Part 2
In Part 1, I talked about the many crises facing humanity. I reviewed Jeremy Rifkin’s new book, Planet Aqua: Rethinking Our Home in the Universe and how it expands our understanding of the world to recognize that our planet is primarily water order Earth. I also discussed the work of James DeMeo, who traced the origins of many of our current problems to a specific time and place in human history – 6,000 years ago in the Middle East – and what it can teach us about our current predicament and how to solve it.
For most of human history, despite life’s many challenges, people lived in relative peace and prosperity. In their book, Cultivating Our Humanity: How Sovereignty and Partnership Shape Our Brains, Our Lives, and Our Future Riane Eisler and Douglas P. Fry, say,
“For the vast majority of the period that the genus Gay existed, nomadic foraging was the ubiquitous human way of life.”
They go on to quote the anthropologist MG Bicchieri who said,
“For more than 99 percent of the approximately two million years since the appearance of the recognizable human animal, man has been a hunter and gatherer.”
Eisler and Fry say that our ancestors were “The Original Cooperative Societies” with the following characteristics of cooperative systems including:
- Equality, respect and cooperation between women and men.
- A non-acceptance of violence, war, abuse, cruelty and exploitation.
- Ethics that support human care, pro-social cooperation and flourishing.
As James DeMeo’s research has shown, this way of life changed 6,000 years ago.
“With very few exceptions, there is no clear and unambiguous evidence of war or social violence on our planet Earth before about 4,000 BC. and the first evidences appear in particular localities, from which it first arose and spread outwards in course of time to contaminate almost every corner of the globe.’
DeMeo goes on to say,
“A massive climate change rocked the ancient world when, about 6,000 years ago, vast tracts of lush grasslands and forests in the Old World began to rapidly dry up and turn into harsh desert. The vast Sahara desert, the Arabian desert, and the giant deserts of the Middle East and Central Asia simply did not exist before about 4000 BC.
There is modern evidence that the area in question is the one referred to in the Bible as “the Garden of Eden”. In their book, Exiles From Eden: Psychotherapy from an Evolutionary Perspective, Kalman Glantz and John K. Pearce report on the work of archaeologist Juris Zarins. He believes that this idyllic region of the world now lies beneath the Persian Gulf, downstream from the ancient civilizations that flowed along the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates. According to Glantz and Pearce
“Eden was not paradise. It was just a place – a place where human beings lived as all men lived before the rise of civilization.”
“The ‘Garden of Eden’ myths found in the historical literature of many Old World cultures seem to have their roots in this early period of socially cooperative and peaceful social conditions, when Saharasia was green and fertile.”
says DeMeo.
“Then came the catastrophic climate change to drought, which formed the vast belt of the Sahara desert, and people were literally driven ‘out of the garden.’ The rest is history.”
DeMeo’s research shows that the 6,000-year drought continued for generations and affected the lives of everyone living at the time. Recent research on the impact of ‘Adverse Childhood Experiences’ demonstrates that the effects of childhood trauma are long-lasting and cause physical, emotional and relational health problems throughout our lives.
“Hunger and starvation is a severe trauma from which survivors rarely escape unscathed.”
says DeMeo.
“Many people die, families are separated and babies and children are often abandoned and suffer greatly. Famine affects child survivors in an emotionally severe way. These attitudes and behaviors are profoundly proto-formative and are transmitted to succeeding generations regardless of climate, by social institutions that reflect the character structure of the average individual at any given time.”
Although this type of trauma affects both men and women, men and women often deal with trauma in different ways. Comedian Elayne Boosler offers a humorous yet insightful reflection on this inherent difference. He says,
“When women get depressed they either eat or go shopping. Men invade another country. It’s a completely different way of thinking.”
In my recent book, Long live Men! The Moonshot mission to cure men, close the lifespan gap and offer hope to humanity, My second chapter is titled, “Male Violence on the Rise—From School Shootings, to Domestic Violence and the U.S. Capitol Riot. From irritation and anger to depression and suicide.”
I go on to say,
“Men are the ‘canaries in the coal mine’, alerting us to the need for change. Canaries were used in goal mines as an early warning system for miners. Toxic gases like carbon monoxide and methane in the mine would kill the bird before it could affect the miners. Male mental illness and breakdown are the world’s early warning signs of impending doom. Things like irritable male syndrome, male depression and aggression, and high suicide rates warn us of the toxic nature of our current environment and lifestyle.”
Our moon for humanity and humanity
We believe that human mental, emotional and relational health is key to empowering men to live long and well. Our mission is to help men live healthier, happier, more collaborative lives – fulfilling lives of purpose and productivity, where men are supported and valued as they make positive contributions to their families, friends and communities. When this happens, families are strengthened, communities prosper and humanity takes its next leap forward.
In 2004 I read a powerful study, “Sexual Selection and the Male: Female Mortality Ratio,” by Daniel J. Kruger, PhD and Randolph M. Nesse, MD. They looked at premature deaths among men in 20 countries. They found that in every country, men died earlier and lived sicker than women, and their reduced health and life expectancy hurt men and their families. They concluded with a series of powerful statements:
- “Being male is now the biggest demographic factor in early death.”
- “Over 375,000 lives would be saved in one year in the US alone if men’s risk of death were as low as women’s.”
- “If men’s death rates could be reduced to those of women, this would eliminate over a third of all deaths of men under 50 and help men of all ages.”
- “If you could make the death rates of men the same as the rates of women, you would be doing more good than curing cancer.”
For me, this was a call to action. I called several colleagues who were leading organizations that had proven successful in improving men’s health. We started the non-profit, MoonshotForMankind.Org. We invite you to participate.
We also have an additional way to share information that may be helpful. Come check out our Substack, and hear what our founding members have to say.
There are clearly a number of biologically based reasons why women live longer than men. But we know that even our genes can be modified by changes in our lifestyle and beliefs about ourselves and the world.
The lessons I have learned over the years are as follows:
- We may not be responsible for the traumatic climate change that occurred 6,000 years ago, but we must take responsibility for our current situation. As they say, “Nature’s bats last.” If people are not willing to change, nature will force change on us.
- We would do well to listen to our animal elders. Most species have been here longer than us and are better adapted to life on planet Earth. As the historian Thomas Berry reminds us.
“We never knew enough. Nor were we intimate enough with all our cousins in the great earth family. Nor could we hear the various creatures of the earth, each telling its own story. The time has come, however, for us to listen or die.”
- When we go down the wrong road, it’s never too late to turn around.
- We may not be able to go back to the past, but we can move forward. As Jeremy Rifkin says,
“We need to shift our perception of water as a ‘resource’ to one where water is seen as a ‘source of life.’ We need to adapt to the hydrosphere instead of trying to adapt the hydrosphere to us. The next stage in the human saga is to call our home ‘Planet Aqua’ and learn to live and thrive in new ways on a unique water planet in the universe.”
You can learn more about Jeremy Rifkin’s work and his book, Planet Aqua: Rethinking Our Home in the Universe here. If you enjoyed this series of articles and would like to read more about how we can create a healthy future for ourselves, our children and future generations, I invite you to subscribe to my free weekly newsletter. You can do it here:
