    2

    2

    2

    S ociological Association have joined the cause, absolving "natural man"

    of malevolence by endorsing "The Seville Statement," an international

    manifesto which declares that "violence is neither in our evolutionary

    legacy nor in our genes."3

    As a result, we are told almost daily that modern western

    culture--with its consumerism, its capitalism, its violent television

    shows, its blood-soaked films, and its nature-mangling technologies--

    "programs" violence into the wide-eyed human mind.  Our society is

    supposedly an incubator for everything that appalls us.

    However, culture alone is not responsible for violence, cruelty,

    and war.  Despite the Seville Statement's contentions, our biological

    legacy weaves evil into the substrate of even the most "unspoiled"

    society.  What's more, organized battle is not restricted to humans.

    Ants make war and either massacre or enslave a rival swarm.  Cichlid

    fish gang up and attack outsiders.4    Myxobacteria  form  "wolf  packs"

    that corner and dismember prey.5  Groups of lizards pick on a formerly

    regal member of the clan who has become disfigured by the loss of his

    tail.  Female bees chase an overaged queen through the corridors of the

    hive and lunge, biting over and over until she is dead.  And even rival

    "super coalitions" of a half-dozen male dolphins fight like street gangs,

    often inflicting serious injuries.6  Ants do not watch television.  Fish

    seldom go to the movies.  Myxobacteria, lizards, dolphins and bees

    have not been "programmed" by Western culture.

    A host of writers gained attention in the late eighties and early

    nineties with books that celebrated a return to a mothering earth.  They

    felt that if we scraped away large-scale agriculture,

    internal-combustion engines, televisions, and air-conditioners, nature

    would return to bless us with her primordial paradise.

    Unfortunately these authors held a distorted view of pre-

    industrial reality.  A pride of lions at their ease enjoys the kind of

    nature the radical environmentalists dreamed about.  You can see the

    smiles on lions' faces as they lick their paws and stretch out on the

    ground side by side, clearly pleased with the comfort of each other's

    <<  <  GO  >  >>