So Human an Animal

How We are Shaped by Surroundings and Events

C. H. Waddington, C. H. Waddington, Rene Dubos

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351490719
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Ecologia

At least until cloning becomes the order of the day, Rene Dubos contends that each human being is unique, unprecedented, unrepeatable. However, today each person faces the critical danger of losing this very humanness to his mechanized surroundings. Most people spend their days in a confusion of concrete and steel, trapped ""in the midst of noise, dirt, ugliness and absurdity."" So begins the essential message of the work of one of the great figures in microbiology and experimental pathology of this century.Is the human species becoming dehumanized by the condition of his environment? So Human an Animal is an attempt to address this broad concern, and explain why so little is being done to address this issue. The book sounds both an urgent warning, and offers important policy insights into how this trend towards dehumanization can be halted and finally reversed. Dubos asserts that we are as much the product of our total environment as of our genetic endowment. In fact, the environment we live in can greatly enhance, or severely Hmit, the development of human potential. Yet we are deplorably ignorant of the effects of our surroundings on human life. We create conditions which can only thwart human nature.So Human an Animal is a book with hope no less than alarm. As Joseph Wood Krutch noted at the time, Dubos shows convincingly ""why science is indispensable, not omnipotent."" Science'can change our suicidal course by learning to deal analytically with the living experience of human beings, by supplementing the knowledge of things and of the body machine with a science of human life. Only then can we give larger scope to human freedom by providing a rational basis for option and action. Timely, eloquent, and guided by a deep humanistic spirit, this new edition is graced by a succinct and careful outline of the life and work of the author.

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THE
UNBELIEVABLE
FUTURE

Rebels in Search of a Cause

This book should have been written in anger. I should be expressing in the strongest possible terms my anguish at seeing so many human and natural values spoiled or destroyed in affluent societies, as well as my indignation at the failure of the scientific community to organize a systematic effort against the desecration of life and nature. Environmental ugliness and the rape of nature can be forgiven when they result from poverty, but not when they occur in the midst of plenty and indeed are produced by wealth. The neglect of human problems by the scientific establishment might be justified if it were due to lack of resources or of methods of approach, but cannot be forgiven in a society which can al ways find enough money to deal with the issues that concern selfish interests.

Unfortunately, writing in anger requires talents I do not possess. This is my excuse for presenting instead a mild discussion of our collective guilt.

We claim that human relationships and communion with nature are the ultimate sources of happiness and beauty. Yet we do not hesitate to spoil our surroundings and human associations for the sake of efficiency in acquiring power and wealth. Our collective sense of guilt comes from a general awareness that our praise of human and natural values is hypocrisy as long as we practice social indifference and convert our land into a gigantic dump.

Phrases like “one world” and the “brotherhood of man” occur endlessly in conversations and official discourses at the very time that political wars and race riots are raging all over the world. Politicians and real-estate operators advocate programs for the beautification of cities and highways, while allowing the exciting grandeur of the American wilderness to degenerate into an immense ugliness. Brush is overgrowing mountain slopes that were once covered with majestic forests; industrial sewers are causing sterility in streams that used to teem with game fish; air pollutants generate opaque and irritating smogs that dull even the most brilliant and dramatic skies. The price of power, symbolized by superhighways and giant factories, is a desecration of nature and of human life.

Aggressive behavior for money or for prestige, the destruction of scenic beauty and historic landmarks, the waste of natural resources, the threats to health created by thoughtless technology—all these characteristics of our society contribute to the dehumanization of life. Society cannot be reformed by creating more wealth and power. Instead economic and technologic considerations must be made subservient to the needs, attributes, and aspirations that have been woven into the fabric of man’s nature during his evolutionary and historical development.

The most hopeful sign for the future is the attempt by the rebellious young to reject our social values. Their protests indicate that mankind is becoming disturbed by increasing dehumanization and so may act in time to reverse the trend. Despite so many intellectual and ethical setbacks, despite so much evidence that human values are being spoiled or cheapened, despite the massive destruction of beauty and of natural resources, as long as there are rebels in our midst, there is reason to hope that our societies can be saved.

The social role of the rebel is symbolized by Honoré Daumier’s picture L’Emeute (The Uprising) in the Phillips Memorial Gallery in Washington, D.C. The painting represents a revolutionary outbreak in nineteenth-century Paris. A handsome young man, with outstretched arms and clenched fists, is leading a crowd which appears hypnotized by his charismatic determination. His expression is intense, yet his dreamer’s eyes are not focused on any particular object, person, or goal. He contemplates a distant future so indistinct that he probably could not describe the precise cause for which he and his followers are risking their lives.

