If the planet’s age, at 4.5 billion years, were put into terms of a 24 hour clock, all of human (homo sapien) existence has occurred roughly in the last 2.88 seconds. In other words, figure that the earth’s ‘party’ started at 12:00:00 AM, we arrived late at 11:57:05 PM that same day, and in those nearly three seconds we have infested the joint and set the course, as I see it, for humanity’s natural exit. This makes us no better, or worse, than 99.99% of all other living creatures that have come and gone in 4.5 billion years.Humans conflict by nature. Some might say that conflict is the essence of our advancement and to-be short-lived dominion. All the while, we search for leverage to dismantle our tendency to fight with each other. 'Do this, do that, shut your mouth, get out of my face!' But, we continue to lose the war for peace. North fights south, black fights white, Jew fights Muslim, male fights female, young fights old, and so on. Perhaps the fighting is inevitable.
The conflict goes farther than just with humanity. We conflict outside ourselves, with nature. We conflict inside ourselves, about who we are and why we are here. Finally, we conflict with the unseen, the God that we believe created us. We assert and immediately defy Godly rules. Challenging our natural tendency, or need, to conflict is our ultimate battle, and if we ever win, it just might be our unique undoing. But we won’t win, and our status quo undoing is our back-up plan.
To err is certainly human, and forgiveness may be divine, but conflict floats our boat. Without it we are toast. With it, we are also toast. So I guess what I’m saying is that the earth will live on, until the universe un-big-bang’s itself, but humanity is toast. Personally, I’m agnostic about toast. So, you live the moment in the toaster, with your favorite spreadable waiting, knowing that when it’s gone, it’s gone. And that will be OK.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled conflicts…
James C. Collier
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Technorati Tags: Black vs. White and Other Tales from the Toaster, Conflict, Nature, Evolution, Acting Black, Acting White
4 comments:
Conflict between groups of people is NOT inevitable. The vast majority of people throughout history (by the way,the comparison between the planet's age vs. humanity's existence is right on the money) want to live in peace. It's the LEADERS that foment conflict-usually for personal gain. When people are given the ability to replace weak and/or ineffective leadership,we will-I feel the election of Obama is a near textbook example of this...
It is not human nature to fight, all of these conflicting groups you mention have causes rooted in the capitalist system. All of these fights are over the means of production: the jews fight the muslims for control of natural resources in the west bank, the global north fights the global south so that the south's labour and resources can be used to make commodities for the north, the black man fights the white man because the ruling elites have worked to create an environment where the working class is divided on racial lines so that black and white working class unity can never exist, etc, etc.
it is not inevitable that humans should fight, there are enough resources on this earth to sustain the human race without damaging the planet, the problem is that 90% of these resources are controlled by 5% of the population. When we have a system of prodution that is used for the purpose of fulfilling human needs instead of pursuing endless profit there will be no such conflicts because there will be no reason for them to occur.
I see you believe in Darwinisn..Although I dont believe the earth is just 6000 years old, i also don't believe in millions of years...Darwin was one person that believed that the average black was no smarter than an 11 yo white boy, and his book came out in 1859; only a few years before the Emancipation proclamation
George, are you suggesting that our Capitalist system be replaced with a Communist one?
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