Preface by Alain de Benoist

« In what state is the world ?» It is not very well and many are asking why. As many others, Maxime Laguerre has also found that there exists "a certain uneasiness" in our civilization, but the explanation he gives is far from being accepted. He observes that in western societies, man lives in a perpetual present, that he has contempt for the past and his concern for the future is limited to himself.

That is, he is no longer concerned by the conditions of its perpetuation. Yet, morally and physically humanity is becoming fragil. Of course today, with the help of modern medicine, many ills can be cured and repaired. But all progress has its reverse as well as its limites. Is it not already foreseen that the day is not far off when the costs of health care will become so enormous that the system will collapse ? The subject could be generalized. Not only does technical progress dissipate social pathologies but it often encourages them. It is upon these types of observations that Maxime Laguerre has conceived his book., which should be taken as a means to help clear the mind of a long series of false ideas.

Laguerre considers that most of these false ideas had their hour of glory in the 18th century and that they have never completely disappeared. They were the ideas which, by an excessive confidence in the great power of education and an improved social environment, it was believed that all human beings were completely malleable from birth. They had thus forgotten or denied that which everyone knew before, that is, that there is an inborn part of a personality at birth inherited from the parents.

Thus, in a process inspired by optimism, they believed that it was possible to arrive at equal results by giving equal chance from the start. They also believed that thanks to education you could remove the differences, be they the differences of capability or of temperment, or even the differences which exist between the two sexes. In an even more voluntary point of view, they even thought that they could create a "new man". In brief, they tried to understand it, but they thought that materialistic changes of the world correlatively engendered change in man himself.

Curiously, this belief in the capability of man to mold himself as he wished went in a direction of equalization , a homoginization - yet, after all, such a belief could have oriented itself towards the creation of differences even greater. That is, the ideology of progress was united with the ideology of "self". It is the millenary aspiration of man to do away with that which distinquishes to arrive at a level, supposedly better, of pure and simple indistinctability.

On the contrary, today we note the disastrous results of this irrresistible asperation. Thus Maxime Laguerre recalls at the right moment that the role of the environment is not negligable but secondary within the chronology of the term : the environment can help in the development of capabilities, or on the contrary inhibit them. But it is indeed incapable of creating them. Culture, in other terms, adds to the natural but does not deprive an individual of them.

Our present day knowledge confirms this diagnosis. The systematic comparison of identical twins (monozygotes) with false twins (dizygotes) and those of adopted children who have never known their real parents, leaves no doubts concerning this subject. These numerous studies - for few subjects have been so profoundly studied as that of the nature and the source of cognitive capability - show that in the inheritance of intellectual capability in a given population, the part of variance between individuals due to genetic factors - (this variance is defined as the dispersion of the various aspects of a character about the mean) - is an undisputable reality. This value of this variance is different among the authors but it it is never less than 50 %. As for the "environment", far from being an homogenious value, it also includes the environment which the individual creates himself with the help of his inborn capabilities.

Maxime Laguerre concludes that biological evolution precedes and directs the evolution of thought, which in the human being is the free choice adaptaion to unforecastable innovations. Since the value of the affinities of the biological heritage are proportional to the good understanding among human beings, he adds that mankind will be happier and will live in better harmony if they are able to group themselves according to their genetic heritage and their cultural affinity.

Exposed in this manner, the statement seems to be lapidary. But Laguerre also introduces the necessary shades of meaning. For example, he notes the existence of a heirachy based upon "intellectual faculties" and gives a lot of value to the works on the IQ, which measures general intelligence (the g factor) and cognitive capability. He also refuses to reduce all to intelligence and cites favorably the thesis of multiple intelligences (Howard Gardiner) : sing the values of manual labor and show with force the limits of reasoning !

