bulk of what our kind talks about is who did what to whom. Social events. We are social creatures absolutely obsessed with social dynamics. As thanks for its gaudy profits, the entertainment industry should send roses to humankind’s insatiable appetite for social commotion.
And yet. Many theologians and preachers persist in speaking with condescension and outrage over the idea “that we evolved from monkeys,” or any lesser animal. The adjective “lesser” being of very telling importance. If we are simply animals, then there are natural explanations for the what and how of our lives. If we are fully natural creatures, then there is no justifiable way to claim exemption from the natural, the sane way to insist that there exists a hand of an outstretched, sympathetic, supernatural deity awaiting to rescue us.
What’s more, the moment we recognize that human beings are fully flesh, and do and will go the way of all flesh, we lose our special place in the universe. Our “aren’t we special, thanks to our special relationship to the great invisible” cosmology collapses.
If evolutionary theory isn’t a threat to all species-centric cosmologies, then I’m a monkey’s uncle.
Make that a monkey’s nephew.
[First appeared here: http://almightyalpha.blogspot.com/2007/10/way-of-all-flesh.html ]
