/ 3 December 2009

The dissent of man

It's astounding to think that <i>On the Origin of Species</i> -- a book that pushed us of our pedestals -- has been around for so long.

Last week saw the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. It is astounding to think that this book, the one that pushed us off our pedestal and made us examine our place in the world in relation to other life forms and each other, has been around for so long. I have to say, I’m more than a little jealous of those who were right there when Darwin dropped this bombshell on our species.

It has been a while since something that revolutionary has been written, something that actually shifts the way we see the world, and becomes the basis for a century or more of debate. I always wonder how I would have reacted at the time. Would I have been horrified by the implications?

I like to think that I would have been cool enough to go along with something that was, at the time, a radical suggestion for any layman. And not just Darwin’s writing, either. What would I have thought of the Communist Manifesto, published two years earlier? The irony, of course, is that those who were privileged enough to read it and spend time debating it were also the ones for whom its ideas were the most dangerous. And if between Darwin and Marx you were left reeling and wondering what your place in the universe was, Freud would come along a few years later and tell you that not even your mind could be trusted.

Of course, one of the reasons we, as a species, are prone to questioning and self-examination is that we are so complex. If you look at Darwin’s Tree of Life, we are sitting on a shaky-looking twig somewhere near the top, which implies that we are highly evolved, enough to be difficult, diverse and prone to angst. Contrast this with the bacteria that mooch about somewhere in the soil by the roots of the tree. For them, life is a lot simpler.

Bacteria are wondrous things, and they are refreshingly free from the kinds of existential angst we inflict upon ourselves. For the start, they are more numerous than you could possibly imagine. In every gram of soil there are about 40-million of them, and they exist in almost every environment you can imagine, from snowy tundra’s to the rims of active volcanoes. They produce asexually (which probably spares a great deal of trauma), basically cloning themselves with dazzling rapidity until they have used up all the nutrients available to them. Their life-spans vary from a few minutes to many years, and they can put themselves into suspended animation if conditions aren’t right, coming back to life when things improve. It’s all quite impressive.

They put our success as a species to shame. And of course they do not subject themselves to introverted analysis and Big Life Questions, and it’s not just because they don’t have the brains to do it, or because — in lacking a sex life and mothers and fathers — Freud left them well alone. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that many of our problems stem from the differences between us — our different desires, ambitions, tastes — that make the tension between the individual and the group, the way we as individuals fit into a bigger picture of society and species, difficult to navigate and accept. We are individuals forced into groups, and bacteria are, well, bacteria, indistinguishable from each other and never alone. When last did you hear of the Solitary Bacterium?

According to Darwin, it is the destiny of any species to differentiate, based on what the universe throws at it, and we are no exception. Sure, those differences may not always be physical, but the proof of this is there, every time you are baffled by someone else’s world view. Jean-Paul Sartre stated that ‘hell is other people”, and many take that to mean the pressing, continuous irritation of having to deal with the masses of humanity that surround us, with all their bad taste and oddity.

But there is another level to this. As soon as you realise you sit in judgement of those that differ from you, you have to accept that, likewise, they are judging you. In the same way that you can dismiss someone, fail to acknowledge them, they can dismiss you.

Individualism, something we hold so dear, something we claim as a sign of our progress, can be a very scary thing indeed. We really should be more humble about our powers of autonomy.

It’s about time we were kicked from our pedestals again. It really has been a while. You know when you look at people who’ve made it, and under your breath you mumble that they’ve forgotten ‘where they came from”? It’s time we turned that gaze on ourselves. Like all trees, the top branches of Darwin’s tree don’t really matter, unlike the tiny guys that keep the roots strong at the bottom. And that is something that no one should forget.

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