Homo Sapiens Sanus

I was discussing politics and policy with a liberal friend of mine the other day. We were talking about the fact that conservatives tend to take positions that only favor themselves and their closest family and friends, while liberals tend to take positions that favor everyone, including groups of which they are not even a member. This becomes glaringly evident when people like Nancy Reagan change their position on stem cell research, but only because her husband developed Alzheimer's; or Dick Cheney changes his position on gay rights, but only because his daughter announced she is gay. My friend asked, "Why are we the way we are and they the way they are?" I thought about his question, and the answer became obvious to me.

Why is homo sapiens the dominant species on the planet Earth? We are smaller, weaker, slower, and have poorer vision and hearing than most other animals. The reason is obvious, it is because of our brain, we are smart! But it is not just our intelligence. How did we survive attacks from bigger, stronger and faster predators? We survived because we banded together into tribes. Alone we would have been eaten; but together we protect the group and survive. However, the same traits that protected us from predators, that resulted in our survival; our tribal instincts, also became one of our least admirable traits once the predators were overcome. That tribal instinct that became dominant through natural selection became the same instinct that resulted in war, death and destruction once the external predators were gone. We ended up taking the trait that enabled us to survive when we had enemies and turning it on ourselves, making us our own enemy.

Evolution is ongoing and inevitable. Our tribal instinct is no longer a good thing; in fact, it is a bad thing. The trait that will serve the future is a completely different trait. This new trait is non-tribal. Actually it is a trait that coincides with a global reality, a trait that has at its core a respect and concern for the planet we live on, a trait based on cooperation, not competition.

It is a trait that liberals have and conservatives do not. The reality is that a new species of human I call Homo Sapiens Sanus, the Sane Man, has arisen. Evolution continues in its inevitable way. The day of the previous dominant species, with a strong tribal instinct, is coming to an end. The beginning of a new day, for a species that cares about the earth, cooperates rather than engages in conflict and war, uses natural resources in an efficient way designed to leave something for future generations, protects the entire species rather than just the tribe, has come.

Of course, as is the case anytime a dominant species is in its last days, and a new species time has come, there is a period of transition when the "dinosaurs" try to hang on. The "dinosaurs" we deal with today may be called many things, the "Tea Party" being just one.

It is not just our imagination. We are the way we are for a genetic reason. Since the Liberal-Sane (LS) gene is dominant and the Conservative-Tribal (CT) gene is recessive, according to Mendel, the possible permutations are as follows: CT/CT; CT/LS; LS/CT; LS/LS. Therefore, mathematically speaking, 3 out of 4 offspring will be Liberal-Sane. So the Age of Homo Sapiens, the Conservative Human Being who cares only about their own tribe, is ending and the Age of Homo Sapiens Sanus, the Liberal-Sane Human Being who cares about the Earth and everyone on it, is dawning and inevitable.