I have been to Earth. Sequestered as it is near the edge of
our galaxy and orbiting a rather common type star, Earth is home to a single technologically
adept race called ‘human beings’ or ‘Homo
sapiens’. Like many intelligent species before them, humans evolved from simpler
organisms on a biologically rich world endowed with great beauty and abundant
resources. In the nearly four billion years since the planet formed, it has
evolved unknown millions of living species, of which an extraordinary majority,
perhaps 99 percent, have become extinct. Of the millions of species alive
today, the majority belong to microscopic bacterial groups and the extremely
diverse and successful insects. Human scientists have so far identified and
named about two million living species, and estimate that several millions more
have yet to be discovered. But by whatever scale of diversity we use, we can
extrapolate thus:
If the Earth currently contains just three million species,
and if that three million represents just one percent of all the life that ever
lived on Earth, and if Homo sapiens
has been the only species to evolve on that planet with the capacity for true
higher intelligence, then human beings represent a one in
three-hundred-millionth of all the life ever produced on Earth. Of course, the
odds for any particular species having evolved is also only one in
three-hundred-million, but my point is that the suite of characteristics that
make a particular creature human are indeed quite special because the several
essential features needed to be classed as a higher intelligence are found in
other species, too. The fact that makes humans human is that they alone possess
all of those essential characteristics. Whales and elephants have larger
brains, squids have faster neuronal responses, apes have opposable thumbs, and
many creatures have language; only in human beings do all these features come
together in the necessary proportions to allow the development of higher
thought, memory, written language, and rapidly evolving social behaviors.
There is also a lack of serious competition for humans from
other Earthbound species, which has not been true for their closest relatives.
Earlier Homo species all became
extinct after rather brief periods of time, possibly exterminated by their
evolving offspring. The world’s great apes, from chimpanzees to orangutans, are
all seriously endangered, again largely the result of their human relatives.
From their first appearance some two million Earth years ago, humans have grown
into a great many predatory roles that have led to modern populations of highly
competitive, generally self-destructive, and martially adaptive creatures. In
their acquisition of power and self-aggrandizement –at individual, tribal, or
national levels – humans will spare no action or destructive impact on other
living things or necessary resources if those actions lead to profit.
A prescient and wise man named H. G. Wells had the unusual
ability of being a member of the society that considered itself the highest
echelon of civilization—the British Empire of the 1890s—when he began writing
some of the most potent and empathic essays on the dark tendencies of so-called
civilized peoples. His early works were foundations of the literary genre of
science fiction, and included The Time Machine
and The War of the Worlds. In time,
though, this thoughtful author decided to present a brief recitation of the
history of the Earth. Among his many insightful observations on the tendency of
civilizations to be overcome by self-destructive inclinations was this:
“We
are beginning to understand something of what the world might be, something of
what
our race might become, were it not for our still raw humanity. It is barely a
matter
of
seventy generations between ourselves and Alexander; and between ourselves and
the
savage
hunters of our ancestors, who charred their food in the embers or ate it raw,
intervene
some four or five hundred generations. Make men and women only sufficiently
jealous or fearful or drunken or angry,
and the hot red eyes of the caveman will glare out
at us to-day. We have
writing and teaching, science and power; we have tamed the beasts
and schooled the
lightning; but we are still only shambling towards the light. We have
tamed and bred the
beasts, but we still have to tame and breed ourselves.” (Wells, 1949.)
As so often happens in very rapidly advancing intelligent
creatures, humans have discovered ways to develop major forces of nature far in
advance of their cultural and intellectual development. When we first learned
of their early experimentation with nuclear power – commencing with atomic
bombs – the Planetary Alliance dispatched me to inform humanity of the danger
it would face if it brought violence and nuclear weapons off their world. Even
after the dramatic demonstration that I provided of the overwhelming power
available to the Alliance and informed humans that we could easily turn their
planet into a burning cinder, Gort and I left Earth far from optimistic about
humanity self-suppressing its violent tendencies. Given what I perceive as the
probable fate of Earth, I am also obliged to provide a report on the status and
history of humanity as it applies to its destructive habits.
