Two million years ago our ancestors began their journey toward today and for over 99.5 percent of this time they lived egalitarian lives, the survival of them all depended upon the survival of them all ? all respecting each life, cherishing each voice, displaying only fairness and not harming each other ? “love thy neighbor.” The land was their larder having no need for arsenical armies, labored laws, kindred kings and priggish priests. In short, except for the lack of American Idol, a virtual Eden!
This all changed about 10,000 years ago when populations began exceeding the ability of the hunter-gatherers to find food in their usual manner; tribes became villages, villages became towns and towns became empires and the armies, laws, kings and priests became necessary to control the population and gain over others; changing our multi-million year egalitarian history as fair and harmless creatures, where the world was viewed from a horizontal plane, where all things were brother or sister, into a hierarchical world, a world of vertical proportion ? hell, earth, sky, heaven; serf, lord, king, priest, God; parent/child, things definitely not being equal. We are barely freshmen in understanding this new system, barely .5 percent old.
The malady is not the violence of mankind ? man is not innately weak, a sinner, an evildoer, and not in need of salvation ? he is blameless as the star in space we wish upon. It is our societies, our hierarchical structures which compel man to act and think in ways that preserve these artificial constructs ? man himself is pure as the universe. Imagine.
Humanity”s short experience with hierarchy is perhaps the real malady, don”t pawn it off to us common men; how about a real miracle, by God, for one day of not having one person killed in war or by a greedy quest for power, energy, etc. Must only the dead see the end of war? Lowell Grant”s opinion of Feb. 3 asks us to be curious ? (thanks also to Norman Fleishman and Guff)! Do we really need purity rites, special handshakes and father figures running our lives or can we mostly figure it out ourselves?
It is said that the average American reads but one book per year; does this mean, that at this rate some conservatives can finish the Bible in their lifetimes?
Greg Blinn
Kelseyville
