Because You Never Asked

     (The two essays that make up this series were written somewhere in the late 90's. As a timely explanation for the barbaric wars the Anglo world is currently waging in the Middle East, they have become more timely than ever.)

     A certain part of not just the human condition but of all life in general, is the tendency of the strong to appropriate what was once someone else's. If we limit such discussion to our own species, we find that our behavior is not all that different from the lower life forms. What separates us is the twisted complexity of our motivations.

     The technological control with which we've tamed our environment has eliminated a primal kind of in-the-moment survival conquest. We, unlike the other life forms, don't conquer purely to survive. The complexity of our emotional makeup --- which is no doubt the result of the ease with which us humans can survive, thus providing the idleness with which to so complicate things --- has made humans subduing humans much more an emotional battle ground with hazy catalytic agents.

     One can only be imprecise in trying to decide when human conquest began to take on these more emotional aspects that went beyond mere animal survival. Undoubtedly, the concept of agriculture, with the production of a reliable food source for large groups of population, has to be considered a major step in this direction. This provided the opportunity for a more sedentary lifestyle, leading to the development of settlements, cities, and the cultural evolution which leads to an identity culminating in a nation-state. One can almost hear King Grog's version of a Press Secretary saying something like . " . we build palaces and temples, irrigate our fields, provide for successive generations, we have survived, prospered .we are civilized and the rest of you bathe in cow dung."

     Perhaps we can nebulously claim this all began about 10 to 15 thousand years ago in places like China, the Fertile Crescent, the Nile Valley and the Maya-Inca realms of the Western Hemisphere. From that time on, human conquest became more an exercise in enrichment than survival. The various social organizations which became recognizable socio-political entities began vying with each other in a Darwinian struggle not so much for survival but predominance. None of this bullying had to be justified. To the victors belonged the other's women, such dominance being sufficient proof that the conquerors were correct in their actions. The losers deserved no mercy. They were, ipso facto, an inferior entity whose existence was inconsequential. It's riches could be appropriated and its population exploited for whatever reason the winners had in mind. In truth, not much different from animal behavior on all evolutionary levels.

     But as the centuries began to slide by, some slight nuances began to appear, maybe not such that the panorama just discussed has changed substantially, but perhaps enough to have sown some as of yet unsprouted seeds of emotional progress.

     One of the exclusive traits of human beings is to yield cult or tribute to unseen, mysterious forces that somehow control or regulate our lives --- Gods and religions. Back in those shrouded hunting and gathering days, when Darryl Hanna was driving the cave men wild (have you seen that movie?), a God was simply a thing called upon for protection or mercy. But once the food got planted and the caves gave way to towns, cities and nations, complex rituals and ways of life began to embellish these Gods. The rulers on Earth were often seen as the descendants or messengers of these Deities. The conquest of one another could now rest upon the fact that your socio-cultural entity had "The Word", that your God(s) was the correct one. We come, we kill, we rape, we take, and what we've done is no different than slaughtering a pig because we have "The Way" and the rest of you bathe in cow dung. At this point, there is almost no interest in spreading "The Word", but it is ample enough justification for the further enrichment of the stronger entity.

     Then, about two thousand years ago, along come the Christians. Fifteen hundred years later, the nations representing this religion are beginning to become the dominant force on the planet, beginning with Catholic Spain. The Spanish conquests of the 16^th century added a nuance of morality that had perhaps never existed before, even if it turned out to be the usual smokescreen for selfish enrichment and exploitation.

     Certainly, the lure of gold first, and, once the disappointment of its scarcity became evident, the realization that a rich and verdant land was out there for the taking, were the primary motives for the Spanish conquest that has left such an indelible mark on the Western Hemisphere. But the whole story could not be told without mentioning the religious fervor which was certainly an important part of the conquering team's game plan. There was a genuine desire to bring the faith of Jesus Christ to the "heathens", to show them the error of their ways, to "civilize" them. For perhaps the first time in history, a moral element had been used by the usurper to justify its acts. They weren't just subduing the losers, they were "helping" them. (The Protestant missionaries of the non-Latino conquests were doing much the same thing, but they were more a side show, not being as state sponsored as the Spanish-Portuguese conquerors).

     But the Spaniards could materially exploit their conquered subjects without guilt --- which was the real goal, just like the less sanitized conquests of old --- due to a delicious little nuance contained in the religion they were so fervently "civilizing" the heathens with. Happiness in this life was not the goal of the Catholic religion. (The Protestants weren't that devoted to such a concept. The Dow Jones in New York, the Footsy in London, and the Dax in Frankfurt are not Catholic inventions). The idea was to suck it up in this life, be good, and find the "Glory" in an eternal life thereafter. How convenient; cut the cane, pick the coffee, plant the corn, "tally" the bananas, accept our religion, make us rich, and in the next life . thank you very much.

     It is somewhat ironic that the original attempt at conquest with a moral element produced such stratified, unjust societies where the few exploited the so many . and still do.

     Which brings me to . (see essay "The History of the World, II").