



The Myth of Human Difference
From the creation stories in Genesis to the myths told over and over again in modern popular culture, we as a species, homo sapiens, think of ourselves as having somehow graduated from nature because of our large brains and good posture. We often tend to have very short memories when it comes to who we are as human beings. So, let’s first take a look at the history of homo sapiens with a much longer lens.

Most of us have difficulty thinking back centuries, but the history of our species covers millenia. The evolution of our species began about 500,000 years ago. Modern homo sapiens that we would recognize as our relatives appeared around 200,000 years ago. Agriculture, which makes civilization and cities possible, appeared only 10,000 years ago. 10,000 years normally sounds like an incredibly long period of time. However, in light of the full history of our species it is a relatively new development and comprises only 2-5% of the existence of our species.

When we look back on the history of our species, we talk about everything that happened before agriculture as “pre-history” and the people that lived prior to agriculture and civilization as “primitive” people. There are perhaps some good reasons for this involving the development of language and writing, but it has relegated everything prior to agriculture and civilization to a lesser status. We continue to think of the evolution of our species as a linear march of progress in which we have very little to learn from “primitive” peoples. This is explicit in the way that we treat those very few hunter-gatherer societies that have survived. During the centuries of colonial expansion in which Europeans conquered much of the world, one of the justifications for the oppression, enslavement and genocide of indigenous people across the globe was that they were somehow less than human. Stephen Jay Gould explains the way we relate to our “primitive” past and our relationship to nature thusly,


In the more recent past (in terms of millenia) homo sapiens have gone from manipulating nature through simple agriculture to the technological innovations of everything from automobiles to smartphones. This ability to manipulate natural resources into devices and infrastructure which insulate us from nature allows us to experience much of life, particularly in urban areas, as separate from nature which exists primarily in parks and preserves. The truth is that all of the devices and infrastructure that insulate us from nature depend on the extraction of various mineral and hydrocarbon resources from the earth for their existence. In addition, fewer and fewer people in “developed” nations participate in agriculture (less than 1% in the United States). We are not aware of our own connectedness to the earth through what we eat and the things we use and depend on everyday. The truth is that there is nothing that does not come from the earth.

So, for all our technology and advancements, we continue to be connected and dependent on the earth for our existence, civilization and all that entails. No matter our perception or myths about being separate, above or different from other creatures, we continue to be subject to the same limitations and laws that govern them. Gould says that it is ,”our unwillingness to accept continuity between ourselves and nature, our ardent search for a criterion to assert our uniqueness” which prevents us from reconciling ourselves to nature and perpetuates the myth of human difference.

4 comments on “The Myth of Human Difference

  1. I’m looking forward to reading more. You make an excellent point about how little of our homo sapien existence has been spent in agriculture (and therefore civilization). I’ve pondered (and been blown away by) the brevity of our time on the planet in relation to the rest of life, but never thought about how new we humans are at agriculture relative to the existence of our species. Is that still true if we limit it to our subspecies homo sapien sapien? As I’m sure you know, genetically it has been shown that humans are very closely connected and amazing similar to other life as well.


  2. Bill,

    Thanks for your thoughts. I’m not an expert on this, but my understanding is that homo sapiens sapiens is a different way of naming the same species. As I said in the post, even if you start with our closest relatives at 200,000 years ago, agriculture comprises only 5% of the history of our species. It is definitely a mind blowing perspective and that’s why i wanted to include it in the chapter.


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