Daumier’s painting does not portray a particular type of rebel, or a particular cause for rebellion. Its theme is rebellious man ready to confront evil and to undertake dangerous tasks even if the goal is unclear and the rewards uncertain. The rebel is the standard-bearer of the visionaries who grad ually increase man’s ethical stature; because there is always evil around us, he represents one of the eternal dimensions of mankind.

The nineteenth-century rebels symbolized in Daumier’s painting fought for political liberty and social equality. Today’s rebels also try to identify themselves with political and social issues, such as world peace, equality of opportunities for all, or simply freedom of speech for college students. There comes to mind the caption of a popular cartoon, “Pick your own picket,” which conveys with sad irony that civilized nations still have a wide range of social wrongs.

Rebellion, however, should reach beyond conventional political and social issues. Even if perfect social justice and complete freedom from want were to prevail in a world at peace, rebels would still be needed wherever the world is out of joint, which now means everywhere. Rebellion permeates all aspects of human life. It originates from the subconscious will of mankind not to surrender to destructive forces. But rebelling is not the same as defining a cause that would improve the quality of human life, or formulating a constructive program of action. Marching in a parade is easier than blazing a trail through a forest or creating a new Jerusalem. Daumier’s hero looks like many rebels in our midst. He is fighting against evil rather than for a well-defined cause. Like most of us, he is a rebel without a program.

Our society is highly expert in controlling the external world and even the human mind, but our relationships with other human beings and the rest of creation are constantly diminishing in significance. This society has more comfort, safety, and power than any before it, but the quality of life is cheapened by the physical and emotional junk heap we have created. We know that life is being damaged by the present social conditions, but we participate nevertheless in a system that spoils both the earth and human relationships. Most contemporary rebels, like the rest of us, are unwilling to give up the personal advantages so readily derived from the conditions we all know to be objectionable. Nevertheless, rebels play a useful social role; at least they voice our collective concern and make us aware of our collective guilt. But the acknowledgment of guilt is not enough.

Rumblings against the present state of things remain amorphous and ineffective largely because existing trends, customs, and policies cannot be changed merely by negative acts. Positive beliefs are required. Alternatives will not emerge through piecemeal evolution; their development demands an intellectual and emotional revolution. We cannot transform the world until we eliminate from our collective mind the concept that man’s goals are the conquest of nature and the subjection of the human mind. Such a change in attitude will not be easy. The search for the mastery of nature and for unlimited growth generates a highly stimulating, almost intoxicating atmosphere, whereas the very hint of approaching stabilization creates apathy. For this reason, we can change our ways only if we adopt a new social ethic—almost a new social religion. Whatever form this religion takes, it will have to be based on harmony with nature as well as man, instead of the drive for mastery.

We have already accepted in principle, even though we rarely put into practice, the concept of human brotherhood. We must now take to heart the biblical teaching, “The Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to tend it” (Genesis 2:15). This means not only that the earth has been given to us for our enjoyment, but also that it has been entrusted to our care. Technicized societies thus far have exploited the earth; we must reverse this trend and learn to take care of it with love.

On the occasion of the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1966, the American historian Lynn White, Jr., pleaded for a new attitude toward man’s nature and destiny. He saw as the only hope for the world’s salvation the profoundly religious sense that the thirteenth-century Franciscans had for the spiritual and physical interdependence of all parts of nature. Scientists, and especially ecologists, he urged, should take as their patron Saint Francis of Assisi (1182-1226).¹ But was not Francis one of the rebellious youths of his time—before the Church recognized that he was serving God by reidentifying man with nature? Francis, like Buddha, spent his early years in ease and luxury but rejected bourgeois comforts in search of more fundamental values. The contemporaries of both probably regarded them as beatniks.

The name Saint Francis and the word ecology are identified with an attitude toward science, technology, and life very different from that which identified man’s future with his ability to dominate the cosmos. The creation of an environment in which scientific technology renders man completely independent of natural forces calls to mind a dismal future in which man will be served by robots and thereby himself become a robot. The humanness of life depends above all on the quality of man’s relationships to the rest of creation—to the winds and the stars, to the flowers and the beasts, to smiling and weeping humanity.

Shortly before his death in 1963, the English novelist and essayist Aldous Huxley lamented on several occasions the fact that literature and the arts have not derived any worthwhile inspiration from modem science and technology. He thought the reason for this failure was that writers and artists are unaware of modem scientific and technological developments.² This may be part of the explanation but only a very small part. Like most other human beings, writers and artists are primarily concerned with perceptions, emotions, and values which the scientific enterprise must deliberately ignore. Yet scientists should not be satisfied with studying the biological machine whose body and mind can be altered and controlled by drugs and mechanical gadgets. They should become more vitally concerned about the nature and purpose of man. Only thus can they learn to speak to man not in a specialist’s jargon but in a truly human language.

