281
spoken of.”
6
At the primacy of human evolution is the same leveling paradox
between life and death. In On the Sublime, Longinus, describing the writings and
sentiments of Homer, declares that “…when man is overwhelm’d in misfortunes,
death affords a comfortable port, and rescues him from misery.”
7
Several decades
ago, in a fascinating effort to characterize evolution as showing no empirical justification whatsoever for “violent human behavior,” Daniel R. Brooks and E. O. Wiley
wrote, “Finally, we have discovered that some things we thought required evolutionary explanations do not even exist as products of the evolutionary process.”
8
The linear component of any evolutionary theory will impress upon posterities
marked run-ins with the gnats and fleas and inordinately omnipresent moments of
death that hindsight enshrines, thus complicating our ability to establish biohistorical guidelines for the Anthropocene, the sum total of every paradoxical event
in our species’ past and present. A good example of that comes from a cursory
analysis of pre-colonial indigenous peoples on nearly every continent. Amerindians
were once entirely immune to Old World visitors and suffered zero incidence of
“smallpox, measles, diphtheria, trachoma, whooping cough, chicken pox, bubonic
plague, malaria, typhoid fever, cholera, yellow fever, dengue fever, scarlet fever,
amebic dysentery, influenza, and a number of helminthic infestations.”
9
But subsequent history—the unchecked distribution of human populations everywhere—has
made every ecological double-bind yet more paradoxical as human social interactions both define and threaten to destroy our species, breaking down old immunities,
a common progressive reality commensurate with aging,
10
while rendering the earth
a mixed chorus of biotic, strong, weak, and constitutive incommensurabilities. Of
organisms both akratic (lacking self-control) and unfitted.
6 La Rochefoucauld, “Maxims,” maxims 230, 136, from Reflections or, Sentences and Moral
Maxims, by Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Translated from the Editions
of 1678 and 1827 with Introduction, Notes, and Some Account of the Author and His Times, by
J. W. Willis Bund, M.A. LL.B and J. Hain Friswell, Simpson Low, Son, and Marston, London
1871, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/9105/9105-h/9105-h.htm, Accessed March 17, 2020.
7 Dionysius Longinus On The Sublime: Translated from the Greek, With Notes and Observations,
And Some Account of the Life, Writings, and Character of the Author, by William Smith,
E. Johnson, London, 1770, p. 38.
8 D. R. Brooks and E. O. Wiley, Evolution as Entropy: Toward a Unified Theory of Biology,
University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1986, pp. 305, 307.
9 Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900–1900, by Alfred W. Crosby,
Cambridge University Press, New York, 1986, pp. 197–198.
10 See Noga Ron-Harel, Giulia Notarangelo, Jonathan M. Ghergurovich, Joao A. Paulo, Peter
T. Sage, Daniel Santos, F. Kyle Satterstrom, Steven P. Gygi, Joshua D. Rabinowitz, Arlene
H. Sharpe, Marcia C. Haigis. “Defective respiration and one-carbon metabolism contribute to
impaired naïve T cell activation in aged mice.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
2018; 201804149, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1804149115, Accessed June 11, 2020.
30.1 Survival Against Our Best Interests
spoken of.”
6
At the primacy of human evolution is the same leveling paradox
between life and death. In On the Sublime, Longinus, describing the writings and
sentiments of Homer, declares that “…when man is overwhelm’d in misfortunes,
death affords a comfortable port, and rescues him from misery.”
7
Several decades
ago, in a fascinating effort to characterize evolution as showing no empirical justification whatsoever for “violent human behavior,” Daniel R. Brooks and E. O. Wiley
wrote, “Finally, we have discovered that some things we thought required evolutionary explanations do not even exist as products of the evolutionary process.”
8
The linear component of any evolutionary theory will impress upon posterities
marked run-ins with the gnats and fleas and inordinately omnipresent moments of
death that hindsight enshrines, thus complicating our ability to establish biohistorical guidelines for the Anthropocene, the sum total of every paradoxical event
in our species’ past and present. A good example of that comes from a cursory
analysis of pre-colonial indigenous peoples on nearly every continent. Amerindians
were once entirely immune to Old World visitors and suffered zero incidence of
“smallpox, measles, diphtheria, trachoma, whooping cough, chicken pox, bubonic
plague, malaria, typhoid fever, cholera, yellow fever, dengue fever, scarlet fever,
amebic dysentery, influenza, and a number of helminthic infestations.”
9
But subsequent history—the unchecked distribution of human populations everywhere—has
made every ecological double-bind yet more paradoxical as human social interactions both define and threaten to destroy our species, breaking down old immunities,
a common progressive reality commensurate with aging,
10
while rendering the earth
a mixed chorus of biotic, strong, weak, and constitutive incommensurabilities. Of
organisms both akratic (lacking self-control) and unfitted.
6 La Rochefoucauld, “Maxims,” maxims 230, 136, from Reflections or, Sentences and Moral
Maxims, by Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Translated from the Editions
of 1678 and 1827 with Introduction, Notes, and Some Account of the Author and His Times, by
J. W. Willis Bund, M.A. LL.B and J. Hain Friswell, Simpson Low, Son, and Marston, London
1871, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/9105/9105-h/9105-h.htm, Accessed March 17, 2020.
7 Dionysius Longinus On The Sublime: Translated from the Greek, With Notes and Observations,
And Some Account of the Life, Writings, and Character of the Author, by William Smith,
E. Johnson, London, 1770, p. 38.
8 D. R. Brooks and E. O. Wiley, Evolution as Entropy: Toward a Unified Theory of Biology,
University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1986, pp. 305, 307.
9 Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900–1900, by Alfred W. Crosby,
Cambridge University Press, New York, 1986, pp. 197–198.
10 See Noga Ron-Harel, Giulia Notarangelo, Jonathan M. Ghergurovich, Joao A. Paulo, Peter
T. Sage, Daniel Santos, F. Kyle Satterstrom, Steven P. Gygi, Joshua D. Rabinowitz, Arlene
H. Sharpe, Marcia C. Haigis. “Defective respiration and one-carbon metabolism contribute to
impaired naïve T cell activation in aged mice.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
2018; 201804149, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1804149115, Accessed June 11, 2020.
30.1 Survival Against Our Best Interests