penner01
May 12th, 2009, 6:12 pm
Reading “Next” I was drawn repeatedly to a passage where Michael Chrichton relates discovery of the Neanderthal gene and the demise of a subspecies. I’ve searched in vain to determine if Professor Sheldon Harmon is real or simply a made up character of his incredible ability to skim the surface of reality, though I did find a brief reference to him as a science advisor. Ultimately, it made no difference as it was the picture the passage painted that intrigued me whether fact or fiction. In the book, Chrichton tells us the gene has survived in modern humans and predisposes present day preferences.
Most discussion I could find conveyed the gene as typical of liberal democratic thinking solely based on the claim that Neanderthals were the first of the true environmentalists. I saw a little different picture. An additional piece I found on the topic painted an image of a subspecies that was “intensely conservative” to the point of becoming hostile toward any opposing thought. Where I might identify liberal thought more with intolerant of disagreement, the balance of the statement is simply counter to truth.
I see the concept of “environment” with different meaning than the physical environment that Neanderthal appeared to admire and rather a suggestion of social and political environment. Chrichton would have us believe that the Neanderthal gene drove a desire for status quo, and aversion to change and that sounds more conservative to me. To be sure, America and the world around us is changing and in many ways we conservatives decry. We believe in our constitution and defend it jealously while liberal thought finds it of less and less realistic value. Are conservatives willing to accept that one day it will change?
It’s said that Neanderthals had stronger brains and were tougher and stronger than the Cro-Magnon man. That’s not to insinuate that conservatives are smarter but might that explain the greater willingness to take aggressive action with our own defense? Conservatives view liberal values as an erosion of the principles and tenets that made this country great but to be sure the roots of those values are spreading rapidly even if not deep in our society and other countries. It’s the incursion of those values that most commonly raise the hew and cry of conservatives.
The premise goes on to say that the Neanderthals died out because of ethos that made the conservative and resistant to change. They disapproved of the Cro-Magnon that encroached on them. Cro-Magnon cave art may have been seen as “prehistoric tagging” and most likely disapproved of Cro-Magnon innovation. What are we seeing right now but liberal innovation – the changing of America and the incursion of bigger and bigger government into the foundation of the country?
It was resistance to that change that ultimately caused Neanderthal to die out by clinging to old ways that could not be resolved in a changing world. That was overpowering even though the Neanderthal had physically adapted and survived through multiple changing climates. Crichton’s train of thought might take us to the assumption that the Neanderthal gene might be the harbinger of the demise of the Republican party.
He tells us that the Neanderthal inbred with the Cro-Magnon and that a remnant of the gene is present in modern man. “Many of the people who today,” Crichton writes, “wish to return to the glorious past, or at the very least wish to keep things as they are, are driven by this same Neanderthal gene”. I would consider this may represent the bleeding from right to left but thankfully a genetic memory of our roots.
Maybe the Republican party won’t go extinct. Maybe, just maybe when liberal change has tattered the social, political, and even physical environment that is America’s historic greatness, the Neanderthal will come out.
Most discussion I could find conveyed the gene as typical of liberal democratic thinking solely based on the claim that Neanderthals were the first of the true environmentalists. I saw a little different picture. An additional piece I found on the topic painted an image of a subspecies that was “intensely conservative” to the point of becoming hostile toward any opposing thought. Where I might identify liberal thought more with intolerant of disagreement, the balance of the statement is simply counter to truth.
I see the concept of “environment” with different meaning than the physical environment that Neanderthal appeared to admire and rather a suggestion of social and political environment. Chrichton would have us believe that the Neanderthal gene drove a desire for status quo, and aversion to change and that sounds more conservative to me. To be sure, America and the world around us is changing and in many ways we conservatives decry. We believe in our constitution and defend it jealously while liberal thought finds it of less and less realistic value. Are conservatives willing to accept that one day it will change?
It’s said that Neanderthals had stronger brains and were tougher and stronger than the Cro-Magnon man. That’s not to insinuate that conservatives are smarter but might that explain the greater willingness to take aggressive action with our own defense? Conservatives view liberal values as an erosion of the principles and tenets that made this country great but to be sure the roots of those values are spreading rapidly even if not deep in our society and other countries. It’s the incursion of those values that most commonly raise the hew and cry of conservatives.
The premise goes on to say that the Neanderthals died out because of ethos that made the conservative and resistant to change. They disapproved of the Cro-Magnon that encroached on them. Cro-Magnon cave art may have been seen as “prehistoric tagging” and most likely disapproved of Cro-Magnon innovation. What are we seeing right now but liberal innovation – the changing of America and the incursion of bigger and bigger government into the foundation of the country?
It was resistance to that change that ultimately caused Neanderthal to die out by clinging to old ways that could not be resolved in a changing world. That was overpowering even though the Neanderthal had physically adapted and survived through multiple changing climates. Crichton’s train of thought might take us to the assumption that the Neanderthal gene might be the harbinger of the demise of the Republican party.
He tells us that the Neanderthal inbred with the Cro-Magnon and that a remnant of the gene is present in modern man. “Many of the people who today,” Crichton writes, “wish to return to the glorious past, or at the very least wish to keep things as they are, are driven by this same Neanderthal gene”. I would consider this may represent the bleeding from right to left but thankfully a genetic memory of our roots.
Maybe the Republican party won’t go extinct. Maybe, just maybe when liberal change has tattered the social, political, and even physical environment that is America’s historic greatness, the Neanderthal will come out.