I am concerned that things seem to be getting worse, not better. I have come to the conclusion that the reason is "us". We seem to have changed and not for the better. I go back to Newton and his laws of motion to try to understand what has happened. Objects don't move or change on their own. There has to be some kind of force that starts something moving and once that movement starts, it will continue until some other force or factor changes that course. If you follow this simple logic, then the next step is to see if we can find what that force was that started "us" in the wrong direction. I have no proof of this, but I think we were better in the past, though it may have just been a transitional state, like riding on a train while it passed a wonderful waterfall. The waterfall was not going to be there forever. However, I feel that something changed and "we" changed in the process. Now, how does Darwin and Merit get into all this?
Prior to all of what we call modern society, there was Darwin. Us humans have come a very long way while Darwin has ruled the land. It has only been during recent history that man has started making up rules and replacing Darwin's rules. We know Darwin's rules worked, because "us" humans made it this far. We do not know how good the new human rules are because they have only been tested for a very short period of time. One key to Darwin's rules was that they depended on "Merit". Darwin did not reward stupidity and thus "us" humans got smarter. Darwin did not reward laziness so "us" humans worked harder. Darwin did not reward waste, so "us" humans became thrifty. Darwin did not reward stealing or dishonesty, so "us" humans became more socially responsible. The bottom line is that Darwin rewarded "Merit" and that is what got "us" here. Now what have "us" humans done different?
It now seems that the word "merit" has become a dirty word. I heard on the News that a school in the East stopped rewarding the top students because it hurt the feelings of the poorer students. Rather than rewarding students who did their home work they treated those who did not do their homework as equals. I am sure that Darwin would have had a problem with this new policy, because when he tested the idea thousands of years ago, all of his test subjects died off. It was clearly a mistake as it is now.
I don't think that Darwin ever assigned some humans as "leaders" and others as "followers", this idea was the invention of "us" humans. Historically, us humans operated just like all animals do today and that is each managed themselves. They did not need a "leader" to tell them what to do or show them where to go, they figured out what was best for themselves. Hey, it worked well and it got us to where we are today. When us humans started experimenting with organizations, the units were very small, like family size. Leader based organizations seems to work well and the small groups were better off, had more food and a better chance of survival. In those small groups, individuals still had to do most things all by themselves and take care of their own needs. As the size of the groups grew, it became more and more difficult to manage the larger groups of humans. To solve this first serious problem, us humans invented punishment and the leaders gained more and more authority over individual members of the group. As you can see, this was a never ending progression that would, in the end, give the leaders total control over individuals in the group. Once a leader got to the top, it was such a nice arrangement that they did not want to give up the power. Next came the idea of "keeping it all in the family". That is how this business of Kings and Queens started. Now when you look back at it, do you think us humans really made "progress", or was Darwin correct all along?
In our schools and colleges today, we hear about programs that will, "develop the leaders of tomorrow". Did you ever think about why we need leaders? Can't we and shouldn't we take care of ourselves? Do you think that "leaders" know more about your business than you do? I don't think so. This is bringing me to my punch line. Rather than having an educational system that tries to develop 'leaders, why don't we have an educational system that develops "us" humans to require the minimum amount of government? I have used the example of Bee hives and Ant colonies as examples of systems that work on a distributed control system developed by Darwin that has worked for millions of years and will still be working after every human is dead. I would like to see our schools put as much attention to ways not to need leaders or governments as they do to promote more government. At many universities, Political Science is the largest department, while no attention is given to how we can do with less government. Notice that Darwin was not the one who invented government and he did very well with out it. Why don't we try "Darwin And Merit" for a change?
