“At some point during the later stage of evolution of human kind, something went wrong.” Discuss this statement of Arthur Koestler within the context of human behavior.
Arthur Koestler (1905-1983) in one of his essays: ‘Man-One of Evolution’s Mistakes’, made a blatant statement “…that at some point during the later stages of biological evolution of human kind something went wrong…”, and he sought to justify his statement by asking us to look at our history there we will see that paranoid streak running through it. He also came to the conclusion that there is a flaw; some engineering blunder that was built in us that is responsible for the paranoid streak. He went further to say, we as homosapiens are the victims of an infinitesimal error and it is perhaps in the circuitry of the nervous system that tend to lean us towards misinterpretations of certain things and eventually lead us to self-destruction. For him we as homosapiens are not complete, but the lower animals are.
In essence the philosophy here is that lower animals’ evolution is more complete than the evolution of homosapiens and this is very frightening thought. That something is missing in us and not in the lower animals. The missing biological composition is responsible for a trait that is missing from homosapiens. Nevertheless it is that trait that endangered civilization and eventually it will obliterate civilization.
If we examine carefully Koestler’s argument that supports his statement that there is a paranoid streak running through human history then we can seek to discuss this statement in the context of human behavior. If one looks from as early as the conquest of Early Greek societies with the Greek city states fighting each other. Then you had Alexander the great uniting them and then Rome came. The Romans brought high amount of violence. Rome army went as far as India taking the whole of Europe, taking in the whole Middle East and even went further. From the Roman Empire onwards,...