Every single human is a member of the same, single species.
Having arisen in the center of the African continent about two million years
ago, one of the earliest group behaviors practiced by tribal family groups was
the tendency to seek and reinforce individuality. In so doing, humans have put
considerable effort in asserting the kinds of individuality that are attained
and perpetuated by antisocial behaviors. Earliest of these behaviors included
the fierce defense of tribal territories. While it is the extraordinarily rare
creature that will not defend its space, sometimes to the death, such a fight
to the death is rare. In most cases, if two animals encroach on the same
resource, one tends to retreat rather than be killed. Males of such formidable
species as elephants, gorillas, and wolves are apt, at some time in their
lives, to be challenged by younger and stronger males. To the dominant male
goes the rewards of tribal/herd leadership, access to mating partners, and
assurance of passing their genes into future generations. When a young male
challenges the present leader, there may be one of many resulting interactions.
The males may engage in elaborate dance-like rituals, display changes in color,
plumage, or posture, or produce sounds so varied as elaborate song or prolonged
whines. Birds may spread their wings and utter loud noises at each other, while
gorillas pound their chests and shout menacingly. In extreme cases the
aggressors may attack each other, such as when wolves wrestle and rams smash
their heads together. In these encounters the defeated male generally gets to
retreat alive, even if injured. It is a rare thing for one combatant to suffer
severe injury or death; more likely the defeated male either assumes a
submissive role under the new leader or leaves the family group. Furthermore,
the older – “simpler” is the term used by much of self-impressed humanity – the
animal lineage, the less likely it is that territorial disputes end in either
injury or death. For example, fishes tend to retreat after fairly brief
displays. Even the larger and formidable-looking monitor lizards, which engage
in male-male combat, rarely inflict notable damage during fights. It is among
the “higher” animal species that we see ritual territorial combat terminate in
serious injuries. By the time the observer encounters human beings, the incidence
of serious injury between competitors increases considerably.
Humans, moreover, take territorial conflict to a much more
complex level than any other Earth species in that disputes are very rarely
between just two or a few individuals. Instead, many humans join in attacking
perceived threats, and by learning to work cooperatively against outsiders, the
outsiders adapted and learned how to attack as a group. As combat threats for
group leadership became more complex and involved additional tribe members, humans
had engaged in practicing gang behavior, the common first step leading to the
most detrimental of group activities, war.
War has been glorified and vilified throughout human
history. One of Earth’s enduring early scholars, a blind Greek poet named Homer,
wrote with clarity and compassion about the horrors, wastes, and inhumanity of
war. His voice, fully endowed with disdain for the activity, reverberates down
the corridors of human history with authority, and garners great sympathy.
Alas, sage words so often go mute around humans whose self-involvement craves
power. Throughout the course of human history, whenever a tribal group has been
faced with a problem for which war was believed to be even a partial solution,
war has been employed whenever possible. As a direct outcome of this reality,
Earth has been in a nearly continuous, indeed perpetual, state of war since
before humans had learned to write or preserve their ideas in print. War may
not, at one time, have been a predominant characteristic of humanity, but it
has certainly assumed that role since at least 6,000 years ago. For as long as
people lived in communities and certainly since the dawn of what may be called
civilization, war has become one of the central activities of humanity.
To expand on the nature of war it is important to understand
that it is a condition from which humanity is never free. Though no nation is
constantly at war, Earth has so many nations that there is always a war taking
place somewhere. In most incidents war is waged by two or more nations, but if
there is adequate internal discord a country may engage in a civil war. Use of
the words “civil” and “war” together is certainly oxymoronic, for “civil”
refers to actions by civilians rather than by professional military forces. In
reality, civil wars often, perhaps typically, occur when national factions
split, with at least one group intent on taking a portion of national territory
to establish its own new state. Because governmental power, and by direct
extension control over the general population, is often related to territorial
holdings, established governments are loathe to cede territory. Loss of
territory allowed the Korean peninsula of Asia to become North and South Korea
in 1953, each entity politically and idealistically an enemy of the other.
