A Book by Stephen M. Barr
 |
Short Synopsis
Mankind evolved in east central Africa, and at one time he decided that living with nature wasn’t good enough for him. So as in the story of Adam and Eve being kicked out of Eden, mankind turned against nature, thinking he could create a better reality. |
NOTE: There is an errata sheet at the end of this webpage. It should be copied and pasted in your copy of the book.
Long SynopsisHomo sapiens evolved in east central Africa, where life was relatively easy. As with all other species, he had evolved with those body parts that enabled him to acquire that food that was proper for his diet. His soft hands dictated what he was to eat. In comparison with other species, his sexuality was highly developed, thus his life was one of sexual abandon, living on the fruits, nuts, berries and other things his hands could collect.
At one point in his evolution, he realized this life of abandon and of absolute freedom, had its drawbacks: His species had to acquiesce to Darwinian Laws. That meant accepting death of some by starvation if his population became too large for his environment to support. There was also death of children and others by disease that controlled his population. If he wasn’t always watchful, he could become prey for large carnivores that were always nearby. He had one of the most highly developed brains ever to have appeared on Earth. So his put it to use.
Not liking those restraints imposed by Darwinian Laws, he, as in the Bible story of Adam and Eve, gave in to temptation. He decided to dominate nature instead of being part of it. Civilization was the result, for that was his “temptation.” As the book points out in thirteen chapters, what was created was an alien presence in the biosphere. At first it wasn’t of much consequence, but as man’s population increased, and the degree of his ability to impact nature increased, he slowly but ever so much more rapidly, began to bring nature under his dominance.
This became much more evident in the last several hundred years of history. His population began to skyrocket, benefiting from the knowledge gained from the Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment and now the Technological Revolution. This technology, coupled with post-Keynesian economics called the Consumerist Economy, is enabling mankind to pry into every crevasse of nature’s being and modify it in some way. When Napoleon marched across Europe, world population was about one billion. Today it is approaching seven billion, and by 2020, it is estimated to be about 8.2 billion. Coupling this mass of humanity’s demands being made on the biosphere through the fruits of those above revolutions, has put nature in peril.
Today the big push is to become “Green,” to cut down our “carbon footprint” so as to stave off global warming. Unfortunately, global warming is the least of mankind’s worries. His consumerist economy is the antithesis of a healthy biosphere: To manufacture ANYTHING requires taking from that biosphere. To fend off the disaster this portends, will be an extremely difficult task, and the more it is put off, the more, much more, difficult, if not impossible, it will become.
Yet if mankind had stayed in Eden, that area of east central Africa in which he evolved, could he have had an advanced civilization? Yes, of course, for it would be a civilization of the mind. The human brain has a vast capability of remembering great amounts of information, and has a fantastic ability to formulate conceptions. All of his civilization up until only a little over 5,000 years ago was by memory. But as things are written down, and civilization puts everything in files and data banks and books, this fantastic capability of man’s brain begins to decline.
In essence, “Genesis Was Right” is saying mankind gave in to temptation and thought he could create a better reality than that in which he evolved. Why this is not so is the theme of this book.
PROLOGUE: Some passages from religious texts that foretell in what direction the reader will be taken.
CHAPTER I: The Beginning – Describes the universe and how it lives; it pulsates as life itself pulsates. The universe is infinite in time and extent. Just like life, it never “began,” it continues.
CHAPTER II: Religion – Traces development of religion from primitive ideas when early man was closest to nature to today with man is so very remote from nature. Shows how religion is tied to mankind’s development of civilization; how at first religion forecasts the future into which man evolves. Shows the ‘why’ of religion; when mankind stepped away from nature, he had to invent gods to provide a reason for his being. Today he needs a new “god” to move into an uncertain future, but from where will it be found?
CHAPTER III: Environment – Traces how mankind’s relationship with his environment has changed throughout his history: From minimal destruction to today’s highly efficient mechanized steamroller destruction. The effects of war and how modern consumer-oriented economies destroy the biosphere at a rate never before seen. With a huge and growing population, how this destruction of the biosphere can be stopped is a question that needs to be answered. The modern economy cannot exist without this destruction.
CHAPTER IV: Animals – Shows how human relationships with other species has not been very good, as separating himself from nature lumped them in along with environment: They can be “used.” How mankind does what he wants without any consideration of other species, torturing them in “research” labs, “collateral” damage in war, etc. How “modern” methods of meat and fish production don’t consider the feelings and mental state of those animals.
CHAPTER V: Children – All species accept the fact that they all produce more offspring than are necessary for their species to exist. Some species produce far more than are needed, and those with genetic errors or other problems that, if allowed to live, would compromise that species competence. Only mankind, who is capable of producing far more children than needed, does so and insists they all live, no matter how incompetent. In doing so he is lowering his competency.
CHAPTER VI: Sex, Race and Society – Demonstrates changes that occurred both when mankind divorced himself from nature and during his evolution into the modern world of today. How the last cultural peak presages today’s world.
CHAPTER VII: Government and Politics - How and why government became needed when mankind left nature. How the different forms arose and the complex web of politics – from between individuals to groups – influences them. How politics can warp plans and change a society’s direction: Even a society can become incompetent.
CHAPTER VIII: Propaganda, Philosophy, Dependence and Indolence – Describes changes a society goes through both influenced by and influencing its philosophy. Some philosophies are adopted as “the way to go,” and how propaganda is used to promote a certain direction society should take. As these two shape society, and its people become inured to it, they become more dependent upon it to secure their futures. But an economy that caters to every whim produces an indolence that greatly lowers competence.
