How far has humankind progressed?

Progress is very irregular, but it is there. We have quite a few saints among the sinners.

We have come down out of the trees, and....ah....ah....ah....we have come down out of the trees.

Jeez!

I think that's pretty significant.

We have come down out of the trees to pee on our territory.

But at least we do not fill our shoes.

i think that to an extent we have lost our caveman mentality.

however, i don't think that sparks the end of evolution. although we may have stopped physically evolving, we are continually in society. Bees and Ants are two creatures that have stopped evolving all together. both have a very reigourous social structure, each worker knows its place and its job. there is a certain collective conciousness among them. i'm not saying that humans beings will evolve to this status, but i'm suggesting that we still have a lot of evolving to go in terms of soceity.

technology has removed from us many of our primal intuitions - everything we want is at our fingertips, at least it is for those of us that have the access and money for it. it is no longer the fittest who survive. instead, we have a hierichal and cohersive system of capitalism that results in the richest and the most intellectual surviving (or, at least, having the best of life). is this right? socialism has failed repeatedly, mainly because the majority of humanity *still* suffer from innate desires to dominate and exploit. once these have evolved out of our system, i would imagine that we will be left with the belief that we are all equal, and the preconditions for the establishment or a fair, democratic and equal socialist state.

To suppose we have "stopped evolving physically" is way over the line. There are huge physical changes that we already know about in recent history -- and there is no reason whatever to suppose that we have stopped.

I do agree that we have evolved philosophically -- but unfortunately, I think that our philosophical evolution is not keeping pace with our technological evolution -- and we now find ourselves at a moment in our evolution where we have the technical wherewithal to destroy ourselves (or damn near destroy ourselves) while not yet possessing the phychological growth to ensure that won't happen.

We scorn the "might makes right" idea, but doesn't all, and I mean all, land title come from the point of a gun? Or spear, club, or whatever?

apparentlymartin
It is still survival of the fittest or might makes right. Whether it comes in the form of money, guns, resources or whatever.

Not very far according to the following:Webpage Title
still the land of the male
thinking with his penis first
and the many repurcussions last
I wonder......are missiles phallic symbols

Some have said that of the Washington Monument.

This discussion reminds me of an off-Broadway play I saw fifteen or twenty years ago. It concerned a young American who had returned to the U.S. after serving in Europe with the Bader-Manhoff (sp.?) gang fully disillusioned. She was being interviewed by a liberal magazine reporter about her experiences and disillusionments, and came up with the conclusion that the desired goals will never be reached until we evolve to something that doesn't have the word "I" in the vocabulary.

quite well. we can incinerate millions in a single moment.

that is progress.

in 1914, the day after england declared war on germany henry james wrote to a friend, "the plunge of civilization into this abyss of blood and darkness is a thing that so gives away the whole long age during which we have supposed the world to be gradually bettering."

AH HA@! Snood, HOW could I have missed
such a BIG one!

Actually Flyboy - You have a very interesting
concept there - conversations which lack the
word I - what a novel idea, we ought to give
it a go, don't you think?

missiles
Babsdadeo, as in "guided muscles"?

i
While I believe (scratch that: know) that the self is an illusion, it is, I think, a necessary one which mankind has developed--in all cultures--because of its adaptive valule in the evolutionary scheme of things. The trick is to see it for what it is and then to act AS IF it were real. A word I would prefer to see absent from our vocabulary is "mine."

I see the huge barrier against which we must battle, if we are to truly become "civilized" human beings, is our own archaic nature.
As many have commented here, while there is a certain respect in society for the ideas of peace, freedom, equality, invention, kindness, etc., etc.,.....
all these fade away in the presence of greed, nationalism/patriotizm, private property, religious belief; all based on underlying emotional needs from the distant past, still working their poisonous tentacles to entwine our lives with vestiges of our primitive selves.

The "reptile" still governs!

And I add that I am thoroughly convinced that evolution is over (sorry Frank); we now have technological control over the forces that moulded our distant ancestors, and the random mutations that, of course, still occur today, no longer are tested in the crucible of eons to affect changes in our basic nature.

If we want to change humanity for the better, it must be a joint project - all of us - and it must be by conscious effort; none can afford to just "stand by" and watch.

evolution
Wow, what a thoughtful post, Bogowo. And SO well written. I know it's well written because I could read it without stopping once, AND because I came away remembering only what I agree with. Now I have to reread it to see if there is anything in it I would have you/us reconsider.

Human nature such as it is will win out. In the end any attempt to change IMO
will turn out to be an exercise in futility.