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February 1972
to do is quite different with these
differcm forros of prcdators.
Historical Comnumication
Histo1•ical commrmication
has be–
stowed upon man the capacity to pass
on to the next generation the amplified
mistakes of all past generations. Ani–
mals are severely limited in commu–
nicating from one generation to the
next (bccause they do not have a sym–
bolíc language). However, whatever
they do transmit is ( at least "thought"
to be) beneficia! to the individual off–
spring (as well as to the species itself).
Man is different. He has the remark–
able talent for endowing succeeding
generations with the lessons of history
- though generally colored with ma–
tional bigotries and prejudices.
What living creature besides man
knowingly
builds upon the proveo error
of his predecessors, and then strives to
make things worse, so that as a result,
he can take pleasure in passing the
whole mess on to his descendants?
Culture
The development of culture is the
outgrowth of language and historical
communication. The changing culture
of human society is dramatically differ–
ent from the stagnancy of animal
society.
Nor cven the cleverest ape can equal
a human child as an acceptor of cul–
ture ... This capacity is not present in
any non-human form of life, certainly
on earth and almost cenainly in the
Cosmos.
1t
is t.he basis of the unique–
oess of men, and also the bond be–
tweea all men, no matter how much
they may differ among themselves in
other respects. (Theodosius Dobzhan–
sky)
4. FAMILY ANO SOCIETY
Control of EmotÍ01l
For a human society
to
exist, man
must exercise control over his biological
emotions - and cooperate with his
fellows.
... if one watches free-ranging mon–
keys or uses Dr. GoodaU's excellent
data on chimpanzces, one notes that
these big maJe chimpanzees just go
into uncont.rollable rages. This is
characteristic of many monkeys, too.
A group of apes or monkeys doesn't
sit around as people sit around for
any substancial period of time. Some–
body wouJd get mad at somebody and
things would go wham-o. Rage is a
chemical matter, a matter of the brain,
etc. as well as being triggered so–
cially; our brains are vastly more in
control of the rage reactions rhan is
1"he
PLAIN TRUTH
the case in the nonhuman primates.
CertainJy this is related to che ability
to cooperare and to plan. These abili–
ties also, of course, are uniquely
human. (S.
L.
Washburn)
Remember, it's
1101
that human
beings do not go into rages. It's just
that humans can control the impulse.
(
1
f
they want to.)
Famíly Lije
Animals raise their offspring accord–
ing to preset patterns - every animal,
in every location, in every "family," in
every generation,
is,
has been, and will
ever be, raised exactly the same, like the
similarity of bottles of Coke coming
off the assembly line.
Humans have had
real
families - as
old as history itself. And humans rear
their children as
the)' themselves
deter–
mine, and every child is utterly unique.
5. SEARCH FOR
MEANING
Aspiration to Highet· Levels
Many human beings are never satis–
fied. Some people are always striving
and struggling to increase their influence
over their surroundings. Whether we
rcfer to awareness, wisdom, under–
standing, knowledge, influence, money,
possessions, power, prestige, status,
looks, sexual attraction, etc., human
beings continuously aspire to augment
their present leve! of achievement. (This
does not mean that every human
being will do so - but every human
being does have the potential and option
of doing so.)
45
Animals, on the other hand, strive
and struggle to fulfill their basic physi–
ological needs and drives - and that's
it - that's all they want. ( And this
does
mean
every
animal - animals
have no option and no choice.)
1 do believe that
tbe quality of the
buma11 spirit wbich is alu-ays aspiritlg
to bigber /evels
and which, at its
highest, expresses the ineluctable ob–
ligation to seek and know,
to
com–
prchend evermore perfectly, absolute
valucs,
is sometbi11g wbicb far tran–
scellds atlytbittg we bave reason to
be/ieve exisls in tbe attimals. Here,
Wolson
Ambossodor Col/ego
Ílt
my vieu·, tbere is a dividittg liue
indeed.
(W. H. Thorpe)
Meaning in the Universe
Man's quest extends far beyond his
own miniscule environment of satis–
fying his bodily and mental needs.
Man's mind is his vehicle - and he
travels every order of magnitude from
the sub-atomic d istances of angstroms
(one ten-millionth of a millimeter)
and times of nanoseconds (a billionth
of a second) to the astronomical dis–
tances of light years (estimated at six
tri Ilion miles) and the cosmological
times of billions of years.
What marks man off is bis reach
outwards to the universe as a whole,
through symbolic structures of lan–
guage, myth, and science. There is no
evidence whatever of aoyching even
remotely similar
to
this in the case of
any other terrestrial being. (McMullin)
Meani1lg in Human Life
"The ultimate
qt~estions
tvhich man
asks abo11t himself are parlly anJtvered
by the very fact of theír being asked."
This statement from the chapter