Thanks Graham for your and Margaret Mead's definition of civilization. As a scientist, more as a physiologist I disagree that domination is in our DNA - neither is greed or cruelty. These are learned traits in which some people take pleasure. DNA, as we well know, codes for proteins that form us into plants, animals, insects, arachnids, fungi, slime etc. Europeans looked at themselves and liked what they saw, so they decided that by some magical thought formations they must be superior to other Homo sapiens - a very great fallacy. It is this fallacy that led to greed, cruelty and the desire to dominate not only other appearances of Homo sapiens but also other genders, and different emotions among their own kind. As a person of European (specifically Scots) heritage I'm rather ashamed of my type.
"In the DNA" is not, of course, a literal scientific observation. I don't think any scientists ever pointed to a portion of the g-nome and said, "This bit's our tendency to domination."
I'll take a banal example: when a new cash desk opens in the supermarket. Now, I will make an assertion: I always ask those in front of me whether they'd like to move to the new cash desk. Meanwhile, someone from behind us has already done so. That's the kind of petty domination that is inherent within us: the inability to invoke justice over our own actings when we see no apparent dishonour in taking advantage over another.
Thanks Graham for your and Margaret Mead's definition of civilization. As a scientist, more as a physiologist I disagree that domination is in our DNA - neither is greed or cruelty. These are learned traits in which some people take pleasure. DNA, as we well know, codes for proteins that form us into plants, animals, insects, arachnids, fungi, slime etc. Europeans looked at themselves and liked what they saw, so they decided that by some magical thought formations they must be superior to other Homo sapiens - a very great fallacy. It is this fallacy that led to greed, cruelty and the desire to dominate not only other appearances of Homo sapiens but also other genders, and different emotions among their own kind. As a person of European (specifically Scots) heritage I'm rather ashamed of my type.
"In the DNA" is not, of course, a literal scientific observation. I don't think any scientists ever pointed to a portion of the g-nome and said, "This bit's our tendency to domination."
I'll take a banal example: when a new cash desk opens in the supermarket. Now, I will make an assertion: I always ask those in front of me whether they'd like to move to the new cash desk. Meanwhile, someone from behind us has already done so. That's the kind of petty domination that is inherent within us: the inability to invoke justice over our own actings when we see no apparent dishonour in taking advantage over another.