The New Pessimism

As the year 2000 approaches, an epidemic of sinister predictions is spreading all over the world, as happened among Christians during the period preceding the year 1000. Throughout the tenth century, Norsemen and Saracens incessantly raided Western Europe, disorganizing daily life and secular institutions, pillaging churches and monasteries. The rumor spread that the year 1000 would mark the end of the world and that a new spiritual universe would come into existence. Even those who did not believe that the world would come to an end probably assumed that living conditions would be corrupted by the barbaric invaders.

Prophets of gloom now predict that mankind is on a course of self-destruction, or that, in the unlikely event of its survival, it will progressively abandon the values and ameni ties of Western civilization. Nuclear warfare, environmental pollution, power blackouts, the progressive erosion of public services constitute direct and obvious threats to human existence. Furthermore, social regimentation and loss of privacy may soon reach levels incompatible with the traditional ways of civilized life. The established order of things appears to be threatened by technological and social forces that increasingly dominate the world, just as it was threatened by the raiding Norsemen and Saracens ten centuries ago.

Many observers of the contemporary scene would agree with the following words by the American journalist James Reston in the most influential daily newspaper of the most prosperous city in the world: “The old optimistic illusion that we can do anything we want is giving way to doubt, even to a new pessimism.”³ Newspaper headlines daily seem to confirm the belief that the problems of the cities, the races, and the nations are beyond our control.

Apprehension is most widespread and expresses itself most clearly with regard to nuclear warfare, threats to health, the rise of automation, and other ill-defined consequences of scientific technology. Popular articles entitled “The Truth About . . .” almost uniformly refer to the dangers of technological or medical innovations. The new pessimism, however, has other determinants which transcend the fear of annihilation and affect the quality of life. In particular, science is being accused of destroying religious and philosophic values without substituting other guides to behavior or providing a meaningful picture of the universe. The disintegrating effect of loss of belief was pungently expressed a generation ago by the American philosopher John Dewey in his warning that a culture which permits science to destroy traditional values, but which distrusts its power to create new ones, is destroying itself. Man finds it difficult to live without ultimate concern and faith in the significance of his destiny.

The malaise has now extended to the scientific community itself. While all scientists still believe that the opportunities for the extension of knowledge are boundless, many are beginning to doubt the wisdom and safety of extending much further some of the applications of knowledge.⁴ In addition, there have been claims that limitations inherent in the very structure of the physical world may soon slow down, then interrupt altogether, the development of the scientific technologies which have resulted in the most spectacular achievements of our age. Airplanes cannot practically fly much faster than at the present supersonic speeds; electronic computers are approaching theoretical limits of speed and efficiency; high-energy accelerators cannot long continue to become larger and more powerful; even space travel will have achieved its human possibilities within a very few decades.⁵

The most important factor in dampening the euphoria that until recently was universal in scientific circles is the social and economic necessity of imposing directions and limitations to many technological developments. The current discussions concerning the advisability of devoting large resources to the manned space program have brought to light difficulties in reconciling the demands of certain technologies with more traditional human needs.

A few years ago, American scientists could state, “We must go to the moon, for the simple reason that we can do it”—echoing President John F. Kennedy, who in turn had echoed the statement by the English mountain climber George Mallory that Mount Everest had to be climbed, simply because it was there.⁶ Such statements are admirable to the extent that they express man’s determination to accept diffi cult challenges, whenever and wherever there is some chance that the effort will lead to spectacular feats. But dashing expressions do not constitute an adequate substitute for the responsibility of making value judgments.

There are many good scientific reasons for accepting the staggering human, financial, and technological effort required to explore space and to land a man on the moon. There are equally good reasons, however, for undertaking other kinds of difficult and challenging tasks—such as exploring the earth itself or the depths of the oceans, probing into the nature of matter and energy, searching for the origins of man and his civilizations, controlling organic and mental disease, striving for world peace, eliminating city slums, preventing further desecration of nature, or dedicating ourselves to works of beauty and to the establishment of an harmonious equilibrium between man and the rest of creation.

Laymen as well as scholars can think of many projects at least as important and interesting as space travel or lunar exploration, and just as likely to succeed. But limitations of resources make it impossible to prosecute all worthwhile projects at the same time. Hence, the statement that we must do something because we can do it is operationally and ethically meaningless; it is tantamount to an intellectual abdication. Like other responsible human beings, scientists and sociologists must discriminate; their choice of goals must be made on the basis of value judgments.

The problem of cho...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Introduction to the Transaction Edition
• Foreword
• Chapter 1. The Unbelievable Future
• Chapter 2. Man’s Nature and Human History
• Chapter 3. Biological Remembrance of Things Past
• Chapter 4. The Living Experience
• Chapter 5. The Pursuit of Significance
• Chapter 6. The Science of Humanity
• Reference Notes
• Index