We have so far to go until we can authentically call ourselves ‘civilised’. With frontal lobes which take 25 years to reach biological maturity, and with social maturity ever-so elusive in our species, we need to turn to multi-disciplinary tertiary education to refine our minds and emotions.
At present we are ‘dangerous monkeys’: glorified primates who have the audacity to step outside of a reasoned ecological footprint through overconsumption (albeit the most wealthy of us have the largest and most disproportionate ecological footprints) and overpopulation.
We live in a virulent socially-pathogenic world with short-term rewards for behaviours which entail large-scale detrimental externalities thanks to a primitive system of exchange and production – i.e. capitalism.
Post-modern alienation is a bi-product of neoliberal capitalism, which accentuates specialisation and over-work at the expense and cost of universal polymath education and a work-life balance. Irrational cultural norms and (irrational) social facts are prevalent, and indicative of our crudity and infantilism. Of course these are sweeping generalisations and there are a lot of positives to garner a sense of self-esteem in the wake of it all.
I think Trumpism epitomises the ‘dangerous monkey’ phenomenon. To have such power and wealth, and yet to be so maniacal and to be such a megalomaniac is archetypical of grandiose and deluded dangerous primates who try to measure their superiority in terms of the myopic obsession with technology and language, and his superiority over other human beings by the wealth he largely inherited.
What’s the antidote? Holistic multi-disciplinary tertiary enlightenment in at least a third of the population! Then we can say we are enlightened primates with emotional prowess to go along with our awe-inspiring technological feats.
Henry Willoughby's Social Justice Blog 