And here is how I characterized the meaning of this parallel development, in the light of the inevitable struggles and dilemmas described by the parable of the tribes:
As the requirements for survival changed, the focus on the life processes of nature yielded to a preoccupation with the death processes of intersocietal strife.
I think that qualifies as the inhumane displacing the more humane.
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Ed Schmookler:
I find your brief summary of the Parable of the Tribes compelling, almost the level of clarity of the self-evident, as in, once you see it is, "Why didn't I see that before? It is now in plain sight."
I believe this is especially true now. In watching the Trump phenomenon and its unfolding, and in trying to understand its context, the ways of chaos and power are now much more fully exposed. Trump is a pimple on the butt of a long history of exploitation and dominance of non-white, non-male people. Our blindness to that obvious state of affairs is now dissipating, as people at the bottom of the society are raising their voices, and as many of those previously privileged are now on the short end of the stick.
The hopeful side of your message -- that conscious creatures have other, more whole dimensions of ourselves with which we could combat the direction our species has taken -- is also compelling, especially at this time, when people are awakening to the problem.
Since the problems are now demarcated as anarchy and selection for power, I would hope that it is possible to delineate specific steps that we can now take that would lead us in a different direction. That way, our lives could be spent with a clarity about how we can create a different world for our grandchildren and their grandchildren.
If you could spell out the outline of those steps, it would be a great gift.
Andy Schmookler:
Thank you very much, Ed, for your supportive words.
In terms of your hoping that I might indicate how we might transform the world toward greater wholeness, I need to request your patience for a while.
Here, below, Fred Andrle also asks for a "remedy" to the brokenness of the world. My response to that request is, at this point, little more than pointing in a direction: namely, the necessity of overcoming the intersocietal anarchy that the parable of the tribes identifies as having been the inevitable disorder that generated the inevitable brokenness that has plagued civilization and warped its evolution.
The subject of the possibilities of a better order -- more conducive to peace, less dominated by the reign of mere power -- also comes up in Jack Miles' comment, below, and in my response to it.
I acknowledge that these responses of mine do not amount to that "great gift" you would like for me to offer. But let me say two things about the present gap between the specific steps you would like to see delineated and what I'm providing here as a response.
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