We Came From and Where We're Headed

Where We Come From and Where We’re Headed

A learned fellow I respect recently told me about the flak he received when he stood up against the government’s response to the covid ‘pandemic’ based on empirical evidence he had researched, he was berated and called a conspiracy theorists amongst other things. It turns out he was on the money all along, yet he lost his job as punishment for telling the truth. His role was a key one, but he refuses go back the employer, so his knowledge is lost. I know what he means, I’ve been debunking the idea that carbon dioxide is a major contributor to extreme weather events for years, so I too have been called a conspiracy theorist, but evidence is slowly emerging that shows I am correct. I had sympathy for my mate’s point of view on covid, and all in all, both issues have the stench of some sort of wider issue, which in turn indicates that we are living in darker times than we might think.

Humankind’s history has always fascinated me and I’ve been lucky enough to stand at Olduvai Gorge where it’s said the first humanoids stood up 1.7 million years ago. However, according to Mr. Google, the stone age began 3.3 million years ago, in Kenya, so something doesn’t quite add up. As far as we understand, it took 45 000 years for humans to reach Europe from Africa, and while the stone age is said to have ended around 5000 years ago, but the chalcolithic period, began around 6500 years ago when copper began to be smelted; obviously the overlap must have depended on location. Those terms relate to the northern hemisphere and it is fair to say that elsewhere, stone age peoples existed into the nineteenth century.

There’s a big difference between 1.7 million and 3.3 million years and if that is the case, there had to be some evolution before 3.3 million years ago, which begs the question of how did it occur? I have no idea, but there is a little evidence emerging that there were several forms that are related to humanity in different parts of the world. Yet, the gnome of all modern humanity apparently traces back to one mother… which is not at all impossible, but shows that it’s complicated. Maybe looking at art is helpful. The palaeolithic period ended when the last ice age ended roughly 12,000 years ago and evidence at the Cresswell Caves-cum-Crags shows they were occupied during 70-10,000 years ago; there is rock art that in my judgement was expertly drawn when considering some animals are five metres long yet well-formed. The French Lascaux and Chauvet caves which were occupied between 37 and 15000 years ago also have art created by accomplished artists. Reckoning on Neanderthals dying out 40,000 years ago, most of the art can be attributed to so-called modern humans. However, some Neandertal art did have expertise and earlier, they used ochre and other material to fill their mouths and sprayed handprints on the walls, not unlike the oldest human artwork from 45,500 years ago far away on the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia.

Sorry, I understand these are complicated dates and events that show that from very early on, modern humans had spread around and produced artwork with a level of expertise and that the various cultures had a bearing on the style. The Italian, Australian and Zimbabwean cave art is younger, 15-4000 years old and yet to me, they seem to be less expert. With evolution, so has art changed… as a thing of beauty. Humans have developed some innate respect for beauty, which is why for 60,000 years flowers have been used in funeral ceremonies. Likewise, the ancients left beautiful artefacts with their dead, not necessarily for beauty’s sake but to help them on their journey, perhaps comforting the mourners. These principles live on today.

Over time, humanity has developed certain principles based on customs, welfare of the community and trust in a leader or some form of authority and gradually customary rules developed, minor and major where violators faced some sort of punishment. These basic rules simply help communities get along and thrive. Those communities developed into ethnic groups… which may have contributed to the diversity of races… an intriguing thought; current thinking is that modern humans evolved from about 200,000 people and genetic mutations occurred perhaps driven by environment and diet; but there’s one anomaly. Cold has always been dangerous to humans, yet one group who could have, but didn’t move to warmer climes after the ice age, their adaption suited them to remain, and what might have helped is the fact that they were unlikely to be invaded. Perhaps they had experienced past violence. The Moriori in the South Pacific were devout pacifist, which in the end heralded their demise between 1835-63, when some mainland-based Maori attacked them; pacifism has been tried and didn’t turn out well. Both were stone age peoples.

