The Catholic Church – A Darwinian Perspective

My response to an article in today’s Telegraph on the beatification of Pope John Paul II:

“[the] sexual abuse of children by priests . . [which] he swept . . under the carpet, [was] hardly the conduct of a saint.”

Of course not. It was the conduct of someone more interested in the authority and POWER of the church he headed and so strongly and self-interestedly  identified with.

“This was the miracle that Vatican rules require for the beatification to take place at all (a second is now needed for canonisation).”

This, I think, illustrates the gullibility on which the POWER of the Catholic church depends.

“. . he did not win over the dissenters in his flock, but that didn’t stop him commanding attention and respect.”

“Flock” is an appropriate way of describing the “sheeple” whose belief in and identification with the Catholic church give it so much POWER. Although, if it works to your material advantage (as in the case of Catholic clergy and academics), you are more a shepherd than a sheep, with a vested interest in being gullible.

“ . . the enduring place in our national life of tradition and authority, [which for Catholics] the papacy continues to [serve].”

This, I suggest, reflects man’s deep and inherent tribal nature, which civilisation teaches us to suppress, deny, ridicule, trivialise or demonise (e.g. as “racist”), while at the same time manipulating and exploiting it subliminally for its own (perverted Darwinian) purposes.

Our original tribe having been usurped by the state and a money economy (civilisation), has left us with a profound emotional need for a substitute, be it the STATE itself (posing as our NATION), our religion, company, political party or ideology, football team, or whatever, all of which manipulate and exploit, but rarely truly satisfy, our need for tribal identity and loyalty.

Economic Growth: A Darwinian Perspective

In nature there is perpetual growth, at least in respect to successful populations, whose individual members then compete for resources, survival and reproductive success, thereby keeping the population fit and well adapted to its environment, at the cost, however, of all those individuals who are out-competed and perish. It’s harsh, but the way evolution works at this level.

At the level of an individual organism things are very different. Growth is carefully controlled and directed, where it is required, and stopped where it is not. When the control mechanism fails CANCER is the result.

Populations of human “prime apes” are no exception, although there is a strong subjective tendency to assume we are. It’s an assumption which is given some credence by the confusion resulting from most human populations having been organised into STATES, posing as NATIONS, which, when genuine, are a natural extension and abstraction of the individual’s original TRIBE, which developed, as a product of human behavioural evolution, as a kind of super-organism, a level of social organisation which the individual depended on and was thus subordinate to.

Only, the nations states pose as are not genuine, but inventions, to facilitate control and manipulation of the population in question as a “human resource”, and in more recent times, a market, to be exploited to the advantage of power, wealth, privilege and TALENT.

States do serve their “human resources”, of course, which are dependent on it, but as a shepherd serves his flock, not primarily for the flocks sake, but for his and/or his employer’s sake, for the meat and wool the flock provides and can be exchanged at market for MONEY.

The exploitation isn’t usually conscious, and when it is, it’s rationalised. Nor is the line between exploiters and exploited always clearly defined, certainly not in the modern world, although in the past it was much clearer, at least with hindsight, with aristocracy and clergy cooperating (one wielding the power of the sword, the other the power of the word) in creating the state itself in order to facilitate “society’s”, i.e. the peasants, exploitation to their shared advantage, while granting privileges to useful members of certain professions, such as bankers, merchants, some artists, inventors, etc.

In this context, it is also important to consider that human behaviour and emotions evolved in response to two very different environments: one intra-tribal the other extra-tribal, which the state effectively conflates and confounds, playing the role of our tribe (and intra-tribal environment) on the one hand, while at the same time, on the other, also facilitating society’s self-exploitation as an extra-tribal environment.

It is no wonder that in the modern world, where advancing technology and turbo capitalism have greatly intensified exploitation of both the natural and human environments, “human beings”, who didn’t evolve to be abused as a “resource” or “market”, should feel so stressed and confused, giving rise to so much anti-social and/or self-destructive behaviour.

In trying to understand politicians’ obsession with perpetual economic growth, the MADNESS of which, on our finite, vulnerable and overpopulated planet, one would have thought obvious even to a child, the following explanation occurred to me:

That it is perhaps an expression of the same instinctive, subconscious drive for reproductive success, which, in the artificial environment of modern “society”, it has come to supplement or even replace. The MADNESS of it to an unblickered intelligence, is hidden by ignoring or rationalising it, as if under the influence of some form of collective post-hypnotic suggestion.

Even now, despite the growing threat of overpopulation, politicians are still desperate to maintain, if not actually increase, their country’s population (by encouraging a higher birth rate and inviting mass immigration). The same also applies to the Catholic Church, which has many characteristics of a STATE, not least of which is its obsession with POWER.

The drive for reproductive success (increasing population) and power (which would greatly increase an individual’s (especially male) chances of survival and mating opportunities, made good evolutionary sense in the natural environment humans evolved in long before the advent of civilisation. But does it continue to make good evolutionary, or any other kind of sense NOW . . . ?

The answer to that question should be obvious. But unfortunately, our brains evolved to “interpret” reality (i.e. its environment, which now largely comprises the civilisation it has itself helped to create) to its own, highly subjective, narrow and short-sighted advantage, the most tragic example of which (although it has yet to play out) is the refusal of our political, business and media elites and leaders to heed the warnings, which began in earnest way back in the early 1970s, relating to the inherent non-sustainability, on our finite, vulnerable and overpopulated planet, of our rapacious, growth-dependent economy and the grossly materialistic lifestyles and lifestyle aspirations it both engendered and depended on.

British Identity: an Ideology!

British Identity is based, not on the natural, spontaneous mutual affinity of its citizens for each other, on the shared ancestry, culture and history which characterises a genuine Nation, but on an IDEOLOGY.

The ideology of “One Human Racism”; of a “Global Melting Pot”; of “Colourblindness”; of “Race Doesn’t Matter”, i.e. is of no social or political significance, except to evil “racists”.

It is the exact, but equally extreme, opposite of Nazi racial ideology, which led to the horrors of Auschwitz, from which it is directly derived.

In the aftermath of the Nazi defeat, it was an understandable response to their criminally insane racial ideology to insist that “race doesn’t matter”, especially since the Nazis saw fundamental racial differences even amongst Europeans, which, without their twisted ideology, no one else could see. Europeans are not a pure race, or a single people, but a mixture of very closely related peoples, amongst whom traces of slightly different ethnicities can still be seen, but not disentangled. Thus, nationality was based not on race, but on language and/or territory organised as a sovereign state.

However, the dictum of “race doesn’t matter”, which works naturally well amongst Europeans, because of them being so closely related (racially, culturally, historically and even prehistorically, as evidenced by the relative ease with which any European can settle and integrate into any European society, as well as by the success of the American melting pot of European immigrants), was then forcefully applied to humanity as a whole: no matter how different an immigrant’s or asylum seeker’s racial, cultural or historical background might be – it didn’t matter! And anyone who suggested that it did was branded a “racist” – like the Nazis.

And this, despite the obvious importance of race and ethnic origins for an individual’s sense of personal and group (e.g. national) identity: witness the continuing, spontaneous segregation – despite all attempts at desegregation and integration – of African (black) and European (white) Americans, and the “white flight” and segregation now characteristic of many European cities. Most people, whatever their ethnicity, naturally enough, want to live amongst members of their own ethnic group.

Yet our ruling elites are determined to impose a racial ideology on us (that “race doesn’t matter”) which goes completely against human nature.

The only alternative they say, is a return, via the inhumanity of Jim Crow and Apartheid, to Nazi racial ideology and the horrors of Auschwitz.

We are forced to choose between these two extreme ideologies, just as in the Middle Ages, people had to choose between Jesus and salvation, on the one hand, and the Devil and damnation on the other, and, of course, between the institutions (the church, political parties, etc.) associated with them.

Which brings us to the crux of the matter: power politics and the importance therein of laying claim to the “moral high ground”.

It was through its claim to the “moral high ground”, as God’s representative on Earth, that the Catholic Church was able to exercise such power and influence in medieval European societies. Everyone, even the aristocracy, which exercised the power of the sword over society, had to “believe” in, or at least pay lip-service to, Church ideology, no matter how absurd (as most of us now agree it was and is). Now it is the absurd ideology of “race doesn’t matter”, i.e. is of no social or political significance, except to evil “racists”, like the Nazi, we ALL have believe in, or at least pay lip-service to – certainly if you want a job in politics or the media.

But race and ethnic origins DO matter, socially and politically, and the sooner we put the “moral supremacists” who currently dominate society (mainly through politics and the media), just as the Catholic Church once did, in their place, admit this, develop a sound understanding of it, and learn to deal with it – in a rational, humane and civilised fashion – the better.