Whittle Writes! (finally…)
Bill Whittle, whose writing I was introduced to with his post Tribes, just before he went on hiatus to go do something trivial like earn a living, has finally posted.
As animals, we are wired to live in a state of nature. In the long marathon of our history, our civilizations are only the last two or three halting steps. It took millions of years to design and build the human animal. It will likely take that long again to design out all of the passions and furies that brought us here.
Until then, we live with a choice: to live in a state of nature, or a state of law. The state of nature is the default condition that the huge majority of human lives has lived under, and continue to live under to this very day – lives solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short in Hobbes’ memorable phrase. Or, we can chose to impose upon our internal fault line a series of laws and customs, a Civilization, that imperfectly attempts to keep as many of us as possible on the side of the angels.
That Civilization is not a natural state.
A long and worthwhile post.
And he promises MORE!
Giggity!
Hat tip to Geek