The Virtual Rambler

Number eight: 12^th July 2010

Human Nature

Since the earliest humans retired at the end of a hard day’s foraging , speculation has gathered about the constitution of animate beings and the distinction between what we may conveniently call their bodies and their souls. Bodies have gradually revealed their secrets to successive generations but the soul , or spirit (pneuma) remains an entity clouded in swirling doubt and nagging uncertainty. We may still choose to grapple with one or another mystical theory proposing a systematic effacement of ‘the natural self ’ , suspending the activity of our regular sensory perceptions , appetites and emotions to a 'higher' end. But most human beings want those activities to continue , not because they are ‘weak’ and anxious for a ‘good time’. They know that on balance , life involves more than its fair share of suffering , and occasional fun and games are not to be sniffed at. By contrast , the sage resolutely turns his back on the innocent pleasures of ordinary life in order to gain a deeper knowledge of an ‘inner spiritual reality’ whose existence is unknown to the workaday world⁽¹⁾. A South African called Eugene Marais, published a series of articles between 1925-26 under the title Die Siel van die Mier ( usually given in English as the Soul of the White Ant). These introduced the prescient insight that a termite colony should be considered as a single organism. His work was plagiarised in 1926 by the Dutch Nobel laureate Maurice Maeterlinck , who published La Vie des Termites (translated into English as The Life of Termites) a book which has been called a classic example of academic plagiarism. So much for the noble pursuit of scientific truth.

From the 1960s onwards , several propositions were put forward by way of direct routes to self-knowledge. Some favoured the ingestion of psychotropic drugs , others favoured meditational schemes and/or yogic postures. Thus inducted into suspended conscious animation , they report on an inner land of peace and the temporary cessation of otherwise habitual intimations of conflict and stress. Psychological explorers have tracked the subterranean soul into a post-Freudian red-light district governed by the triumvirate of Ego , Id and Superego. A familiar situation here , with the solitary Ego caught unwittingly between Rojos of the Id and theBaxter ranch of the Superego ⁽²⁾. We might suppose that everyone who examines their own life has access to some sort of truth about themselves but the temptation to disguise or embellish often proves an opportunity too good to be missed. When we contemplate the widespread participation in winter games of sport , whether amateur or professional , we conclude that men in particular must register a secret pleasure in donning a pair of shorts and baring their legs. If an equal warmth suffuses each memoirist as he bares his soul to the world , this can be ascribed to the fact that most of us nourish an heroic idea of ourselves at heart , however lowly our situation and modest our abilities.

We have entered the realm of the personality. Our unique character and charming idiosyncrasies can now be paraded electronically on Facebook and they are implicit in the twittering question “ What am I like ? ”. Envisage some visiting extra-terrestrial consulting that microcosm of the modern world , television , in order to assess what earthlings were like. They would gain an impression of creatures in thrall to images of sex and violence when they weren't being advised on property investment or watching cooking competitions. Some anthropologists have proposed a scheme of human development whereby the 'discovery' of cooking made digestion of foodstuffs easier and , over the requisite pasage of time , a shrinking intestinal tract released evolutionary energy for an expansion of brain capacity. With pleasing narrative closure , the bigger brain eventually came up with television technology and enabled nightly homage to the agency that set homo sapiens on his way. We cooked , therefore we are.

Wig.

⁽¹⁾ Many such theories follow thick and fast in the indispensable tome Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism by Gershom Scholem, peace be upon him.

⁽²⁾ Reference to the plot of A Fistful of Dollars, the first ‘Spaghetti Western’ and Clint Eastwood’s breakthrough film.

Archive

Virtual rambler #1 – Posturing, 9^th March 2010
Virtual rambler #2 – Managerialism, 17^th March 2010
Virtual rambler #3 – Nostalgia, 27^th March 2010
Virtual rambler #4 – The Alpha Male, 13^th April 2010
Virtual rambler #5 – General Elections, 3^rd May 2010
Virtual rambler #6 – The Leisure Industry, 15^th May 2010
Virtual rambler #7 – Guide to The World Cup, 15^th June 2010
Virtual rambler #8 – Human Nature, 12^th July 2010
Virtual rambler #9 – Communities, 13^th August 2010
Virtual rambler #10 – Worlds Apart, 6^th October 2010
Virtual rambler #11 – Dawdling, 22^nd November 2010
Virtual rambler #12 – ELVIS, 24^th December 2010
Virtual rambler #13 – Transience, 4^th February 2011
Virtual rambler #14 – Regional Accents, 15^th April 2011
Virtual rambler #15 – The Afterlife, 21^st July 2011
Virtual rambler #16 – Bizspeak, 27^th August 2011
Virtual rambler #17 – Night Walks, 3^rd October 2011
Virtual rambler #18 – Bob Dylan and Charles Dickens, 8^th November 2011
Virtual rambler #19 – Another Nutty Professor, 16^th December 2011
Virtual rambler #20 – Customer Choice, 16^th January 2012
Virtual rambler #21 – Wearing Shorts, 18^th February 2012
Virtual rambler #22 – A Brief History of Progress, 17^th March 2012
Virtual rambler #23 – The Myth of Sisyphus, 16^th April 2012
Virtual rambler #24 – Natural History, 20^th May 2012
Virtual rambler #25 – European Self Importance, 26^th June 2012
Virtual rambler #26 – Sweet Dreams, 25^th July 2012
Virtual rambler #27 – Excess, 17^th August 2012
Virtual rambler #28 – In Denial, 20^th September 2012
Virtual rambler #29 – The Way, 21^st October 2012
Virtual rambler #30 – On Rambling, 14^th November 2012
Virtual rambler #31 – Gazing Into The Abyss, 18^th December 2012
Virtual rambler #32 – Intellectual Gloom, 25^th January 2013
Virtual rambler #33 – Great Human Achievements, 20^th February 2013
Virtual rambler #34 – Autobiography, 20^th March 2013
Virtual rambler #35 – Your Good Health, 21^st April 2013
Virtual rambler #36 – Deconstruction, 20^th May 2013
Virtual rambler #37 – My Home Town, 19^th June 2013
Virtual rambler #38 – Ancient History, 21^st July 2013
Virtual rambler #39 – Possessions, 20^th August 2013
Virtual rambler #40 – Sporting Stoics, 20^th September 2013
Virtual rambler #41 – Free Time, 20^th October 2013
Virtual rambler #42 – Ewan Don't Allow, 20^th November 2013
Virtual rambler #43 – A Literary Nexus, 20^th December 2013
Virtual rambler #44 – Taking Liberties, 16^th January 2014
Virtual rambler #45 – More or Less, 20^th February 2014
Virtual rambler #46 – Under Control, 20^th March 2014
Virtual rambler #47 – Waiting, 20^th April 2014
Virtual rambler #48 – They Rose Without Trace, 20^th May 2014
Virtual rambler #49 – Bigger Impression , Smaller Footprint, 20^th June 2014
Virtual rambler #50 – Terpsichorean Instrumentations, 18^th July 2014
Virtual rambler #51 – Socially Mediated, 19^th August 2014
Virtual rambler #52 – Rambling Into The Sunset, 20^th September 2014