So Human an Animal

 

                       So Human an Animal

     Since human beings are as much the product of their total

environment as of their genetic endowment,it is theoretically

possible to improve the lot of man on earth by manipulating the

environmental factors that shape his nature and condition his

destiny. In the modern world, urbanization and technology are

certainly among the most important of these factors and for this

reason it is deplorable that so little is done to study their

effects on human life.

     We claim to live in a scientific era, but the truth is that,

as presently managed, the scientific enterprise is too lopsided to

allow science to be of much use in the conduct of human affairs. We

have accumulated an immense body of knowledge about mater, and

powerful techniques to control and exploit the external world.

However, we are grossly ignorant of the effects likely to result

from these manipulations; we behave often as if we were the last

generation to inhabit the earth.

     We have aquired much information about the body machine and

some skill in controlling it's responses and correcting it's

defects. In contrast, we know almost nothing of the processes

through which every man converts his potentialities into his

individuality. Yet without this knowledge, social and technological

innovations are not likely to serve worthwhile human ends.

     The  "square" life, as usually understood, is stifling and

thwarts the responses essential for man's sanity and for the

healthy development of human potentialities. All thoughtful persons

worry about the future of the children who will have to spend their

lives under the absurd social and environmental conditions we are

thoughtlessly creating; even more disturbing is the fact that the

physical and mental characteristics of mankind are being shaped now

by dirty skies and cluttered streets, anonymous high rises and

amorphous urban sprawl, social attitudes which are more concerned

with things than with men.

     Young people have good reason to reject the values that govern

technicized societies; but protesting against conventional patterns

of behavior or withdrawing from the present economic system will

not suffice to change the suicidal course on which we are now

engaged. A constructive approach cannot be only political or

social. It demands that we supplement the knowledge of things and

of the body machine with a science of life.

                                        Rene' Dubos

                                     "So Human an Animal"