Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Deception And Survival

Why is it that we are so readily awed by the changing colours of the chameleon, by the beautifully marked butterfly which blends in with its surrounding foliage to avoid being eaten, by the myriad ways in which nature routinely uses disguise, deceit and deception of both the eye and the mind of those seeking lunch, in order to fool predators? And then why is it that when humans use the same sort of deception we are at once shocked and repulsed? Could it be because in the human species it may more often be the predator who uses disguise, who seeks to deceive others, or that it is more often the occasionally even willing victim who either chooses not to or else somehow fails to disguise themselves sufficiently to avoid predation? Or is it that we have little difficulty balancing contradictory opposites in our own minds, at one and the same time acknowledging the need for survival in the natural world while morally disapproving of the same need in the human world?
Could it be that same mechanism of denial which assures us whenever we pass judgement that we are always unquestionably righteous while it is invariably the others who sin and fall short of perfection?

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