Author: Albert-Laszlo Barabasi
War! Pollution! Overpopulation! Why are so many people so miserable, and why do they do such terrible things? Most people in our culture think it's because something is wrong with us--with human beings.
Daniel Quinn shows that it's because something is wrong with our beliefs or myths, and the way society is organized around them.
What is our present social organization called? Civilization. Yet, civilization has only been around for about 10,000 years. Humans were around for a long time before that. (Our understanding of the exact chronology is always being revised, but anatomically modern humans date back about 120,000 years, and different forms of hominids have existed for millions.)
All social animals have social organizations. Birds form flocks; bees live in hives, and humans were tribal. It wasn't a perfect system, but it worked a lot better for us than anything else. That's why tribalism lasted for so many millennia and still continues in some parts of the world. Our civilization is an attempt to improve on tribalism, and it has certainly spread quickly, but is it really as successful as we have been led to believe?
Ours was not the only civilization. There have been other civilizations, such as the Maya. The difference between us and them is that when things weren't working out, they were willing to abandon their civilizations. The very idea is almost unthinkable to us.
The idea that civilization is the last, best way to live, and other related beliefs, are what made our version of civilization spread so fast and far. Unfortunately, it is these same ideas that will ultimately destroy us unless we change them. Problems like pollution and overpopulation are the results of the mistaken ideas our social organization is based on, and not the fault of human nature itself. Humans are no more defective than eagles or daisies are.
Our civilization's mistaken beliefs are like lethal genes. You could also compare them to deadly disease(s). Lethal genes, and even deadly diseases, don't always kill you immediately. AIDS is the perfect example. It spread worldwide because its victims die slowly. Civilization has also spread worldwide, but it doesn't have to kill us.
The Maya melted back into the forest. We can't do that anymore because there are few wilderness areas left, but there are other alternatives. We can't go back, but we can go forward by creating new ways to live. We can find alternatives that work better before it's too late.