Life appears to be very rare, at least in our solar system. There are trillions of planets scattered throughout the universe, of course, and among them many may harbor life of some sort. If we survive long enough as a species, we might actually verify life on other planets. Big if.
Despite how miraculous and rare life is, we don’t treat the living things on earth terribly well. Our greedy, all-consuming nature considers the living world a “resource,” something to be used and exploited for our own pleasure and purpose.
To be sure, nature’s living system is ruthless. Life feeds on life; it doesn’t get more ruthless than that. But among earth’s creatures, human beings can reflect upon their own behavior. This has produced a range of ethical and philosophical views about what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable behavior that can buffer nature’s ruthlessness. I say “can” because our views can also promote forms of ruthless behavior, and often have. And yet, the opportunity remains to create a kinder world.
Is there such as thing as human nature? Like all animals, humanity evolved over millions of years, presumably transitioning from an unthinking creature with habits of instinct to one of habits of culture. The creation of culture in large part replaced instinctive habits of survival with collective cooperation, planning, and rituals that reinforced the survival value of culture. To whatever extent our more primitive instincts and behaviors survive, culture can suppress and discourage them. Accordingly, precepts against murder, theft, infidelity, and deceit form the moral basis of the world’s major religions. Creating a kinder world is a work in progress, and so is the definition of human nature.
I classify myself as a biophile, a lover of life. I don’t deny the ways in which nature is punishing, but we don’t have to add to it. Nature is punishing enough. Caring for others, be they people, plants, pets, or for that matter, rocks is an exercise in kindness. That we exist at all is miraculous and rare, reason enough to be kind.
How would you define kind? It’s not as simple as it seems. Is it kind to physically restrain another person from injuring themself? How much pain and suffering can be inflicted in such an act of kindness? This type of situation arises from the application of values, and values are an invention of culture. As such, we can find ourselves in personal conflict with the imposition of cultural values. Like ourselves, cultures evolve over time, discarding views while adopting new ones. In the process, humanity evolves in concert with culture.
Human emotions are slow to evolve, if evolve they do at all. Our emotional lives are embedded deeply in our brain’s neural network, and although we are rarely confronted by predatory animals like lions or bears, our reflexes and emotional responses actively respond to perceived threats, even if they just consist of words or rumors. Our allegiance to conventional reality – that words represent things – feeds such emotional responses, but conventional reality is not all there is. Conventional reality is the creation of culture, the prevailing narrative that we accept. Ultimate reality is far greater and beyond our basic perception and understanding.
Accordingly, I try to keep it simple, and as a biophile, I aspire to kindness.
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