Several southern states ceded from the United States of America in 1861 and
formed into the Confederate States of America. It is how Pakistan broke from
India after British rule of the subcontinent in 1949. Only in very rare instances
does a nation undergo a peaceful and truly civil separation, such as when
Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1991.
There is a single inexplicable and counterintuitive reason
for the history of continual warfare: war is not necessary. Though the earliest
human conflicts were understandable, the perpetuation of war by later societies
is illogical. Need for land and resources became less important factors as
human society developed. Trade, immigration, philosophy and abundant resources
available to people made any “need” for war an illusion. Civilizations
flourished because of commerce, and very few things could not be purchased
across cultures, including other humans. Such human resources could be had by
outright ownership in the abomination of slavery, or they could be “leased”
under contract for prescribed periods of time, or one could simply engage the
services of foreign experts via equitable financial agreements. Why, then, was
war so regular an activity and why do Earth’s people continue its practice so
enthusiastically today?
This concern about humanity’s most widely-practiced group
pastime has been the subject of debate, study, and sheer guessing since humans
produced their first authors. Many writers have made astute contributions to a
collective grasp of just what war was and what it did. In the works of
philosophers from around the planet came the universal acknowledgment that wars
are the tools of death to great numbers of young men who form the soldiery.
Why, then, are so many young men and, increasingly, young women so ready, so
eager to march off and kill other young people? What makes them accept the
murder of people they do not know, who may have done them no harm, for reasons
they barely understand? How can well-raised intelligent children grow into late
puberty and then join or be pressed into military service, be systematically
taught to kill, and not question the ethics of their actions? By the standards
of our Alliance, Earth is a world on which it is normal and acceptable behavior
to raise each generation of youngsters to be ready, trained and obedient
participants in the execution of other people – so long as the government
determines which other people are to be killed.
To understand the factors behind the successful perpetuation
of cultures of war, we need to examine the most influential components of human
societies, and I offer examples from the individual up to the highest echelons
of those societies.
Recall that humans are highly ego-motivated animals, both
self-aware and inordinately self-centered. The keystone to self-centrism is
cultivation of awareness of how “I” am different from others people, coupled
with belief that “I” am also, at least in some ways, better as well. “You” may
have more wealth, but “I” have a prettier wife; “you” have a prettier wife, but
“I” have more intelligent children; or “you” have intelligent children, but “I”
have a more prestigious job. Of course, what “I” actually want to have is the
greatest wealth, prettiest wife, most intelligent children, and most
prestigious job, but society quickly teaches young adults that such a suite of
objects is exceedingly unlikely. Each person tries to obtain the best they can,
and then engages in constant comparison to other humans. In this way people
have invented universal competition, the
most basic source upon which conflict is built. In most of human history
a warrior was allowed, indeed expected, to plunder the conquered. Insecure egos
could add perceived value by gaining wealth, land, or slaves won in wars. Just
to survive a war and have stories to tell could raise one’s status among peers.
Acts that, if conducted by individuals would be considered theft, murder, and
heinous crimes become heroics, patriotism, and profit for a soldier. The allure
of returning home with wealth, glory and tales of adventure appeal to many, but
most especially to the young men ready and eager to step away from the parental
home and start an adult life of their own.
To build societies based on war there are only a very few
acts of stupidity that need to be followed. On Earth, all of these activities
have been successfully impressed into the consciousnesses of the dominant
groups, though they would most likely deny this and take offense at the mere
suggestion of this reality. But those acts essentially shout throughout history
sparing no civilization: religious beliefs and faith, political adherence,
nationalism, social and cultural insularism and conformity.
