As I detailed in The Tradeoff (p.549), our transition from a hunter-gatherer old way of life to civilization resulted in an exponential increase in our ability to have a powerful ruling effect on nature. As chapter 55 notes, The powerful ruling the old is called not of the way. That which is not of the way ends early. I’ve now come to consider the old as not referring to old people or things, per se. In truth, nature and the old are fundamentally synonymous, and now our powerful ruling affects many aspects of nature. In fact, human activity overall has been a powerful ruling hell-bent on controlling nature, or at least, circumventing all aspects of nature that we don’t like. We use our power to make life more comfortable and secure… and naturally so. It is just that we are excessively adept at wielding our power, which results in unforeseen and unintended consequences, like global warming.
Essentially, civilization concentrates, filters, and focuses human ability resulting in everything from architects to zoologists. As a result, society ends up with a range of individuals from the best of the best (e.g., Buddha) to the worst of the worst (e.g., Hitler) all of which have an unbalanced and outsized impact on every aspect of life on Earth—on the old. Chapter 16 describes this outcome perfectly… Not knowing the constant, rash actions lead to ominous results. As I like to say, this is what you get when you give machine guns to monkeys.
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice” is one of Martin Luther King’s famous quotes. To be more in accord with nature, I’d put it this way, “The arc of evolutionary history is long, but it bends towards optimal balance”. Humanity’s moral deficiency is the price we pay for the comfort and security of civilization. In the countless generations that preceded civilization, humanity lived in rather close balance with nature. Our problem isn’t really a lack of justice or morality, but rather the result of circumstances that make gross immorality and injustice possible. We all innately sense something is wrong ‘now’. I’ve no doubt that innate egalitarian instincts—fully expressed during our ancestral hunter-gatherer times—drives all utopian prophets, from Karl Marx on, to dream up schemes to fix civilization.
Fully facing up to the fact that civilization overall causes humanity’s most pressing problems can cultivate a broader sense of forgiveness and acceptance. Yet, I honestly wonder if society will ever be genuinely able to acknowledge civilization’s central role in humanity’s existential difficulties. This would be like fishes acknowledging that the water they swim causes their profoundest problems!