He also affirms the predominence of the inborn. He also underlines the importance of the acquired and the open-mindness of man : while animals, normally living in a stable environment, learn naturally what is good or bad for them. The human being confronted by multiple innovations no longer has this faculty. It is culturally and no longer naturally that he learns what he should avoid. But since his instinctive impulses are generally stronger than his reasoning, he is continually menaced by various dangerous dependencies against which he is unable to prevent himself from adhering even though he is aware of the consequences.

The objective criterion which Maxime Laguerre finally retains to judge the value of an idea is therefore, first that it serves or not the capability of the human race to perpetuate itself. The finality of all living creatures being the perpetuation of the species, an idea is of value if it permits mankind and society to continue without degrading. On the contrary, all ideas proposed to be put into operation which tend to degrade society or engender the disappearance of the human race must be rejected.

*

Three things have impressed me the most upon reading his book, the first being the formal denonciation of the ideology of "progress", about which he justifiably writes that today it is still "the political and social philosophy of all our governments". Thus I feel that it is worth while to write a few words concerning this.

The idea of "progress" whose roots are ancient, was basically formulated at the beginning of western modernity around the year 1680, in the midst of the quarrels between the ancients and the modern in which participated :Terrasson, Perrault, Abbé de Saint Pierre and Fontenelle. It became more precise in the following generation consisting principly of: Turgot, Condorcet and Louis Sebastien Mercier. Progress was now defined as a step by step process in which the most recent is always judged to be better and preferable, that it is qualitatively superior to the preceding one. This definition also contains a descriptive element (a change occurs in a given direction) and a axiological element (this progression is interpreted as an improvement) . Therefore, it concerns an oriented change, and the orientation is towards the better, at the same time necessary (you cannot stop progress) and irreversible (globally there is no turning back possible). Since the improvement is ineluctible, we must deduce that tomorrow will always be better.

Of course, the theorticians of progress are divided as to the direction of this progress, as to the rythm and of the nature of the accompanying changes and eventually also on the principal actors. Nevertheless, all the adherants to these three key ideas : a linear concept of time tied to the idea that history has a sense i.e. oriented towards the future; the conviction that because of the fundimental unity of humanity all are entirely called upon to evolve in the same direction; finally, the belief that man can be and must be transformed. The human being is affirming himself as the sovereign master of nature - including his proper nature !

Therefore, the notion of progress implies the idolatry of the new (novum); all new is a priori better by the mere fact that it is new. This thirst for the new, systematically presented as synonomous with better, rapidly became one of the obsessions of modernity. Turgot, in 1750, then Condorcet, expressed it in the form of a conviction which can be formulated simply : "The great mass of humanity always moves towards a greater perfection".

In parallel, man is posed not only as a being with desires and needs to be renewed continuously, but also as stated above, a being who is indefinitely perfectible. A new anthropology which makes a clean slate, a virgin mold at birth (it is the blank state invoked by Steven Pinter in a recent book), or the being is attributed an "imaginary" nature without any ties to his real existence. Human diversity, individual or collective, is regarded as being contingent and indefinitely transformable by education and the environment. The notion of artifice becomes central to and synonymous with refined culture. Man is no longer to be considered as accomplishing his humanity only by apposing himself to a nature and free himself of that nature to become "civilized".

They insist, with particular insistence, on the cumulitive power of scientific knowledge. The conclusion which we can make is that the necessary power of progress, since we will always know more, is that all will always go towards the better. A good mind is "composed of all that preceded it". We thus deduce the constant superiority of the modern. "We are the midgets standing on the shoulders of giants", as stated by Bernard de Clairvaux and repeated by Fontenelle and in recent times by Albert Einstein.

Thus the ancients are no longer authorities. On the contrary, tradition is foreseen as being by its very nature an obstacle to the forward march of reason. In the comparison of the present to the past, the advantage, always given to the present, also gives the means to unveil the movement of the future. Thus the comparative movement can be forecast. Progress, originally posed as the result of evolution becomes : the principal of this evolution.

