RE: The Daily Meme #962!

Humanity is as civilized as the wild man barely out of the forest with a top hat and guns. We still have a long way to go before we can honestly call ourselves civilized.

Many people like to imagine civilization as the absence of violence, but it is often just the organization and monopolization of violence. The threat of force never disappeared; it merely became concentrated into the hands of particular individuals, institutions, and groups.

If everyone possessed an equal capacity to defend themselves, bullies would think much harder before crossing certain lines. It is easy to push others around when the consequences are distant or nonexistent. It becomes much harder when those consequences are immediate and personal.

As I see it, gorilla communities can be more civil than humans in some respects. Wolves at least respect the territorial boundaries of neighboring packs. They understand limits because limits are enforced. Nature may be brutal, but it is often honest about power.

The story of Marvin Heemeyer is not really about a bulldozer. It is about what happens when a person feels cornered, unheard, and powerless for long enough. Everyone has a breaking point. Whether one sees him as a hero, a villain, or a tragic figure depends largely on which part of that story they focus on.

We like to think we're at the top of the food chain, but there will always be something bigger, stronger, and hungrier. If an advanced off-world species exists somewhere out there, they might look at humanity the same way humanity looks at lesser creatures. Suddenly we'd understand what it feels like to be on the receiving end of overwhelming power.

Perhaps then we'd finally learn the lesson we keep refusing to learn: civilization is not measured by who can dominate whom, but by how we choose to treat one another when we have the power to do otherwise.

And if they do exist, they might just look at us and think, "Boy, that would look good with some spinach and tomatoes on the side."