In Response to the View of Mikhail Gorbachev

LINK to Guardian article by Mikhail Gorbachev.

Naturally, we politicians from the last century can be proud of the fact that we avoided the danger of a thermonuclear war.

Proud . . ?! Who had all those nuclear warheads and delivery systems - thousands of them! - developed and deployed in the first place . . ?!

We were extremely LUCKY that the "politicians from the last century", in their madness, didn't annihilate us all.

I'm very thankful to you, Mr Gorbachev, for your pivotal role in putting an end to the madness of the Cold War, but that doesn't exonerate those responsible for creating it.

Nor to I believe that the politicians we have now are any saner than those of the past, which means that what your generation of politicians failed to achieve, the present generation are firmly on course to do, i.e. the destruction of our civilization.

And no, I'm not a cynic or pessimist (far from it), but a realist, someone who recognizes the perverted Darwinian nature of humankind (including well-meaning politicians like yourself), and of the civilization (the power structures of state and economic institutions) it has given rise to.

We have come a very long way over the past 400 years in our understanding of the material world, which has made possible our technological civilization, but when it comes to understanding ourselves and our civilization, we are still in a dark age; not least, because we still look to traditional religions or modern ideologies for enlightenment and guidance, when what we really need to cast light on our situation is a Darwinian perspective (see my BLOG).

Why Darwinian? Because we are not nearly as seeing or rational as we imagine ourselves to be (deceive ourselves into believing), but ANIMALS, who evolved to exploit their environment, which now, perversely, comprises human society and civilization itself.

It's a simple, but fundamental and fatal, flaw, which first we need to recognize, and then develop an understanding of. Only then can there be any hope of our civilization surviving this new century.

. . . humankind has started to transform itself into a single civilisation.

What a horrific prospect . . ! But this, of course, is where the perverted Darwinian logic of "globalization" is taking us.

Darwinian . . ? What else? All one needs to recognise is that civilization is first and foremost an ENVIRONMENT, which individuals seek to exploit, to their own (and immediate family's) advantage. Mr Gorbachev, of course, would flourish is such a global civilization, as he did in the Soviet Union, which is why he is so keen on it.

I don't mean to be too critical of Mr Gorbachev, because we have much to thank him for, but like everyone else, subconsciously, he seeks to maintain, adapt or create an environment that suits himself, automatically assuming that it will also be good for society as a whole. But he is mistaken, deceived, like most people, by his brain's prodigious capacity to interpret and rationalize reality (its environment) to suit its own perceived (perverted Darwinian) advantage.