Have we barely evolved from jungle beasts?
We have skyscrapers, space travel, instantaneous visual and aural connection with any person anywhere on Earth, and other transportation, communication and energy developments that would have been largely unbelievable little more than a century ago. And yet, in terms of our relationships to other individuals and groups on our planet we have barely evolved from the jungle beasts who killed and still kill each other for territorial protection or gain and for dominance. And we do it with the threat of weapons that can literally destroy all life on Earth. We have evolved in many ways from the beasts of the jungle, but in this respect it appears that we have barely evolved at all.
Killing perceived competitors for land and power has been endemic from the emergence of hominids millions of years ago to the evolution of Neanderthals and humanoids to present-day Homo sapiens — we human beings. At this moment deliberate mass murder of competitors for territory and/or power continues to take place in many places and on many levels. Most prominent are the Russia-Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas/Palestinian wars. We continue to act as the jungle beasts and the Neanderthals did, except we have learned how to kill each other considerably more efficiently and expansively.
War — deliberate planned mutual mass murder — has become an essential part of the structure and budget of almost every country on Earth, for some the most essential part. While only about seven percent of the world’s budgets is spent for war preparation, that amount is frequently higher than the amount for any other purpose. The United States 2023 “defense” budget is listed as 12%. The major powers are the largest spenders. Available data for 2023 shows the U.S. figure as $750 billion, China $237 billion, Saudi Arabia $68 billion, India $61 billion, United Kingdom $55 billion, Germany $50 billion, Russia $48 billion, and Japan $45 billion. We, the United States, spend more than the next nine nations combined. If all those funds were used for medical and social purposes instead, think what a huge improvement of life it would be for vast numbers of Earth’s current and future populations.
The ultimate absurdity that marks our world’s acceptance and even glorification of war as a solution to disagreements is the frequently referred to international “Rules of War,” in which countries have agreed to murder each other’s populations under specified rules. This is not to say that there have not been attempts to solve problems peacefully. At this moment in history we have a United Nations, designed to do just that. But individual country leaders and their supporters who ostensibly subscribe to the UN purposes and pronouncements are not able to overcome the solution of confrontational problems by going to war. Have we, in fact, as a group, actually evolved past the behavior of jungle beasts? If so, are each of us willing to show it in our commitments and actions by publicly opposing and stopping war as a solution for even the most grievous disagreements?
Ten thousand or a hundred thousand years from now — if we still exist and wars have not returned our planet to the apes — will people study how we have evolved from the behavior of jungle beasts or will they simply add us to the Earth’s history of wars and the accepted method of solving international disagreements?
Robert Hilliard, Ph.D., of Sanibel is a former federal government official, college dean and Purple Heart World War II veteran.
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Have we barely evolved from jungle beasts?
