Daily Times

There is immense outrage in the world these days against the downing of a passenger plane in Ukraine and the atrocities committed by the Israeli army in Gaza. Everyone is aghast and asking, “How can humans be so cruel that they can kill so many innocent people: babies, children, the young and old alike?” To me, the trouble in the world today is not due to the US or the Russians, the state of Israel or Hamas, al Qaeda or the Taliban. All these entities are not from outer space. They are we and we are they. The putatively innocent baby born today carries the seeds of the same destructive behaviour and, when circumstances give him an opportunity, he unleashes death and mayhem on the ‘other’.
There are some fundamental flaws in human nature that compel humans to commit atrocities against other humans. There is no difference between the oppressor and the oppressed; they are not two different personalities but, like the benevolent Dr Jekyll and the brute Mr Hyde, two sides of the same person. History is replete with instances where the oppressed became the oppressor. The best recent example is the Jews. Persecuted and driven out of their homes for centuries, they have themselves driven people out of their land and are killing them like rabbits after trapping them in a 25 miles by five miles stretch of land called Gaza, which is one big jail with no escape route.
The human propensity to inflict pain does not need wars and conflict to manifest itself. One just has to pick up a newspaper from any part of the world to see evidence of murder, torture and rape in the daily lives of human beings. Why is the most creative species in the world also the most destructive one? The answer lies in the behaviour of the part of the human body that distinguishes it from all other known species: the mighty brain.
Fear of the other is perhaps the single most important instinct in the human brain. Couple this with the immense power in this three-pound powerhouse and the mix is a deadly tinderbox. Fear and the consequent sense of insecurity compel humans to develop weapons and wage wars against any perceived enemy. Centuries ago, these wars were waged with primitive weapons like stones, spears, bows and arrows and swords. Soon, gunpowder was invented that provided much more firepower. Finally, the ultimate weapon, the nuclear bomb, was born having the capacity to wipe out the human race in a few seconds.
While the brain has created more and more powerful weapons, the primitive instincts have not changed. This huge gap between our fears and our destructive capability has put the human race onto a suicidal path. It is a fact of history that every weapon invented by humans has been used, be it a humble sword or the mighty atom bomb, and the future seems very bleak indeed.
Humans have extended their natural capacity of violence to the Earth itself, rendering it less and less able to sustain life. Humans’ wants (not needs) seem to be inexhaustible. Consumption of material goods seems to provide humans a sense of purpose and meaning in an otherwise meaningless life. In this mad rush for the latest television or car, the human race keeps plundering the non-renewable source of energy and minerals. To complete the circle of death, the rush for these scarce resources to support production and consumption leads to wars and atrocities.
The problem of the suffering of man at the hands of man, and the danger of the annihilation of the human race will not end by merely protesting against wars and injustice. Such solutions are only band-aids that can merely address the symptoms. Real change can only come about by a deep understanding of genetics, evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology to come to grips with how human behaviour is shaped over time. The answers to the problems of the world are not in the domain of politics, religion or philosophy but in a scientific inquiry on the machinations of that double-edged sword called the brain. Unless we are able to understand and modify self-destructive human behaviour we are doomed. It is a race against time.

The writer is an engineer by training and a social scientist by inclination. He works as a consultant in the social sector