Evolution is an
amoral but inexorable process, aiming for justice by chance,
with avowed selfish intentions and lacking foresight or
premeditation. In its mindless pursuit of this goal, it reveals
its schizophrenia in a pragmatically mixed approach. As Lynn
Margolis postulated, the evolution of an eukaryotic cell
involved a symbiosis between an anaerobic prokaryotic organism
that engulfed another prokaryotic organism, which evolved to
metabolize oxygen to generate ATP. Oxygen was a by-product of
chloroplast bearing organisms that acquired the ability to use
solar energy to manufacture essential ingredients of life while
liberating toxic oxygen.
Once an eukaryotic organism was formed, it had two sets of
self-replicating molecules based in the nucleus and in the
organelles (chloroplasts and or mitochondria which served as
the factories for producing ATP). Somewhere along the course of
evolution, this organism chose to divert from clonal binary
fission to sexual reproduction as a means of successful and
prolific propagation to combat faster evolving parasites or
escape the road to extinction by statistically unacceptable
rates of mutation while copying the genome.
Historically and philosophically, its first and current choice
for the subservient engulfed partner was devoid of justice and
an unfair pragmatic compromise. All living creatures that we
know of take an unfair approach of destroying the mitochondria
of the fusing "male" gamete with indiscriminate injustice
without mercy or concern. Interestingly in the case of nuclear
chromosomes, evolution has gone to unbelievable lengths to
ensure a fair division. The best proof of that is meiosis which
contrarily quadruples the cells and nuclear chromosomes and then
indulges in halving twice instead of once, to whittle down the
chromosomes to a single set in the haploid gametes. This is to
combat segregation distorter selfish genes that could bias their
own propagation by taking advantage of the lottery of a single
division.
This incredibly fairly dispensed justice conflicts diametrically
to the unfair disregard for male mitochondrial chromosomes and
their merciless planned extinction. The uncertain rationale for
this is avoidance of civil war that would handicap the selfish
purpose of ensuring the survival of nuclear genes dependent on
the mitochondria for their existence in an oxygen rich
environment. It could be an inexplicable sacrifice of justice
for historically accidental or selfish purpose. Thus the seeds
of injustice have been sowed in living creatures for nearly two
billion years, but do not constitute a rational justification
for its persistence in the present.
From the unconscious early evolution of justice in the battle of
nuclear chromosomes to the present day partially successful
state of behavior of Homo Sapiens is a long saga of the dark
middle ages. There is no evidence of a clamor for or even a
concept of justice in deer, gazelles or impalas to counter the
predation by lions, tigers or cheetahs. There is a slight effort
to divert the attention of the predator by enticing it to spare
the helpless progeny by parents but it is feeble, half-hearted
and directly proportional to parental investment in the progeny.
The buffalo fully capable of fatally goring a lion, do not team
up in a group to save a fellow buffalo from the predator. In
birds and reptiles, this strategy is limited and variably
prevalent, and in frogs and fish non-existent. The behavior is
strictly proportional to parental investment in the young.
Forgetting an inter-species sense of justice, even in the
intra-species competition of male elephant seals, evolution
shows no inclination towards justice or fairness. In elephant
seals, the dominant males a mere 5%, impregnate all female seals
by dominating a large harem, while nearly 80% of the young
males’ genes are doomed to extinction. There is no concerted
effort by the deprived have-nots to redress the wrong by an
united rebellion against the oppressive tyranny. Thus the level
of brain evolution has no concept of inter-species or even
intra-species justice, until we come to primates and the human
history of the French, Russian or Iranian revolutions.
It is only in primates as shown by many primatologists and
anthropologists that fluid alliances for selfish goals leads to
a modicum of behavior remotely resembling a quest for justice or
injustice, but still darkly tinged with personal gain.
Regrettably even in humans, the bulk of the aspirations of
justice are darkly colored by personal benefit, despite a small
coterie of genuinely decent people. What changes with the
evolution of the human cortex is that this selfish desire
becomes more universal. It modulates the behavior of the still
exploiting power elite, to portray an appearance of concern and
justice. It may be only to fool, pacify and benumb the mercurial
aspirations of the ignorant masses with short attention spans,
limited intellect, profound ignorance and apathy. Nevertheless,
the golden rule of do unto others as you would have them do unto
you takes solid root in human behavior. America is a classic
example of these failings of human nature.
It is perfectly rational from an individual American soldier’s
point of view to develop a pathological hatred and sub-human
view of insurgents who unfairly try to kill them. The natural
tendency is to over-react and be mercilessly hostile, but this
is a vicious cycle with greater long-term damage, individually
and economically. It is not the fault of individual soldiers.
They react like normal human beings with their evolutionary
baggage. It is the crime of the leaders who should know better,
hopefully because they are smarter and see the bigger picture.
The critical fault of American and many democracies is that
leaders are not chosen for their ability, wisdom or foresight,
but because they appeal to the baser instincts of humanity which
are far more prevalent, pervasive and enticing.
The greatest problem with American foreign policy is that it is
mired in the colonial era, where we could exploit the ignorance
and lack of cohesion of American Indians, African slaves and
third world crooks willing to enslave their populations for
personal gain. Times have changed. We however, like old generals
addicted to successful strategies of the past, anachronistically
persist in these Procrustean policies to our own detriment. In
the process, we bankrupt the country for the benefit of a few
political contributors, oblivious of the fact that the former
submissive have-nots have turned militantly aggressive.
The beauty of Rawl’s theory of justice is that given time, all will
wise up to the fair play necessary to create unintended
equality, from selfish purposes. If we fail to adjust and keep
up with these changing circumstances, we are destined to be the
world’s pariahs and go to a debtor’s prison of impotent
haplessness.
The human quest for justice is and will always be flawed. The
Egyptian concept of Mat, where a man’s heart was weighed against
a feather, the Chinese concept of the mandate of heaven, the
Hindu opiate of Karma and rebirth to control and constrain
have-nots into subservience, the pathological hatred of life and
resignation to the unfairness of life of Buddhism, the promise
of greater rewards of Christianity in afterlife, are all passe
and get no audience. We are then left with the Islamic believers
who put no value on life and are willing to die for their cause.
They are exploiting a chink in our armor and this is not a plea
to give in or kowtow to them, but to sober us from our
intoxicating hubris to desist from wanton provocation. It
wouldn’t hurt to make a genuine effort to redress their
legitimate grievances, as any good Christian would want to do.
Human justice like human virtue is based on blind dogma or sheer
convenience. Thus the ills of society are destined never to be
righted. Vested interests and the inherent conflicts of human
nature constrained by evolutionary need for power and money as a
means to profligate mating, propagation and selfish personal
comfort, leave no hope for utopia on earth. This is what has
allowed the snake oil of religion and afterlife to flourish even
in the enlightened scientific age of the present.
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