Next time you meet a dog, try this. Take a fresh juicy steak and say: “If you sacrifice this meat, you will earn a special place in Dog Paradise!” No, a dog will not give a hoot, a steak or half a dry poo for the afterlife or any other such vague idea. It is a uniquelly human thing to put religion, politics or fantastic creatures of our collective imagination above basic needs.
Sathya Sai Baba was a charlatan who amongst other ridiculous tricks “magically” produced trinkets for his audience. That was not what they travelled to see him about though. It was his ideas. The trinkets were just part of the morning ritual. A lucky few got to meet with him and be blessed. Less lucky few suffered his sexual advances. Silently. For an idea.
It is our capacity to join forces for big ideas and trinkets that makes us humans such an incredible force to be reckoned with. No matter what you think of Donald Trump, he has won. The world is split into Trump lovers and Trump haters and both these groups go to pretty impressive extremes for him. Much like they would a few centuries ago for their king. In France they traded the idea of a Sun king for that of a Republicby killing their previous way of understanding how the world was ruled at the guillotine.
What this monumental advance of our species has achieved is to bring idiots like Trump to the forefront. Twenty thousand years ago, you had to be a good runner, a strong fighter, able at fishing and hunting, fast at fashioning tools and a lot of other things. Every day. All the time. But big ideas in politics and religion brought together more people than ever before, in groups larger than ever before. And so we could support the twats.
Those with no obvious gift, strength or ability found niches. You could make a living producing nothing edible. One clever weird looking man claimed he heard the voices of his ancestors. In the old days they would have killed him as a misformed baby. He surely would never get a woman. Now he had twenty virgins in the next room waiting for him to be sacrificed.
The leader of the clan was no longer the strongest or wisest. It was the useless fool who insisted no matter what.
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