CHAPTTER IX: Crime and Justice – Attributes that didn’t exist when mankind lived in nature. Creating his own reality after leaving nature necessitated creating a new reality. Different individuals have different ideas about what form it should take. The minority view can end up being criminal. Individual ideas about one’s comportment differ, to some whose acts make sense are to others crimes. What is justice? Community sanctioned revenge. How politics can skew “justice.” Nature stresses individual competence, something that human societies sees as uncompassionate.
CHAPTER X: Health and Medicine – When mankind lived in Eden – that is, before he tossed nature aside and struck out on his own – he was healthy and his wellbeing depended upon living the way in which his evolution meant him to. But now, having left nature, he has greatly changed his diet which as brought all kinds of troubles. Medicine arose to do battle with these troubles. The many afflictions that occur within today’s vast population would normally die in nature’s realm. But mankind thinks that is cruel, so medicine keeps more and more alive, discovering more ways to keep more alive. In nature’s milieu, this amounts to keeping the unfit alive thereby lowering the overall fitness of the species.
CHAPTER XI: Economics, Industrialization, Science and Technology – Traces these attributes from prehistoric times to today. Their growth and influence on both groups and the individual. Today’s vast post-Keynesian consumer-oriented economy is a product of applied industrialization utilizing science and technology. This consumer oriented economy is the antithesis of a healthy environment, for it must live on the biosphere that it destroys: Much like a cancer that lives destroying its host, dying when it has killed its host.
CHAPTER XII: Education – Follows educational methods from prehistoric times to today. First it was by apprenticeship, schools being needed after writing came into use. How the direction society wishes to go and propaganda influence education. Today’s education, greatly influenced by the scientific and technological hubris of the modern consumer-oriented economy, is becoming more and more specialty training. We have strayed very far from that general knowledge we had living with nature. Instead, we have become a society of specialists, each of which has no relationship with nature.
CHAPTER XIII: Population – How population pressure has been the source of all of mankind’s problems. Nature has been trying to control his numbers, but that great and fantastic brain of the human species has been able to counter most of what nature has thrown him. Most diseases have been conquered – although some of those “bugs” are evolving beyond those cures. Criminal behavior, a product of crowded people, are another of nature’s ways of trying to control population. Rising homosexuality, obesity and infertility are also nature’s attempts. The billions and billions of humans all making demands on the biosphere does not foretell any kind of a decent future for mankind.
EPILOGUE – Final thoughts, wrapping up all of the above. If mankind continues on his present path, there will be no escape from self destruction. Today’s push for “greening” his works will come to naught as long as the biosphere is used as his supply of raw materials. Attempts to slow the growth of greenhouse gasses is the least of mankind’s worries; there are far more dangerous specters on the horizon.
END NOTES: Notes from chapters I through XIII are listed.
PARTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Stephen was born in Martinez, California, just before World War II started. His family moved to Alameda in 1943 into the house in which his mother still lives. While in his early teens he began reading histories, including the Bible. His father gave him the idea of an “atlas of history” where every border change was depicted in a series of maps. Soon history became a passion, reading anything historical he could get his hands on.
Steve’s father loved to sail and so there was always a sailboat around during WWII. After the war was over, the area of their Victory Garden was built over with a platform to loft their final boat, a 36 foot Herreshoff designed ketch. It was launched in 1957 and enjoyed for awhole until Steve entered the Navy in 1959 where he served as a machinist aboard the USS Intrepid.
After Steve’s Navel service, he began college, pointing toward becoming a civil engineer. As all-engrossing as such a subject was, he still found time to search for more historical knowledge. After three and a half years of college, he found employment with Caltrans, California’s transportation agency. He soon married Zoe Hollenbeck, adopted daughter of CBS Newsman Don Hollenbeck. Their son Jason, still lives in the Bay Area. Eventually Stephen was promoted to assistant civil engineer and was responsible for some pretty expensive projects. Tiring of that, his last decade of employment with Caltrans was as a surveyor from which he retired.
In 1972 they moved into an old dilapidated farmhouse in Windsor. It was built in 1878 and they spent 10 years restoring it. He and Zoe still live in it today. In 2002 Steve found the family car he grew up with, a 1934 DeSoto Airflow coupe. It too has been restored and now makes many of the local show circuits. It was about that time also that he tried the evaluation test for Mensa and has been a member ever since.
Still, history was his number one interest, and Steve considers himself an amateur historian even though he acquired his BA in history during retirement. He decided that instead of keeping all of the historical information he’d collected packed away in big binders, he learned HTML and set up a website to share all of it with anyone who wants it.
His website is called ‘Sleepinbuff,’ the name of a character in Eugene Sue’s The Wandering Jew. He liked the name and figured it may draw some curiosity. His website is divided into three sections; Histories, Books and Essays.
The History section is the whole of histories he has put together for the last 50 years. When the website is viewed, notice several entries are missing; they represent work to be done. At present, a preliminary issue of the North America section has just been completed.
Steve’s lifelong preoccupation with history, and for the last decade a serious concern with our environment and health of the biosphere, coupled with quite a large library, provided him with an ability to look at mankind’s possible future in a somewhat different light. His book, Genesis Was Right is the culmination of this wide-ranging view.
Steve won’t be the first author without a complete formal education to have his work published. Sometimes one must think “outside the box” to break away from those standard ways to which society becomes inured. Steve and his Genesis was Right certainly fit into this category.
You can contact the author through his website at:
historynut@sleepinbuff.com
Or contact him directly at:
wileye@sonic.net
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
