Well, here are my personal views:
Humans love stating that their race sucks and that the end of the world is coming. They're never happier than when doing so.
Humans have serious problems with self-respect. Being a sapient race on a harsh planet and having to struggle to survive for millennia will do that, I imagine. It's hard to appreciate yourself, hard to develop a sense of dignity when you're (for example) stripping your sons naked and making wasps sting them to toughen them up, or when you're eating grandma to survive a famine. Apes can't just click their fingers and make paradise. It was- and is- a long and hard struggle to build a civilization, and sapience isn't really a very happy thing if it isn't comfortable. Intelligence is of course great for a species, but
sapience is not something I'd wish on a race fighting against natural selection every day. I mean, the human population hit a low of 10,000 at one point, we nearly didn't make it. And I think humans as a race are quite traumatized. Still fearful and insecure, and still unable to actually accept that they are truly dignified beings- because in the past they simply couldn't afford it. Humans still like control, order, being part of a structure and subordinating themselves to that structure rather than celebrating their own soul The instincts of harsh survival still govern them. They consider other people potential threats and live in fear of them (I've mentioned before that when meeting me in person people of all descriptions seem to instantly like me, and that people will always approach me for directions, advice, etc. I'm convinced it's because I put them at ease, because I'm
not radiating a sense that they are competition. I therefore don't register on their threat-o-meter, and that's rare).
Where people go wrong, I think, in that they like to compare humans to gods, angels, etc, and thus have a very poor view of humans in comparison. Instead, they need to look at the lower animals and see how great humanity is. Humans love to put themselves down. They always view themselves as a "fallen" people, lowly, unworthy in their own eyes. Things were so much better before, but now we suck- that is pretty much their worldview. And they use it to justify their misery, their own and that they inflict on others. After all, they believe on some level they "deserve it" or that it's all they're good for (and no, I'm not blaming any particular philosophy or belief system for this- it's inherent
in the race, I think, and in any belief system you will find those who overcome this view of humanity
through that system). That's the way our cultural psyche seems on the whole to work, and frankly it irritates me. And it stagnates development. Our ascension is ongoing, the apes are still finding their way up. There isn't any "pre-fallen" state to return to, I'd assert, but there is the possibility of things being better. But as soon as most humans can conceive of something better, their response is not to aim for it happily (and if they fail, oh well, try again) it's instead to condemn themselves
for not yet being "better". Things are like this- but wouldn't they be better if they were like that instead? The sensible response is "hmmm, yes. Let's try for that". What humans actually do, however, is moan about how terrible humanity is for not being like that already, and essentially saying "see! We're not like that! We suck!". It's like if I'm sitting in a chair and suddenly realize that I'll get a better view if I move to a second chair. But instead of just
doing it, I instead moan and condemn myself loudly for my stupid, stupid decision of a first seat (despite having no way to know at the time it was not the better choice). And I stay on that first seat, bitching about myself.
I think things are unlikely to improve, personally, because many people don't actually
want it to- that would violate their ideological beliefs as to the "fallen humanity" which should somehow be better than it is. Given a choice between, a) going out there and making their lives better or, b) sitting around moaning about how bad and evil and wrong they are, humanity will choose the latter 9 times out of 10.
Because to do otherwise requires an appreciation of self-dignity humans have a hard time accepting, and that thanks to millennia of harsh struggle. So things won't improve...which is all the justification the human needs to continue the moaning.
There need to be some large-scale changes in the way humans relate to themselves, because their current model is no longer functional. First, they must stop being ruled by fear. Related to this, they have to put aside their desire for control and order, and the desire to subordinate their communities, families and individual lives to impersonal structures; nations, organized creeds and ceremonial traditions, corporations, etc. They have to encourage a sense of individual worth rather than worth measured in service to these structures. They have to be a lot looser and more individualistic, because only then can they learn to recognise their inherent dignity (which is not something that comes naturally- in fact, it is the antithesis of natural, because nature is not dignified). All people should be encouraged to know themselves; only they can say who and what they are. Once they have a respect for themselves, they can learn respect for others. Humans respond well to charisma- to those individuals who stand out and radiate a self-control. But currently people are not encouraged to develop such things; quite the opposite. They are encouraged to ignore the self and serve structures, therefore they can never learn to respect others. They do not live with possibilities and an understanding of the myriad means of relating to one another or of viewing things, but instead on a binary- us and them, in and out, right and wrong.
And the self-aware person with a sense of dignity and individual worth is NOT a selfish person- such people are usually very concerned about the community as a whole, and are rarely self-serving to the exclusion of others. Oh, they
are self-serving, but that does not have to mean selfish. Serving self and serving the collective are equally important, and a society of those who have accepted their own dignity and worth can do both simultaneously with ease.
So, my way of looking at it is that humanity can have a bright future- so long as it learns to take advantage of the fact that life is no longer a struggle for survival (in some parts of the world, anyway). Now, for the first time, we have progressed to the point that we can afford to embrace sapience fully. And thus we need to develop a sense of the inherent dignity of humankind.
In my own way, I'm often encouraging what I see as the first steps in this; my contribution to our people, I hope. When I finish my education, I hope to do more.
).
