Wednesday, October 14, 2009

How Primitive are We?

The gist of an article I was reading this morning is that of all the predators in this world, the greatest predator causing harm to humans is other humans. Forget lions and tigers and leopards. While each of these animals claim a relatively few victims each year, the numbers are trivial by comparison to the multitude of deaths caused by various groups of humans against others. The same goes for the dreaded shark as well as the alligators that haunt one of my favorite targets for golf shots in Florida, i.e. the closest pond. The news reports have been spectacular this week in reporting that a golfer lost his arm because he reached down to retrieve his golf ball at the edge of a pond and an unseen alligator grabbed him for a snack. In the United States we make it easy to remain the number one predator of our fellow human beings. We murder more than thirty thousand people each year with firearms. What is it about the human condition that causes us collectively to blithely ignore what goes on before our very eyes as though it doesn’t exist? What is it about so many in our society through the mechanism of the, for example, NRA who want more of the conditions that lead to this mass destruction, rather than less? We kill, kill, kill and then look for more. We kill in the name of sport, religion or patriotism. As the bumper sticker might say, “we kill for no apparent reason”.

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