Late Fall Reflection: Connection and Conflict

As a tribal species, we are wired for both connection and conflict. Sometimes I wonder how a species would function if it were able to evolve beyond its tribalistic tendencies. Would every member of the species quickly develop into an enlightened yogi? Would they maintain the vitality that accompanies intense emotion? How would they respond to existential threats?

The answer to the last question (read: they wouldn't respond as well) is why I think a more enlightened species will never emerge. So, both as individuals and a species, we're forced to work with our wildly outdated hunter-gatherer software. If you think the Space Shuttle's 1970's software was ludicrous in the early 2000's, just multiply that by 2,000, and that's where we are as a species. Each agricultural, cultural, economic, and industrial revolution updated our external circumstances without touching our neurology or biology. Religions developed as a way of adapting ourselves to our complex environment. But sadly, religions have just as often played into our violent biological tendencies as they have helped us transcend them. As Michael Gungor sings in "Let Bad Religion Die,"

All belief demanding blood
If your god gives you a gun
Let bad religion die
Let bad religion die
If it spreads violence more than peace
God let religion cease.

Whether a faith promotes violence is the best litmus test for its validity. Evolutionary psychology has confirmed the psychological and sociological benefits of the more enlightened teachings of the great religious teachings of the world, such as meditation and charity, while highlighting the damaging effects of violent strands of faith. This new branch of science is a great tool to help us decipher which ideas to keep and which to discard. But I think we can go even further.

Jesus Christ's message of nonviolence and suffering love represents the pinnacle of enlightenment to which monks and yogis of all stripes attest. Though bad theology has misdirected much of Christianity, Islam, and other faiths into the violent rut of our species, there is still hope that the gospel can be reclaimed by a wider swath of our culture. I believe sociologists and anthropologists will ultimately learn that the best society we can aim for given our outdated software involves the inculcation of the gospel values of love and mercy at every stage of human development and every level of society. This is the hack that can sublimate our tribal in-group favoritism to universal love. Though we will need a lot of help from the contemplatives among us, it's this hope that will keep me from despair when I consider the sad state of our species.