Our esteemed scientists have spent hundreds of years researching and coming to the working conclusion that humans evolved over millennia from a type of primate to what we are today. It’s clear to me that this evolution still continues and you can see it from our physical changes as a result of our changes in diet, our skin pigmentation as a consequence of our various locations on the planet, but most importantly I feel, from our level of knowledge and understanding of everything around us – our intellect. Yes, you have always had very clever people in the population for thousands of years, after all chess is estimated to be at least 1500 years old and Socrates was alive about 350 years BC, just to give some random examples. The difference now though, is that the proportion of the population with an enhanced level of intellect is larger than it used to be. In the old days for example, only the high priest was allowed to read the Bible in Latin and what he said is what was God’s Word and no one could dare scrutinise the validity of his teachings. Now thankfully we are able to exercise our impetus and research things for ourselves.

In the animal kingdom there are various behaviours we have observed. In a pride of lions for example, you have the patriarch along with other males, the lionesses and the cubs, each with their responsibilities – a sort of structure to which their lives are built upon. Even when we go down to bees, you have a queen, soldiers, workers and these bees are born with features which mean that all they are to be in their lives is a worker or a soldier etc and there’s nothing else that they can do.

By and large we have followed this sort of structure ourselves for thousands of years and democracy has been the instrument with which we have been made to feel a little bit more equal and that we have an actual say in the way our society is run. We have taught ourselves that we can be whatever we want to be with study and hard work and we can rise to become the leader of our country and that, that honour is not only the preserve of a certain family or group of people.

This democratic system is part of our intellectual evolution and is what is pushing us further away from the structures of the animal kingdom. In most western democracies that used to, or still have a monarchy, these monarchies have been relegated to such a status that so many people don’t even know who they are in some instances and some have regular jobs like the king of the Netherlands who often moonlights as a commercial airline pilot. In developing democracies like Nigeria and Ghana, the monarchies there are influential by dint of the fact that they are monarchies and people are programmed to show reverence to such offices, but the government is firmly in control and if a situation were to arise where the monarchy and ruling government were to be at logger heads the monarchies would come out worse off. The monarchies that are still very well known, influential and have executive powers, in my view are those that are still closer to the animal kingdom. They tend to have an irrational belief that it is their ordained human right to rule, especially by force, and the people they rule have been indoctrinated to believe the same. Likely also fearful of the severe repercussions for not conforming.

Perhaps one day we will move away from the democratic system to an even more sophisticated one where merit and expertise is highly cherished and those in charge are those that have been able to show true leadership and expertise in the areas they are responsible for, with various committees and structures in place as checks and balances and to rotate the right people in the right roles. A sort of project management style system perhaps. But that would be for the very distant future and anathema to today’s world.

Luck

The late Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, 6th Duke of Westminster and one time richest man in the UK, once said when asked to give young entrepreneurs advice about how to be successful, that they should “Make sure they have an ancestor who was a very close friend of William the Conqueror.” And the ripple effects of that singularity (for want of a better word to describe an event that changed the course of history) from over a thousand years ago reverberates still today due to our animal instincts to conform to a certain structure. A status quo that gives a comfort of safety and survival by knowing one’s place in society, so as not to be conquered again. A niggling diffidence, so to speak. Thereby stifling the sort of social mobility experienced in other places that haven’t experienced such historical trauma.

Don’t get me wrong, some kind of structure and organisation is important in a civilised society but it should be one based on merit and not birth right. Should we push our kids to be the best they can be? Absolutely! Should we put them in charge because we were in charge? It might work sometimes but not all the time, but if they have merited it that would be more acceptable to the growing, enlightened populace.

Ultimately that resistance to change in how things are boils down to fear, doesn’t it? The lack of evolution or conscious taming of a strong amygdala. This explains a lot of racism, sexism, class snobbery, tribalism, populism, homophobia and any other form of discrimination or friction that manifests from a misplaced fear of danger perceived from the other taking something away from you, or even worse harming you. But what if we can speed up that evolutionary process in ourselves? Tame the amygdala and be more relaxed and open minded about others?

This can be done by persistent training involving regular exposure to other people away from our comfort zones. Generally speaking, the least fearful of the ‘other’ are people that live in cosmopolitan areas or people that are well travelled. They’ve developed a respect for their fellow humans and identified the similarities in all people. There’s nothing wrong with living in a village or suburb but do move around a bit and interact more.

The leadership style of an open and confident person can also be a strong foundation for the attitude of a people for many generations as Jacinda Ardern is currently demonstrating in New Zealand. A country can change its overall philosophy like Germany did after the Second World War with the concept of Vergangenheitsbewältigung or in English – coming to terms with the past – where they had to come to terms with their role during the Holocaust and undergo a change in psychology in their outlook of themselves and the rest of the world. And after the passing of Charles XII in Sweden in the 17th century, the country moved from a violence and dominance oriented one to a more peaceful and prosperity focused society where intangible nationalistic patriotism diminished and tangible improvements to people’s quality of life became more of the focus in that society.

A figure head in the animal kingdom achieves that status through pure strength. Domination. Power. Are we still animals that need to influence our environment by sheer brute or are we a level higher with the ability to cooperate and improve everyone’s lot? Do we want to live in a society where the Donald Trumps and Kim Jong Uns of this world can make up for their phallic short comings by gorilla style chest beating or a bombastic brutality of the kind that is exercised in the animal kingdom? Is that what we want to follow as a human race? Most human beings are motivated/influenced by charisma, baritone voices and height, which I see as an animal trait but the more sophisticated we get, the more we can look beyond those superficial signals. Obviously we would never want to lose the urges linked to love and sex, otherwise human existence would be more practical than exciting.

Article 2 of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty states: “The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to the Member States in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail.” I think this is more the traits of a sophisticated and more evolved species than the former examples.

Also, always ask why. I call it asking why to the nth degree. That is to ask why until all the reasons for being told to do something is clear and makes actual sense. Because people don’t ask why to the nth degree they find themselves regurgitating things that simply sound crazy when you properly analyse what’s being said. For example, “I will kill you for talking bad about our leader”. If the person who thinks this way asked themselves why and answers it and asks why again to that and so on to the nth degree, they will soon realise that what they’re saying is simply crazy. You can apply this to so many aspects of life: ‘Those people are bad. Why? Because they steal. Why? Because it’s in their blood? No that sounds crazy. Maybe it’s because they’re poor. Why are they poor? Because. Why? Because. Why?” …and so on. By the end of this internal dialogue you will find that you’ve painted a different picture in your head and nuance becomes more prominent in your understanding of the world around you. Then empathy, which is that characteristic that makes us really stand out as sentient beings will fill us more than psychopathy, which is on the other end of the spectrum.

So I ask you reading this today, where are you in your evolutionary stage? Are you reactionary and suspicious of others that don’t look, sound, dress or have the same beliefs as you? Or are you open minded and considered when it comes to people that don’t have a similar background or come from the same arbitrary land mass as yourself? Do you perpetuate stereotypes because it’s easier or do you actually stop to look at the facts and have an open mind about others you don’t know? These are the characteristics in my view that distinguish us from the rest of the animal kingdom and the more thinking we are, the more that evolution is reflected.

I would like to dedicate this blog to Nipsey Hussle who was sadly killed so senselessly on 31st March 2019. After becoming a successful rap artist you stayed behind to make a difference to your community in a hands on way, but someone decided to kill you because they felt they were disrespected by you. I wish they would have asked themselves Why? to the nth degree as to why that was a good idea and realised how crazy it actually was. RIP.