Modern Caveman

 

Are we still in the caves?

If we look at the timeline of human evolution (from the so-called human forefather Homo habilis), the human race was present from 2.5 million years ago, as hunter-gatherers. Homo sapiens were one of the many species. While everyone developed bigger brains and language over a period of time, Homo sapiens stole a march 70,000 years ago by learning to communicate in a social manner (viz gossiping, as per Harari). After that they really spread out from Africa and started dominating earth. They somehow got into farming around 10,000 years ago, though their skills were still at hunting-gathering. Later improvements in technology, like the Scientific and Industrial revolution have happened only in the last 500 years.

So if 2.5 million years is 100%, 70,000 years is 2.8% of human history, 10,000 years is 0.4% and 500 years is just 0.02%. All our social skills and moral codes have probably settled down into our concious minds only in the last 10,000 years (max). Our DNA evolution, which reengineers body development as well as our unconcious behaviour, is probably still stuck at 1 million years ago, in the realm of hunting-gathering, polygamy and aggressive leaders heading small groups of 15 or less.

Think about how we behave whenever the fear of reprisal is not there. At heart we are still self-skilled (not group-skilled), multi-partner and patriarchal. None of this jives well with what we consider the modern code of ethics and visions of social structure, and we are always scandalised when suddenly someone exhibits 'ánimalistic' behaviour. Truth is, our biological evolution is far behind our social evolution. This means that if we hope modern ethics to work by appealing intellectually to man's 'better nature', we are likely to be disappointed.

The cave man and cave woman is still there deep inside our unconcious, ready to wield a club and emerge. The concious mind therefore has to maintain the rule of law till the unconcious mind evolves. Another million years? I do hope not.