The Biblical account of how the races appeared has merit… loosely. Various groups with similar beliefs and cultural practices set up their own communities under a strong leader… strong because protection was needed first to protect their women and their children but also to protect the habitat or territory they had chosen… the person probably had intellect as well. Crossbreeding would have occurred for various reasons because sooner or later, women and children would have been stolen or traded and some groups may have merged simply because of a strong leader. At some time, the bonds and spiritualism were strong enough for bloodlines to be recognised and thus protected, which is why the Welsh, Irish, Scottish and English created their own identities on two small islands, and even today they identify as their own bloodline so only outsiders call them British. They fiercely protected their own identities with the use of violence when necessary. It’s not readily understood the languages of Irish, Welsh and Scottish are ancient, the English language only dates back to 1380 when Geoffery Chauser wrote it down.

When Idi Amin booted ethnic Indians out of Uganda, Britain accepted many of them because being members of the Commonwealth gave the Indians rights to migrate. Those Indian people mainly assimilated into Indian communities already in Britian… again perfectly legally with generally with good outcomes. When assimilating into other countries, it’s hoped for an even distribution throughout, but that happens only sporadically. Ethnic areas develop, which happened in Britain but when that happens indigenous Britains move out, not forcibly but because they didn’t particularly enjoy having new neighbours… something conveniently forgotten by critics of Britain. This sort of thing has happened with various ethnicities throughout the western world and instead of assimilation by the immigrants, the resident population are expected to change their culture as acceptance of them, which doesn’t always go easily.

After WWII, Britian employed immigrants to help with the rebuild and most of them remained, whereas Germany’s rebuild was funded by USA using German prisoners of war as the labour force… USA’s investment was worthwhile because they took the science and technology as reparations. Europe remembers both world wars and does its best to avoid another conflict which is part of the psychology behind them not wanting to repel the new bunch of invaders as they might have in past times. The liberal ideology behind an open borders policy are clearly unsustainable as we see currently. The recent years of illegal migration by mainly male ‘refugees’ from the Syrian conflict, is misrepresented because so many are not Syrians. USA has faced a similar invasion from the south and in both cases the United Nations inspired ideology has deemed them as somehow… legitimate.

The new regime in the US has a different opinion, but among European Governments the problems are akin to self-flagellation which has at least watered down the fabric of the Unitedness of Britain. Sooner or later those human traits of old; honouring bloodlines and the search good leadership and mutual trust will reemerge, whether governments wish them to or not. But what has sparked this modern way of thinking? To pinpoint the start in my country, we need to go back to 1987 when our government ‘reassessed’ many key government departments including mine, the Forest Service. We had a couple of basic arms; exotic production forest and indigenous protection forest. Within those arms we were responsible for the protection, including rural fires of the forest estate, and the supply of sawlogs for local supply. This broad range required a range of specialised skills. There were four basic categories within forest labour force. There were the foresters, university trained who were responsible for scientific and planning matters… we called them office-wallers but not derogatorily. The forest rangers were the forest managers who were responsible to get work done as cost efficiently as possible. The woodsmen were the leaders of work crews and the workers were the unskilled people who were actually very skilled at their jobs, but not career oriented. The last three categories were practical people. There was yet another group, the tradesmen who worked under apprenticeships, carpenters, plumbers, electrician and mechanics who would later go on to work outside of government service to benefit the country as a whole. After we were made redundant, State-Owned Enterprises then into being with the big noises coming from the the rank of the foresters, who weren’t entirely practical, the result being the forests were harvested early, they operated at a loss, so were sold off, mostly to overseas companies for short-term gain. The same happened to the railways, works (mainly roading and large engineering), electricity and health. And so, the nation lost skills and the universities gradually became indoctrinators rather than the followers of logic and critical thinking, truth and freedom to speak was no longer accepted.  The bean counting skill of commerce and ended up running the ship in areas where experienced and practical people should be… but they were unprepared to take advice other than from over-paid consultants.

The same is recognisable throughout the west, in what seems to be the deliberate destruction of history, customs, and the economy where progress is a form of a cultural revolution deemed as modernity. Revolutions most often end badly. Political correctness in step with cancel culture, lack of science in gender and the various ‘isims’, plus the suppression of truth bears a distinct resemblance to the inquisition, which lasted for 200 years! And there are those who are deluded enough to repeat the history that’s well remembered by some, by destroying artwork of many kinds. All of which makes our future seems insecure.