The forward march of humanity can thus be interpreted as the perfection of moral happiness. For the men of the Age of Enlightment, since mankind will always act in the future in a manner more and more enlightened, reason would be perfected and humanity will become morally better. Not only will progress affect the exterior way of life but it will also transform man himself. Progress acquired in a certain domain will necessarily react positively on all the others. Material and moral betterment will go hand in hand. The golden age is not behind us but within our reach in the continually more perfected state of our society.

Of course, today the belief in progress has lost its splendor. The optimism of its beginning has been undermined by many delusions. The future now appears more of a carrier of menaces than as an anouncer of " a resplendent future" Nevertheless, the word "progress" conserves an eminently positive value , as is shown by the usage of the word by our politicians. In spite of many vicissitudes and wars, the idea continues to impose itself, often in a roundabout way to affirm that the difficulties of today will perforce find their solutions tomorrow.

Maxime Laguerre attributes the continued maintenance of this belief to the decisive role of the intellectuals. He reproaches them for continually imagining that man can free himself of his proper nature by turning to the use of reason, by continuing to believe that by education and by transforming the environment to ensure the infinite perfection of mankind: to remain indifferent to the often cruel contradictions which reality opposes to their theories and finally (and especially) their great tendency to overestimate the role that they would play in the progression of events.

The intellectuals would in a sense be by nature the makers of utopias. But, for Maxime Laguerre, utopia is not defined as that which has never been seen, but indeed that which we can never see, that it is impossible. The idea of utopia engenders inevitable deceptions, which in turn produce anger and frustration. Therefore, the intellectuals carry a heavy responsibility for the difficulties faced by our contemporaries. Laguerre also states that the intellectuals can only ascertain the evolution of morals. They can disapprove or be delighted but they do not direct it.

Being an intellectual, I could of course be shocked and chagrined by this affirmation recurrent in this book, according to which the power of ideas is essentially zero and that the intellectuals are also of little or no service. However, this is not the case and that for a simple reason : although all the intellectuals occupy more or less the same function, fortunately they do not all express the same ideas.

Moreover, the best proof is that Maxime Laguerre expresses only ideas throughout his book. But between those which he proposes and those which he criticizes, there exists a considerable difference in nature but not in the degree. The ideas which he attacks are abstract ideas, or more exactly - because all ideas are necessarily abstract in their pure formulation - ideas themselves come from abstract conceptions of the world. That is, they are ideas which are first rooted in experience. Here we touch upon the second leitmotive of his book.

If there is a main theme in the book of Maxime Laguerre which serves as a guiding theme , it is in effect the conviction that ideas should be founded firstly upon concrete observations, and that experience constitutes an irreplaceable source of learning. In other terms, Laguerre places himself in a perspective in which practice cannot be informed by theory except to the exact extent that this reason first results from practice:

For example, Laguerre distinquishes abstract innovations from concrete innovations. He opposes "abstract conveyed by words to the concrete works made by hand", the know-how of how to do and the counsellors to the practicians". Concerned with rehabilitating practical know-how and manual work in face of pure intellectual activity, he is afflicted by the fact that schools often teach "contempt of the concrete and the superiority of the abstract". He repeats this method of opposition constantly in his work.

It is this method by which he enjoys using many different subjects : democracy in the schools, peasantry, immigration, road safty, the bank credit system, etc. By these means he confirms the nature of reproaches he is addressing to the intellectuals. Not so much against the announcement of theories, for they are needed in all things. He is against formulating them without worrying about concrete reality and basing them upon pure ideas of a priori beliefs or to abstract representations which do not at all correspond to reality.

*

This legitimate care to never forget the concrete sometimes makes one think of "common sense" which is so important to the Anglo-Saxons. However, to illustrate his propositions, he refers most frequantly to the french authors and above all to : La Fontaine, Montaigne and La Bruyère, a choice emminently revealing which will be the subject of my last remarks.

