Australian biologist Jeremy Griffith
has attracted a fair bit of attention over the years with what he
claims to be a liberating first principle biological explanation for
the human condition, i.e. our species' capacity for good and evil.
For a time I was a supporter of
Griffith's theories. Why would I not be attracted to the idea that
some great riddle had been cracked which would lead to an end to all
of humanity's problems - a reconciliation between the left wing and
right wing in politics, between science and religion, between men and
women - an end to war, poverty, mental illness? With his first book -
Free : The End of the Human Condition - Griffith really laid
on the hard sell, but the book was genuinely deep and full of
references to the fossil record and primate behaviour. Back then I
was prone to depression. Reading that book hurt like hell. They say
that the truth hurts, so this seemed to be in its favour.
If you want a brief, concise and
well-presented introduction to Griffith's theory and what he thinks
it means for humanity, this second book - Beyond the Human
Condition - is the one to read.
The first thing to acknowledge is that
Griffith spends little of his time in the book arguing from reason.
Much of the text consists of quotes from some of his favourite
writers, most notably Laurens van der Post, as well as the Bible. He
also paraphrases from popular songs the lyrics of which he wasn't
able to obtain the rights to quote. This is not a scientific
approach. The fact that Bruce Springsteen once said something in a
song does not constitute evidence.
“As the quotes in this book
reveal, all I have been able to add to the perception/soundness of
Jesus Christ and Sir Laurens van der Post is the biological reason
for the repression of our soul."
So how credible is this biological explanation for the human
condition? Let's first summarise its essence.
Most animals compete for food or mating opportunities. Because our
proto-human ancestors lived in the fertile environment of the Rift
Valley in Africa their nurturing period grew longer. The mothers were
nurturing their infants for genetically selfish reasons, because they
contained their own genes. But to the infants this seemed like
selfless behaviour. Not knowing anything about genetics, they thought
their mother's cared more about them than about themselves. And so
they learned that this was the way to be - they became “love-indoctrinated". This led to the flowering of our
ability to reason about the world, because we could think
holistically rather than have our view of the world fractured by the
us and them duality inherent in competition. It was also the origin
of our soul or conscience, our instinctive sense of what was right,
because learned behaviour over many generations becomes encoded in
the genes.
So now we had a rational mind and a genetic orientation towards
selfless behaviour. But the rational mind needed to experiment. Some
of these experiments would have led to behaviour which contravened
the genetic conscience, which would give the message that we were
doing something wrong. Unable to explain our need to experiment with
self-management, we became frustrated and eventually angry with this
genetic conscience. This led to anger at anything which reminded us
of it, such as nature or, if we were men, women. This was the origin
of our dark side. And yet we were not villains, we were the greatest
of heroes for defying the oppression of our idealistic instincts and
taking on self-corruption in order to find understanding of
ourselves, which eventually would lead to the understanding of how we
became “upset" in the first place, and with that
understanding would come liberation from our condition.
I'm no scientist, but I can see two problems with this theory on a
level which can be examined through observation of behaviour and
through introspection.
If our conscience was learned through being exposed to the nurturing
behaviour of mothers, then it should share the qualities of that
nurturing behaviour. Griffith gives the analogy that our conscience
is like the genetically-encoded flight path of a bird. Such a flight
path is presumably rigidly dictatorial as it remains the same year
after year. But the loving behaviour of a mother is anything but
rigid or dictatorial, it is flexible and improvisational. She is
engaged in a dynamic relationship with her offspring which is
tolerant of most behaviour as long as it is not dangerous for them.
So how does the infant develop from this a rigid dictatorial and
unforgiving genetic blueprint for behaviour?
Is it really credible that our conscience is stored in our genes? Why
is it that what makes us feel guilty varies from person to person and
culture to culture? Why do some people appear to have no conscience?
Is it not more likely that the conscience is learned, that it is a
part of our ego, the part where we store our expectations about
ourselves?
Griffith aligns love and idealism. But are these not contradictory
phenomena? We say that the purest form of love is unconditional love,
and what is idealism but the placing of conditions on our acceptance
of ourselves or our acceptance of others? Idealism can all too easily
consist in hatred of all that is not viewed as ideal.
He is right to identify idealism as something oppressive, but he does
not go far enough.
He has said that his first book “grew out of my desperate need
to reconcile my extreme idealism with reality." He views much of “upset" human behaviour as “an attack on innocence",
including consensual sex. He believes that recreational, as opposed
to reproductive sex, began during the time of Homo Erectus when men,
angry at women's criticism of their lack of ideality, began raping
them, something which was later civilised into something which could
be considered an act of love between men and women. He doesn't seem
to give any acknowledgement that orgasms feel good in and of
themselves, hence masturbation. This in spite of the fact that he
often points to bonobos, who spend a large part of their time rubbing
genitals with members of both genders, as an indication of what our
Australopithecine ancestors might have been like.
 |
| Bonobos |
Griffith views himself as an innocent. He says that the rest of us want to attack innocence. He says this has been necessary because innocence is oppressive, and that we are heroes for having taken on the job of fighting back against that oppressiveness. Would it be unfair to describe this as an appeasement strategy?
I think that idealism is the heart of the problem, the root of all
evil. This is kind of what Griffith is saying, but not quite. He
thinks idealism was the problem only as long as we didn't understand
ourselves, and now he thinks he has made such an understanding
possible, thus making idealism no longer a problem.
I think idealism is a kind of conceptual virus which has plagued
humanity. Now this doesn't mean that we are wrong to want peace and
togetherness and kindness and to want to be less selfish. This is the
insidious nature of the negative feedback loop that is idealism. It
advertises itself as the road to Heaven when it is actually the road
to Hell. The harder we strive for the ideals, the further they
recede.
This is because the good things we want can only grow out of love,
and the foundation of love is unconditional self-acceptance.
Throughout our lives our self-acceptance is being undermined by
criticism, rejection and by the condemnation implied by those
apparently unreachable ideals. The oppression of our conscience, of
those ideals we find so hard to meet, or, if we are religious, that
perfect God who makes us feel like pathetic worms for our lack of
perfection, all of these things can build up a seething pit of
resentment in us towards those who seem to be more in tune with the
ideals than ourselves. Sometimes, unable to acknowledge this well of
darkness in ourselves, we project it onto others, going into battle
against the terrible other.
 |
| William Blake |
If love is the answer, then what is love? Love is a mode of communication characterised by openness, honesty, spontaneity and generosity. Fear, of others and of the darkness within us, causes us to become rigid, to adopt character armour, which is the barrier to love. All we need to open up to the love which will bring us the peace and togetherness and freedom from our ego-prisons that we desire, is to feel safe enough to put aside our armour. Our armour is our egotism. And it is our alienation, that which blocks us from experiencing the world as it really is and from thinking honestly about ourselves and that world.
It is true that we have always needed a way to love the dark side of
our psyche. But love is not appeasement. Love doesn't bolster our ego
by saying, “You're a hero." Love releases us from our
enslavement to that ego, by saying, “You are forgiven now, and
you will be forgiven always." This was the essence of Jesus'
message. If God is a mythological figure representing the creative
principle of the universe, which in human affairs takes the form of
love, then every time we realise we have made a mistake, as long as
we are honest about it, God is there to forgive us. This is not some
supernatural assurance. The creative principle of the universe works
through evolution. Deviations from the norm are what lead to new and
wonderful things. Nature is no dictator, insisting on some kind of
perfection. And all human discord can be healed by love, which does
not judge. At the moment our self-acceptance is conditional and
therefore our love for others is conditional too. But in time the
barriers to unconditional love will melt away, and then all is
forgiven. Love is the sea that refuses no river.
Griffith is a major critic of what he terms “pseudo-idealistic"
movements - environmentalism, socialism, the New Age Movement, “political correctness", etc. He sees them as superficial
and escapist, because they don't address the deeper psychological
issues. This is fair enough up to a point. But he sees them as being
so powerful in the world now and so dogmatic that they might shut
down the search for understanding altogether. He quotes George Orwell :
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping
on a human face [freedom] - for ever." 1984.
