Human Delusion Article I
 

It could be said that for the sake of todays, and future generations, we must change what needs to be changed in relation to how we see and think about the world. Sadly, it seems that the majority of people live in a kind of La La Land, and it's very difficult to convince them otherwise.

 

In his  book 'Thinking, Fast and Slow' Daniel Kahneman suggests something disturbing about the human mind: not just that we're susceptible to taking the wrong direction, or course of action, but that we're influenced by factors that are not at all rational nor conducive in neither the individual or social context.  The author’s point isn't that we're all irrational or unintelligent, but that our mental apparatus, which works so well most of the time, sometimes leads us astray in numerous ways.

 

Perceptions and Conflict: What we normally see regarding any dispute is that each side claims to have right on its side. However, from the point of view of the exercise of leadership and shared learning, a point of view that is very much lacking in all too many conflict situations, we are made aware that each organisation, each group and indeed each person views the world through a different set of filters depending on nurturing, nationality, culture, history, belief systems, education etc. Yet, in general we are unaware of these filters and their effect upon human perceptions.  As a rule we assume that what we see is somehow the 'truth'.

 

It is just such assumptions that very often impede solutions to local, national and indeed world problems. It is therefore imperative that we somehow become aware of the filters colouring our perceptions. Such awareness of our own, as well as our groups, or our organisations, limited perceptions will make us more sensitive to how others see and understand the world.  Perceptions being often imperfect it is important that we strive to see the world, the 'truth', from as many angles as possible before taking this, or that, action, or counter-action. Why? Well, as we ought to know from history that ill-thought out action can, all too often, prove to be very costly in terms of human suffering and protecting the living Earth

 

In “A Life-Centred World” (2015), E. 0. Wilson, Professor Emeritus at Harvard University believes that we are ready to create a more human-centred (I would add life-centred) world with humans becoming more honest and fully aware of themselves. (Again I would add: ‘and the life that surrounds us.’) For Wilson today we have created a Star Wars civilisation, but we have Palaeolithic emotions, medieval institutions and highly advanced technology.  For him “That’s dangerous.” Nevertheless, at the end of his book, the “Social Conquest of Earth” E. O. Wilson writes about the possibility of turning the world into a permanent paradise for humans that is arrived at via education and science.

 

However, the clock is ticking, and that is why E.O Wilson is devoted to a kind of environmentalism that is geared towards the conservation of the living world, the place we all share with the rest of life on Earth. Such an approach is something that could unify people across the globe, at least the vast majority of people. For him: “Surely one moral precept we can generally agree on is to stop destroying our birthplace, the only home humanity might possibly ever have.”

 

Meanwhile, there are certain things that can be seen as common sense that we should not do. That is to destroy the Earth’s forests, pollute the air that we breathe and the water we drink, or think that at some time in the future we can have other planets to live on once we have used up the life given resources on Earth. For E .O. Wilson: We can find what we need right here on this planet Earth for almost infinite lengths of time. Of course, that’s if we take good care of it. Finally, what we need is to build an understanding of what it is to be human, that is something we lack as a foundation for what we do both in the moral and political realm.

​