The two authors most frequently cited are Montaigne and La Fontaine, the second more often the first. It is certainly not by accident, since both are registered in the classical tradition which is also that of common sense. Like archers facing their targets, the two writers aim at the (exact) center. Both are also moralists, a word which has only a rather limited relationship with that which is commonly referred to as morals, if not precisely as in a formula as: "the morals of history". That is to say, the lesson which must be learned from it, but with much more human psychology based upon observation and common sense, which is the acuteness of insight. Because of this they are the professors of realism.

Montaigne (1533-1592), who wrote during the wars of religion, so similar to the ideological conflicts of present times, declared that the lie was hateful and taught above all the respect for the true. The truth of which he was an adept is not like that of Saint Thomas which equates the real with pure intellect, but it is that which is established by opening the eyes, that which is given and revealed to those who make the effort to observe without preconceptions. That is why he condemns purely speculative abstract reasoning and proposes in its place modest reasoning - a reasonable prudence, rather intimate, and he verifies it continually.

Exactly one century after Montaigne, La fontaine (1621-1695) naturally took sides with the Ancients against the Modern in the famous quarrel . Contrary to the established idea, he is definately not a "light" author. St Beuve was not mistaken when he wrote : "He is our Homer, for we who have lost the epic battle". As for Pierre Boutang, he does not hesitate in presenting him as a sort of "practician" of the thoughts of Vico. Thus, the fables of La Fontaine are not "fables" in the sense of false stories, no more than myths are inventions lacking any sense. In his fables, La Fontaine says only true things. He tells them in a manner both simple and poetic to teach us lessons as provisions for our journey. And if he chooses the fable, it is because the words therein are irreductable to symbolic abstractions.

Besides, we find in his works not one biblical reference, while he is enchanted by antic mythology. His preferred God is Apollon, because he is the God of speaking clearly and telling the truth. The moral proper to La Fontaine is as his image : simple and true, exactly opposite to all utopias (Each one turns into realities : as much as he can his own dreams" ). It extols the sense of the real, the taste for work well done, prudence, simplicity, but also solitude which is indispensible to inspiration. La Fontaine is not exclusive. He likes all.

"There is nothing
That is not sovereign good
Until the somber pleasure of a melancholy heart".

But at the same time, he imposes nothing, because he is above all conscious of the diversity of men. He thinks that each one should first "enjoy himeself", which signifies following his leanings. "Let us not force our talents. We will do nothing gracefully". Man should aim towards excellence, which implies being himself, to live according to his type.

As Esope his predecessor, La Fontaine gives animals human behavior. More exactly, he uses animals to speak of men. One could consider it anthropomorphism. But isn't it rather that La Fontaine has taken from the ancients the clear conscience that man is immerged in the vast flux of the living ? The rise of life sciences has confirmed since that man is also an animal, although he ocupies a privileged place among the many species. When Maxime Laguerre busies himself with finding lessons which concern us by observing animals, it is in the footsteps of La Fontaine which he once again follows - of the La Fontaine who humanized beasts just to remind us to what point we resemble them. And it was the same concerning Montaigne, who judged that nothing puts us either under or above the other animals, and who amused himself by searching for signs of equality and correspondence between man and the beasts.

Thus we understand better why we have never ceased in citing La Fontaine, whose best known maxims apply so well to today's actuality, even the most recent : "The reason of the strongest is always the best"... "If it is not you, then it is your brother"... "In all things one must consider the end". Let us not forget these words from "The hunting dog and her mate"... "In all things one must consider the end".

Thus we can better understand why we have never stopped citing La Fontaine who's best know maxims apply so well to today's actualities, even the most recent :

"That which we give to the wicked, we regret
[...] Let them get a step into your door,
They will soon have taken four."

