In conclusion, it might be enlightening to look
at our present world through the eyes of a possible designer, to see the truly
astonishing follies we have come up with.
Leaving aside the positive advances in technology, of which the designer itself
would certainly be proud, the top priority for insanity has to go to the
destruction of the environment. Our conscious intelligence has led us inexorably
to sitting on the end of a branch a hundred feet up, and sawing through it. With
the destruction of our own world, we shall inflict untold suffering on millions
of people – assuming the human race survives at all – and yet the wise leaders
of our planet do precious little to stop it.
Not far behind, in this collective madness, is the fact that while the rich
prosper by destroying the planet, the poor are the main victims of disease,
natural disasters, and wars. In the west, mountains of food are destroyed or
discarded, and at precisely the same time, other members of the same species
starve to death. This extraordinarily intelligent race, capable now of exploring
outer space, is totally unable to devise a system to preserve its own habitat
and to protect itself from itself.
We apparently need leaders, and so we set them up - or allow them to set
themselves up - as gods to rule over us, even though they may have no ability to
do so wisely. We in England put someone in charge of education, and from one day
to the next hand them foreign affairs – as if overnight they have become experts
in the field. But they must pretend to be experts, and we must pretend that they
are. We have a collective suspension of disbelief much akin to the faith of
religion and of atheism when it comes to those who govern us, although the faith
is usually dispelled in a very short time.
In fairness to our politicians, there is no political system that can cope with
the vast complexity of society as it has evolved, but that complexity is the
result of our own misguided attempts at “progress”. When humans were confined to
small groups, the problems were also confined: humans did not need social
welfare, imports and exports, police forces, educational institutions, transport
networks, prisons, etc.
This chapter, though, set out to deal not so much with problems as with
collective madness. What would the designer make of crowds of people gathering
together and going into paroxysms of pleasure or despair when a ball goes into a
net or a hole or a basket, while they remain indifferent to other humans dying
all around them? A man who can kick a ball into a goal or sing a catchy song
will be valued perhaps a hundred times more than a man trying to heal or save
the sick. A sunflower will cost you perhaps 20p, but a painting of a sunflower
will cost you more than you will earn in a lifetime. A hero may die in poverty,
but the actor who portrays him will be paid millions for doing so. It seems that
reality is not what we want. The artificial world of made-up values is what we
cherish. Perhaps that, in the last analysis, is why religious believers and
atheists make their leaps in the dark. They cannot bear reality.
Let me, however, conclude with our starting-point of agnosticism, and offer you
two alternative forms of madness: 1) countless numbers of people, sums of money,
buildings, institutions, wars, miseries, joys, works of art have been devoted to
or have sprung from human worship of something that never existed; 2) the
designer’s creations are just beginning to understand, after centuries of
conscious endeavour, how life functions, but they are still unable to design an
organism like themselves that can spring from inanimate matter into living
existence, reproduce itself, adapt to a changing environment, and pass on its
adaptations to the organisms it engenders; they believe, however, that if they
ever can consciously and deliberately design such an organism, it will prove
that they themselves were not designed.
Take your pick.
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