Toxic Humanity
I have to admit: being human is a privilege, no matter what society you are born in. And although it is commonly claimed that as humans, we can only think in human categories, there is also the fact that most of our brain is structurally congruent to that of species which we like to call “primitive”.
Now, when you look at the part of our brain that is specifically human, it’s located like a shell around the (evolutionary) older parts of our brain. It’s called the cerebral cortex, and, without further ado, the most uncomfortable piece of knowledge concerning it is the fact that it produces a substance called Phencyclidine, which is linked to symptoms of psychosis and self-destructive behavior. So, even when we have no way of definitely knowing which thoughts and feelings animals are capable of, this information gives us the clue that they are unlikely to imagine worlds different from the one we live in or voluntarily engage in behavior that hurts them.
Humans, on the other hand, are able to do these things, and in a way, that also defines us as humans. Added to this, animals depend on humans’ good will to survive, much like humans will depend on the good will of artificial intelligence, once it has surpassed us.
Some readers may have noticed the similarity between this article’s title and the fairly well-known term of toxic masculinity. The implication of that term being, of course, that toxic behavior is somehow specifically a male trait. Now, it might occur more often in males. But once you cross the threshold and start thinking that only male behavior is classifiable as “toxic” you’ve changed from reality to ideology. I don’t even need to make an argument here: whatever behavior you tend to describe as toxic, when you take an honest look around, you’ll find it in almost anybody, definitely not just in males.
Okay, the next obvious step would be to classify a certain kind of culture as toxic. Although a step in the right direction, what can we learn from that? Culture is something that develops along with history, and acknowledging that we live in a toxic culture doesn’t really give us a means to change the toxicity.
Well, not necessarily. The above paragraph suggests that there is no way to change culture, while obviously culture has changed all the time throughout history. It’s just not easy to do, and it can’t be done by anybody on their own, because culture is a way people live with each other. And what has worked best in changing culture is not telling people what to do, but showing them a way to live that inspires them to want the same for themselves.
Now, we live in capitalism, and when that is described as being without alternative, there is a lot of logic in that observation. Because what capitalism does is inspiring humans to maximize their desires, and that is a concept with extremely high viral potential, because it communicates the message that “once you accept capitalism, you can realize all your desires”.
On the other hand, the warning signs that capitalism might not work out for humanity that much longer have been abundantly clear for decades. We’ve been refusing to react to that information, maybe for a lack of ideas on how to change anything. But, the world will react to our behavior, and the longer we humans continue to pretend like we’re little children and can’t be held responsible, the less pretty this reaction will be.
There is this funny little saying about capitalism that the first half of our lives, we ruin our health for profit, and the second half we spend that profit trying to restore our health. Like every good joke, this contains quite a bit of truth in it, and… truth is also a pretty contagious virus. And of course, once the realization that trying to consume as much as possible we actually hurt ourselves hits enough people, a trend reversal might occur. And for that, quite a few signs have also been visible for some time now. Not as obvious, because almost nobody profits from increasing their visibility, but once you start looking for these symptoms, you’ll surely notice.
But what doesn’t help is the idea that half of humanity is useless or harmful just for the gender they were born with. Even if there is some truth to that idea, you have to take into account what behavior you induce by spreading this idea. Namely, you encourage half of humanity to try to hide away from society, refusing to participate. By refusing to confront the powers that really hurt us, we’ve only made things worse over decades. So, it’s time to let the healing begin.