There is no doubt that the book of Maxime Laguerre will appear very "reactionary" to those who find it much more comfortable to remain with their illusions. To the others, he will give them a salutary cure of realism. Lucien Dubech said concerning La Fontaine :"He has all the features of a Homeric [...] He is not didactic, he doesn't teach, he is gnomic and condenses truth into conveying images". This formula , I feel, can also be applied to the author of this book. By proposing to offer "demonstrative philosophy", Maxime Laguerre also proposes: "images which carry and where the truth is condensed". (Alain de Benoist)

SUMMARY
Preface

Preliminary remarks
1   The foundations of a new approach
     The pure intellectual and evolution
     From the animal to the human being
     The twins
     The lengthening of life expectancy
     Man sick because of progress

2  On democracy and other forms of government
     On Justice
     Social justice
     Produce, trade, finance
     The exploitation of man by man
     Greatness and decadence of the peasantry
     Publicity
     The evolution of the couple and of sexuality
     Parity
     To educate - to form - instruct, or education through the ages
     In defense of the French language
     Evolurion of art
     The Bible and the new testament
     Crossbreading, is it the future of man ?
     The perfect man

Conclusion

Preliminary remarks

This book which I propose that you read is a philosophical work : if I abord economic and political subjects, it is in order to research their philosophy, that is, the primary causes of their functioning . This approach is already evident in the title. I am convinced that today the ideology of progress is in crisis and that it is leading to decadence.

Of course, we all tend to more or less think progress represents a change for the better, and that is the sense that I will give it. We also tend to believe that progress is directed by scientists and that it is their discoveries which orient it. However, it is not so. That the earth is flat or round, that the sun revolves around the earth or the inverse, that there is or is not life on Mars, all these change nothing concerning the evolution of human society. Thus progress as a word has no meaning. It is not the consequence of discoveries (we discover only that which exists). Thus it is the innovations, which are totally unforecastable, which constitute progress and orient evolution.

Three great principles precede the adoption of innovations. The first is the search for least effort. The bicycle requires less effort than walking or running and the automobile even less effort than either of the two. The second is the search for ever more intense sensations. Finally, the third is that of communication : being a gregarious animal we wish to be informed about all that is happening around us.

Since prehistoric times innovations have continually modified our environment and our way of life. However, biologically we are similar to all mammalians who live in more or less stable environments to which they have adapted. Each animal and vegetable is merely a perishable vector of a genetic patrimony which they must transmit. This genetic patrimony commands its development and its behavoir oriented towards reproduction and perpetuation. These insticts are there to indicate that which is good or bad for them in the given environment , where from generation to generation they find their food, know the same elements and face the same predators.

But man is a very particular case ! Because of his inventions, he has disconnected his instincts from their original finality. While all the food which an animal finds agreeable to his taste is also good for its health, man consumes more and more tasty foods but which, in general, are not very good for his health. But food is only one of many examples. Excessive noise, excessive images, the suppression of natural sensations of hot and cold thanks to central heating and air conditioning have all combined to fragilize his body.

The result is the appearance of socalled civilization diseases such as asthma, allergies, diabetes, bulimia, anorexia, cardiovascular, Alzheimer, Parkinson, etc. Other bad habits, such as drinking alcohol and taking drugs, can degrade the genetic patrimony transmitted to the baby thus resulting in numerous handicaps. Finally, in the realm of sexuality, it has become evident that man's sexual drives and desires are no longer oriented simply towards reproduction.

Some think that man's glory is to have been able to free himself of his "primitive" behavior and thus invent thousands of new ways to procure happiness and pleasure. But, even taking this one example, most of those individuals who adopt deviant behavoir concerning sexuality do not do so by free choice, but are driven by desires and inborn pulsions. Is there anything reasonable in that ?

Unfortunately, here we run against a capital error which appeared in the 18th century. It consists in believing that the individual is just the sum of the acquired in family, school and environment. We know today that this is only partially true. In reality, among the material, intellectual and moral nourishment which we try to impose upon man, he assimilates durably only those which correspond to his inborn capabilities, desires and needs.

