At some point down the road--perhaps a century from now--experts who study people and how they behaved will be looking at these times and feel flummoxed. They will encounter such things as people refusing to be vaccinated according to some weird ideas they held, and feel utterly puzzled. Why would anybody turn away from a highly tested and proven medicine that could save their life? Was there something about these vaccinations that isn't apparent now (in that future time)?
And, then, these ideas would start to inform their efforts to understand why people in large numbers acted in such counter-intuitive and perplexing ways. The whacko conspiracies would be there, ready to explain it all. But, on looking more closely at them....all of them....it would be readily apparent that they were just conspiracies....nothing more and nothing less. They were ideas that suddenly took on a level of fascination and energy that it is now not clear that they deserved. So, why?
As these future anthropologists dig deeper it becomes apparent that humans in the 21st century were a fatally flawed species and this goes a very long way in explaining their extinction. Did I not mention that these anthropologists will be a completely different species, arrived here from another planet not too many decades after the humans gave up the ghost? Well, now I have.
And, this came about because observers from various places in the greater Universe had been watching Earth and the humans for a very long time. It was, by then, very obvious that humans had a number of traits that didn't favor their long-term survival. For starters, they were inclined to be violent, not merely towards other species, but toward other humans as well. In fact, in looking at the entire span of human history, it was one of the most persistent and consistent traits that humans displayed. They just couldn't resist killing each other...and they spent vast amounts of time and energy getting really good at it. One might even say it was their 'genius'. Now, why would a species devolve in that way, especially in view of the fact that it would almost guarantee their sooner than later extinction? It seems so perverse, doesn't it?
Well, it most definitely IS perverse. And, we are also seemingly unable to do a damn thing to change it. The Council of Elders--in Kwakiutl mythos, the Beings Who Sit at the Top of the World--has sent a series of messengers. In fact, there have been at least SEVEN major ones and countless lesser ones. All of these messengers have presented the humans with essentially the exact same message: be kind to each other. It's not complicated. I mean, of course, you can step all over it with intellectual bullshit discussions, but it remains the same in every case: just treat each other with respect and even kindness, if you can manage it.
How hard can that be? Well, for those fatally flawed humans, it was apparently IM-FUCKING-POSSIBLE!
But, why should that be such an insurmountable stumbling block for a species with such astonishing capabilities? These supposedly 'most intelligent' apes seemed utterly incapable of doing this one very simple thing. And, as we know now--from our long distance perspective--it did prove to be a challenge that the humans simply could not rise to meet.
They just had to keep hammering on each other. It was hard for some humans in that time to watch, and it was the cause of continual heartache, sadness and finally their demise. So, come on....there must be a good reason why a clearly gifted species of the Mammalian family, could not act in a way that would support their thriving. I mean, to do the opposite of what one knows will keep them safe is perverse. It's a means of committing suicide. Clearly. But the question remains: WHY?
And, if you think I am now going to tell you the answer to that ultimate question, then you will be disappointed.
Because, I just do not know. And, if you have an answer please do share it, because we are on the threshold of extinction. If we keep doing what we're doing....i.e. making war, trashing the planet and practicing a deep form of trance-like sleep-walking, it will be the last chapter of human history that we are currently writing.
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| Our epitaph: They Did This To Themselves |
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