To emphasise the danger he also quotes from the Bible (with his own
extrapolations) :
“'He [the self-deception that accompanies superficiality] will
invade the kingdom [of honesty] when its people feel secure
[when superficiality becomes popular enough], and he will seize it
[the kingdom of honesty] through intrigue...Then they
[those pushing self-deception] will set up the abomination that
causes desolation [the superficiality that leads to oblivion].
With flattery he will corrupt those who have violated the covenant
[self-deluding superficiality will seduce the exhausted], but the
people who know their God will firmly resist him [the less
exhausted will not be deceived].'"
Daniel, 11:21, 31, 32.
“'So when you see the 'abomination that causes desolation' (spoken
of through the prophet Daniel) standing where it does not belong
[claiming to know the way to the new age] let the reader
understand... For then there will be great distress [mindless
superficiality and its consequences], unequalled from the
beginning of the world until now - and never to be equalled again. If
those days had not been cut short [by the arrival of the truth],
no-one would survive.'"
Matthew 24 and Mark 13
These passages, and the emphasis and interpretation Griffith puts on
them, deserve closer examination. Sometimes we see in our enemies a
reflexion of a truth we are hiding from ourselves.
“He [an extreme idealist] will invade the kingdom [the
establishment] when its people feel secure, and he will seize it
through intrigue [disguising his insistence on the ideals with a
cloak of pretend science]... Then they will set up the abomination
that causes desolation [idealism]. With flattery [by
telling us we are heroes] he will corrupt those who have violated
the covenant [technically, those who have broken from the
agreement to follow the precepts of the gospel, but probably more
broadly those who have been dishonest, judgemental or unloving],
but the people who know their God [those who understand the true
nature of love] will firmly resist him."
Now lets look at the passages from Matthew and Mark. In
Mark it says “...standing where it does not belong..."
but in Matthew it is more specific saying “...standing in the
holy place...". If “the abomination that causes
desolation" is idealism, then in what way might it have been
put “in the holy place"? “Holy" means “whole" or “of the whole". Griffith identifies
idealism with holism. He puts idealism in the place of holism.
Idealism, being founded on a dualistic split between good and evil,
cannot be reconciled with holism. Holism is necessarily pragmatic.
So why the talk about “great distress, unequalled from the
beginning of the world until now - and never to be equalled again"?
Certainly we live in very troubled times. How is this related to the
presentation of a theory that we are genetically idealistic?
If idealism has been the poison virus contaminating the human race
throughout its history (ever since it arose in the experimenting mind
of one of our ancestors), then to nail it down to our very bodies
themselves is the final straw. No escape, no defence. The enemy is within!
Just
after that in Matthew 24:19, Jesus says : “How
dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing
mothers!"
Griffith believes that infants are born with an instinctive
expectation of an ideal world, thus they will be damaged by their
mother's lack of ideality.
“In every
generation, individual women had a very brief life in innocence
before being soul-destroyed through sex. They then had to try to
nurture a new generation, all the time trying to conceal the
destruction that was all around and within them. Mothers tried to
hide their alienation from their children, but the fact is if a
mother knew about reality/upset her children would know about it and
would psychologically adapt to it."
I'm sure that being a mother is a tough job to begin with without
this kind of unfounded pressure. I don't believe infants are born
expecting anything particular, and what they most need is a relaxed
mother. If love is open, honest, spontaneous and generous
communication, it will be impeded by feelings of anxiety or guilt.
And being sexually repressed won't help either.
You might say, “But how can this bring great tribulation to the
world when hardly anyone has actually read it?" Every book
written is in some way an articulation of a broader and deeper social
current. We could look at Griffith's books not so much as a wind
blowing us off course as a weather vane in which the direction of
that wind is indicated. They are a crystallisation of the pathology
of idealism which has plagued us down the centuries. Job's prayer was
: “Oh, that my enemy had written a book!" Through Jeremy
Griffith, idealism has done just that.
 |
| Jeremy Griffith's new book |
For more information about Jeremy Griffith check out the World Transformation Movement website.
You can also find a critical review of Griffith's new book, along with some very interesting discussion between supporters and critics here.
You can also find a critical review of Griffith's new book, along with some very interesting discussion between supporters and critics here.
