67
sculptor carving a figure from stone, nature creates by destroying. Her
hammer and chisel strike over and over again. Each time there is a shower of
chips. And as the splinters pile up on the floor, a new form emerges where
the blade has been at work. The sculptor at the end of his day simply sweeps
away the heaps of useless dust and shards of stone. So does nature. But
those discarded scraps in the natural workshop are the bodies of creatures
who moments before were alive, creatures like you and me.
Nature creates by placing her inventions in competition with each
other. In the world of humans, the bloodiest of these contests is between
social groups. The voice of our meme's ambition tells us to pound our rivals
into submission and force them into servitude--servitude to the cluster of
ideas that sits at our culture's core.
The hunger of the superorganism and the ambition of the meme trap
us in a moral dilemma. Violence is the most appalling of human expressions.
Yet we cannot wish our way to peace. We cannot lash each other with
lectures, pound our chests with guilt, and voluntarily throw away our arms.
We live in a threatening world--a world of other human beings very much
like ourselves. And like us, our fellow humans are dangerous.
There is one small consolation in this grim picture. Snapping and
snarling at each other may be automatic, but holding, caring and
collaborating are built into us too. In one Harvard study, a group of
experimental subjects was shown a film. Watching the footage actually
boosted immune system activity. The nature of the healing cinematic piece?
A documentary on Mother Theresa, who has centered her life on helping
others. The mere sight of a work focused on kindness triggered a deeply
buried response in the human brain.171
We desperately need each other. And in that need is hope.
We must invent a way in which memes and their superorganismic
carriers--nations and subcultures--can compete without carnage. We may
find a clue to that path in science. A scientific system is one in which small
But there is a dark side to this movement toward the light. Like a
<< < GO > >>