Just as with the food absorbed, of which only a part serves to nourish the body for the remainder is rejected, it is similar concerning intellectual knowlege. Of course, it can be memorized. With children it can be done by instilling fear of punishment or by offering a reward, but most will be forgotten once the punishment or the reward (the diploma for example) had ben received.

The only knowledge retained will be that which corresponds to the inborn orientation and interests of the individual. The proof is found in homozygote twins (having the same genetic patrimony) who have been seperated at birth and have been raised in totally different environments. They nevertheless remain perfectly identical concerning their intelligence, their personalities, their tastes, their cultural likes, etc. Moreover, they will resemble more their biological parents who they have never known, than the parents who adopted and raised them. If, for example, they meet for the first time at the age of thirty , the understanding between them is immediate and lasting.

The understanding between two individuals, which is sometimes atributed to "interlocking atoms", due to instinctive attraction or to elective affinities, indicates simply a genetic heritage which has determined an identity of taste and choice. On the inverse, misundertstanding which one tends to explain by simple cultural differences is often due to the genetic distance. In reality, cultural differences and genetic differences are linked.

All cultures are more or less equivalent. They are always an entirety of creations adopted durably by a community. The hope that we can attenuate and eventiually illiminate cultural differences by means of education , or that the establishment of a "world culture" could arrive at an entente among all the peoples, appears more and more as an utopia. But the widely held belief that those who think differently from us must be in error, that they represent the "evil", is just as erroneous. As Montaigne wrote "barbarism is that which is not of our usage".

Thus human societies have "progressed" thanks to concrete inventions, much more than by discoveries. That which Galileo discovered remained unknown to most of his contemporaries and the evolution of human society was not changed one iota. But in return, nobody knows the name of the inventor of the still. Yet, the inventor of that apparatus to make alcohol had an immense influence upon the health and morals of man. The consequence in France was the birth of thousands of children born with handicaps due to the dependence upon alcohol of their parents. Even today, the use and abuse of alcohol in human society plays an important part, especially in autodistruction.

*

Thus the purpose of my book is to show how seemingly constructive innovations of what we call "progress", in reality lead to decadence. I will first outline the principal points :

1) The baby develops from its conception by a mechanism commanded by the genetic patrimony. All physical and mental characteristics are to a great part determined by these genes: the height, the color of the skin as well as the eyes and the hair, the mentality, the tastes and leanings, the intelligence quotient, the predisposition for certain diseases, etc. The individual is a perishable vector of a patrimony. His task is to conserve and transmit it. For, if all individuals are mortal, the line of descendance is essentially immortal. Of course to develop the individual needs material and intellectual nourishment, but the only ones he will be able to assimilate are those which have been chosen by his genes. The others will be forgotten sooner or later or rejected.

2) Without the ability to invent thanks to his imagination, which differentiates him from other animals, man living in a stable environment would probably never have evolved and would have reproduced identically from generation to generation as do the animals, except perhaps the adaptations provoked by exterior change such as climatic.

3) The multiple human inventions, always by individuals, always freely adopted, have greatly modified the environment and conditions under which man now lives. His genetic patrimony has been modified in order that his descendants be better adapted to this new way of life. Unfortunately some of these modifications have degraded the precious genetic patrimony thus resulting in numerous pathologies and provoking a veritable degeneration. Thus in a paradoxical way, the more man searches to protect himself against the elements, diseases,and predators, the more he weakens his natural defenses and his health. He has thus become dependant upon these innovations. Concerning this subject, allow me to cite an example taken from the remarable work: "The history of the European envirnment" by Robert Walters :

"The recent lightning case of the Island of Nauru, so typical that it has become exemplary, for it shows the inhabitants passing rapidly, thanks to their phosphate deposits, from poverty to richess. Their food had been frugal and difficult to obtain when, suddenly, they knew abondance and overconsumption. Most became sedentary and obese. Most, also became diabetics thus reducing considerably there life expectancy. " That such an evolution be rapid or very slow through several generations, the result will be the same.

