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The biologist, sociobiologist and proponent of the idea of biodiversity EO Wilson (1929-2021) came up with the idea of “Stone Age Emotions, Medieval Institutions” to describe the human condition. More recently this has been expanded to “Stone Age Emotions, Medieval Institutions and God-Like Technology” to describe the desperately bad mismatch between our capacity for destruction (through nuclear war, biotechnology, nanotechnology, AI, war, deforestation and soil degradation, global-scale pollution affecting the climate and every single ecosystem).
Wilson came up with his meme after studying ants and relating hos observations to human society, and one might just as easily (and perhaps more accurately) replace “Stone Age” with “Animal”. He was very accurate with “Medieval”. Most popular philosophical, social and political foundations in our Western culture are not as modern as most people would like to think, and have in reality moved on hardly at all from the era post-Roman-Empire.
Extracting ourselves from this mess requires self-awareness. And self-awareness requires that our biology is not on survival mode - because in this state it takes over, runs and directs all so-called higher human functions of thought and relationality. It is simply not possible to rationalise or think our way out of the situation - because (as McGilchrist pointed out) how we think is determined by which side of the frontal cortex is dominant, and survival biology locks us firmly in the reactive, wannabe God, self-serving Left frontal cortex. It is also clear that institutionally almost all developed tecnological human societies have an interest in maintaining this state of biological emergency, and have many mechanisms to do so. Which allows a small number of incomprehensibly rich people to continue accumulating wealth and control (and continue draining wealth from) the entire planet.
Reconciling the Animal reactive instinctive self with the institutional structures necessary to run a complex society and taking control of the technology we have become so proficient with - requires significant changes in (and expansion of) how we envision ourselves.