It has been way too long since my last post. The cares of life and the writing of my new book have consumed attention and energy.

This post has been building for well over a week and is getting quiet unwieldy so I’ve decided to break it up into installments. It is related to War and Peace (not the book but the actual practices) but this may not be apparent for a few installments. This process has taken place at some of my favorite San Diego coffee shops, the names of which you can see if you visit some of my past posts.

Groups – Do We Still Need Them?

We originally formed groups to protect those we cared the most about, those in close proximity to us. We did this because the resources we needed to thrive were challenging to obtain and there was competition from others, others who formed groups for the same reason.

About half the members of each group were quite aggressive due to their body chemistry which differed from that of the other half. This body chemistry also causes their muscles to respond to physical work by growing large and strong (a generalization of course). All groups seem to have these aggressive, physically strong members. In our early days these strong aggressive members were seen as protectors and the guardians of our food gathering area. The others were seen as caregivers and thus we formed our two most basic sub-groups within the group.

As humans evolved and evolved their society the main groups became more defined and separate. Different languages developed in order to maintain any advantage which was discovered (an encryption of communication essentially).

The sub-groups within the general groups became more strictly defined as well. The strong aggressive types became the leaders simply because they had the strength needed to subjugate the other sub-group. In other words, they could ‘have their way’ due to their strength and threat of force.

As aggression became more undesirable within a group these physically strong members made rules to protect what they saw as their birthright and keep the others out. For example, only they were allowed to be leaders. When religion was introduced, the Caregiver Group members were excluded from rank there as well.

The members of the Caregiver Group were just as intelligent and learned how to get along in the “system”. Their main goal was of course survival and getting the next generation raised to maturity.

This started our propensity to define differences and the exclusion of those different. This presumably went on from our prehistory and certainly into modern times.

The next installment will look at our modern era. Stay tuned………………..