Despite It All, Are We Still Cavemen?

Human beings have probably been on this planet for 200,000 years or so, but I don’t think we have learned anything in that amount of time as far as treating each other decently and learning not to kill each other.
I think we are all still primitives walking around in shirts and ties like the cavemen on the Geico Insurance commercials. We have iPods, iPads, Blackberries, laptops, microwave ovens, hybrid cars, jet aircraft, 250 television channels, cell phones, satellite radio, HD movies and sports, birth control pills, washers and dryers, dishwashers, air conditioners, GPS in our cars and phones, mp3’s and flat screen TVs. The thing we don’t have is peace and an end to hatred, petty disagreements, war and greed.
Long ago, Caveman Og got mad at Caveman Bog and hit him on the head with a club. Today we have guns, drive-by shootings, verbal battles and lawsuits.
Long ago, Caveman Og got mad at Caveman Bog’s family, so they moved as far away from each other as practically possible, put up walls and declared their own territories. Caveman Og decided he wanted something Caveman Bog had so he invaded his territory along with his relatives and friends. They wound up killing each other with rocks and clubs and Og’s group took what it wanted from Bog’s territory.
We call this war today and we have replaced rocks and clubs with bullets and missiles.
Long ago Caveman Og decided to worship the sun while Caveman Bog decided the world was created by an invisible great spirit. Representatives of both faiths got so mad at each other that out came the clubs and rocks again. The same thing happens today except that it causes wars and folks to blow themselves up in public places.
Caveman Graz got mad at his mate, Cavewoman Garf and hit on her the head with a club.
Today, according to the Department of Justice, an estimated 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year. During 2008, Lower Township police officers investigated 443 domestic violence complaints of which 71 involved assaults.
Most of the time, we do not get in physical fights with other males over who gets a particular female as a mate, but we do try to outdo each other in strength, position in society and amount of money we have amassed. In any case, men are still in competition with other males for the attention of the females of our species like our cave dwelling ancestors.
There is indeed nothing new under the sun and our primitive ways continue. Jane Goodall, known to several generations from her National Geographic television specials and books about chimpanzees has some theories on our human animal behavior. In the book: “Jane Goodall: The Woman Who Redefined Man,” she said both humans and chimpanzees “are inheritors of territorially aggressive behavior,” which “fractures the species into mutually hostile communities.”
Chimpanzees also have an “us and them” mentality which produces the concept of enemies. Goodall believes humans have a dark and evil side connected to our evolutionary past which makes us act aggressively.
Goodall said she hoped for moral evolution, that over time humans would become less aggressive and warlike and more compassionate. I agree with Goodall that we are far away from that future goal since hatred seems to be at an all time high, and we are destroying the environment of the planet upon which we live.
Goodall said she has hope that humans will improve due to the potential of the human
brain, the resilience of nature, the creative energy of young people and the ability for people to overcome great adversity.
Since the era of cavemen, we created artwork, wrote music, came up with lots of laws and regulations and found a way to occupy ourselves from 9 to 5 rather than hunt animals and gather berries.
But deep down in our brains, a lot of old programs are still running. In my opinion, we are well dressed, well informed, better smelling cave people with an ability to travel and communicate over long distances, going along on our destructive way.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower said “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired is, in a sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”
When will we learn?