Agree with Keith. Our ideals seem to run ahead of what our genetic endowment allows us to do.
arthur -----Original Message----- From: Keith Hudson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2002 4:06 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Le Pen's success Le Pen's success in being voted in as one of the two candidates for next month's Presidential election in France is headline news in every single one of our newspapers this morning (and, I'm sure, in French newspapers too). The headlines proclaim a sense of amazement and shock that this crude anti-immigrant right-winger should have had so much success so far. (The left-wing parties will be telling their flocks to vote for Chirac, even though he's a strong wight-winger and faces serious corruption allegations. Apparently posters are already appearing in Paris saying: "Vote for the Thief, and not the Fascist".) I'm amazed and shocked that newspapers and politicians are -- apparently -- amazed and shocked. Next month we are going to have elections for local councils in England and the British National Party (very similar to Le Pen's) is going to stand in several northern towns and cities where there is constant racial unrest between the indigenous English and Indian/Pakistani immigrants (and also bitter hatreds between Hindus and Moslems among the latter). Without any doubt, the BNP candidates will score sizeable votes and some candidates might get elected. And then the newspapers and politicians will purport to be amazed and shocked again! Of course, the newspapers are just stirring up controversy for the sake of circulation. (I am sure that their experienced journalists are not in any way surprised by these events.) It's the apparent naivete of the politicians that's so significant. (Though again, I am sure that experienced politicians are not really naive -- it's just that their comfortable world has been disturbed.) All this shows that many opinion moulders who should know better don't have much idea about the essentially tribal nature of our species. This in-group out-group behaviour is one of our strongest genetic traits. We'll never lose it. If the present cultural differences subside, then we'll invent new ones. To try and prevent an onslaught of criticism from those one or two FWers who might misinterpret me on purpose, I am *not* saying that we should accept tribalism passively and put up with fierce racial riots in our northern towns or 20ft steel walls presently existing between Protestant and Catholics areas in Northern Ireland. All I am saying is that if our politicians were better educated in our evolutionary origins and anthropological history, then they could design legislation a great deal more intelligently than they do now. (Out of 600-odd MPS in our House of Commons, there are less than six with any sort of scientific degree, and not a single one as far as I'm aware with any sort of qualification in the biological sciences.) Keith Hudson __________________________________________________________ "Writers used to write because they had something to say; now they write in order to discover if they have something to say." John D. Barrow _________________________________________________ Keith Hudson, Bath, England; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________
