Once we find our comfortable groove, we seldom do anything to change our habbits....
Until there is a Catalyst to thrust us into change, that hopefully leads to progress.
NPR's series RADIOLAB touches on this exact issue within its episode titled New Normal?
Within this episode, the hosts cover three stories about Human's ability to change. Before they share these stories, they went and asked folks walking the streets of New Jersey a short but anything but simple question:
Will War ever end?
A question that in one form or another has been asked for centuries. Something we all desire, but just how realistic is it?
The majority of peoples answers were in some form or another, "No, it is Human Nature."
So the folks at RADIOLAB took it upon themselves to see if things could change.
The first story covers a clan of baboons, an animal closely related to us humans, who originally act as any other baboon would act...
Aggressive, Territorial, Hierarchical, pretty much your grade A douche bag, hell, the males poop on each others heads as a sign of dominance.
Over time the Alpha males find a human trash dump and begin to eat from it. But after time the Baboons who had been scavenging from the human dump are infected with tuberculosis, and within weeks die. So with the Alpha males gone, the tension and aggressive attitudes the baboons had are now gone! Robert Sapolsky came to find out that with the aggressive males gone, the females began paying attention to the younger males, and through this early attention it diverted a lot of the tension. Still to this day this pod of baboons still act in a more kind manner.
In the second story, we hear about Stu Rasmussen, of Silverton, Oregon. Stu, grew up in a small conservative town, where everyone knows everyone, and no one has secrets. But Stu always felt different, and after working one night in his father's theater, he saw the movie "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." After seeing many themes about being transgender, and seeing other men wearing women's clothing, he decided to try it himself.
Over the years he slowly progressed with how far he went involving women's clothing. Until eventually he got breast implants, and continuously wore the clothes. The small town was accepting of his lifestyle, but not necessarily approving. Many of the people were taken aback by his lifestyle, and at a point it started to hurt his business. But over time, the people came to accept him. So much so, that he was voted Mayor in 2008.
Here is where the story gets great. When the Westboro Baptist Church got wind that a Transgendered man had been voted as Mayor of a small town in Oregon, they took it upon themselves to protest. But, the same townspeople who earlier were hesitant to accept Stu, start protesting the protesters! In fact the men who thought it was weird that Stu wore women's clothing started protesting in women's clothing
In the last story we learn about a Dmitri Belyaev, a Russian geneticist and clandestine Darwinian who lived in Stalinist Russia and
studied the domestication of the silver fox. Through generations of
selectively breeding a captive population, Belyaev noticed not only
increased docility, but also unexpected physical changes. The foxes ears no longer stood straight up, but flopped. Also their tails are no longer straight, and their fur starts showing more colors. Richard Wrangham a zoologist goes on to suggest that humans have also over time domesticated.
After listening to all of these stories, I had the opportunity to really ponder and delve into the question of whether or not we as human beings can change our so called nature. Actually it was a pretty ironic time, as I was doing military training and shooting at the range, but hey, it was peaceful.
(peaceful right?)
Can we change? Will war ever end?... Even after these great stories, it is still hard to believe that we can. Through my life experiences I have looked evil in the eyes. Sure, I think that humans can become better to each other, there will always be at least one person who does not share the values of everyone else, and within that there is always a possibility that evil and strife will exist.
The only way variables in humanity could be eliminated would be to take away free choice and freedoms, and in my opinion that is not living. The only way the foxes were domesticated, was by over a span of ten years killing any fox that did not have the desired jeans. Any solution like this is not only unrealistic by intrinsically evil itself. So if it was created from evil, is that a good solution?
But even though I believe humans can not change all the way to eliminate war and strife, I do believe we can improve and strive to be better to each other. Just as the towns people in Silverton first were not supportive of Stu, they ended up rallying around him and supporting him when he needed it most. I may not believe in world peace, but I do believe we can strive to achieve it.
Always Aim High, if you don't hit your target you have still accomplished something.
And as Bill and Ted say,
"Be Excellent to Each Other. Party on Dudes!"
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