4) Progress due to the permanent adoption of human innovations would not be possible if humanity, primarily occidental, had not persuaded themselves that innovations could only increase their happiness . Each generation tends to believe that it is happier than the previous one, and would find it difficult to imagine living without the innovations not available to their ancestors. For a 21st century Frenchman, the idea of living without running water, central heating, electricity, washing machine, automobile , television, etc., is unsupportable.

But we can question the intrinsic value of such reasoning, because there exists an immense difference between the fact of being deprived of something which one possesses or the fact of not possessing that which one ignores that it exists or that it could exist. Happiness is to obtain that which one desires, but also to desire only that which one can obtain. The absence of all innovations cannot diminish our happiness. Our universe will become like nature, which is an eternal beginning. The continual modification of an animal's environment and of its repairs engenders anxiety, even depression. These ills are increasingly found in human beings, who try to avoid them by using all sorts of drugs and medicines.

5) Socalled Progress has continued to accelerate since World War TWO. It is nourished by a sort of permanent competition between individuals, enterprises and nations. The individuals adopt the innovations to increase their wellbeing, to ease their lives and increase their notoriety or to appear more important. The enterprises must necessarily adopt that which permits them to improve their productivity and their profits. In order not to disappear they must continually propose new things to their customers. As for the nations, they continually search the means to increase their economic, financial and military power. Finally, most governments have as an objective the increase in the consumption by households, as if it mechanically brought an increase in happiness. In reality, it increases frustration, favorizes the multiplication of artificial needs, fragilizes the health and leads to a formidable wasting.

Can this rushing forward continue perpetually ? The exhausting of certain natural resources (as fish), of certain raw materials (wood, metals), of certain energy products (coal, gas, oil) are already programmed. the result will be a worldwide economic crisis , the political and social effects of which will be disastrous. At the same time the armements race continues even though it is senseless.

Of course, we can imagine the most powerful nation dominating the world, and imposing a sort of "pax romana". But the dominated countries, not necessarily inferior in courage and intelligence, will try to invent weapons adapted to their combat possibilities. Miniaturized atomic bombs and chemical and biological arms can make our planet unlivable.

The idea that progress is a change for the better has been a dogma for a little more than two centuries, and is still so today. It is a truth which cannot be discussed. The primary purpose of this work is to question this dogma which, far from leading us toward an eldorado, is able to provoke a veritable distruction of humanity !

PART 1

FOUNDATIONS OF A NEW APPROACH
The pure intellectuals and evolution

Ideas are perhaps wind, but this wind, like that which advances sail boats, has made human society progress ! This is a pretty phrase to delight the intellectuals. Unfortunately, it is entirely false. Our environment and our morals, which are closely tied, evolve according to a mechanism in which the intellectuals take no part. Some approve certain changes, since they wished them. They then pretend that they were the cause. Others condemn them, which does not prevent them from happening. To tell the truth, neither one has anything to do with it. The changes are made in spite of them.

The grand illusion concerning the role of the intellectuals in the evolution of our society dates from the 18th century known as the Age of Enlightment.

But why did these intellectuals, who at the origin belonged more or less to the religious heirarchy (even if they were not priests), little by little pull away from them. . It was as if they passed from the submission of children to the independence of adults ? One might think that this change was a result of a purely intellectual evolution. In reality, this evolution, the desire for which has been latent for a long time, was rendered possible by the invention of the printing press. Before the press, they could not speak to the people except from the pulpit of a church. This limited not only the liberty of expression, but also the audience they could reach. Thanks to the industrial production of paper and the printing presses, it became possible to communicate one's thoughts to the public without passing through the church. Now as Malsherbes wrote, "each citizen can speak to the entire nation by means of the press".

This example is revealing. The history of humanity is not that of the evolution of abstract ideas, but first of all that of inventions and very concrete innovations and of their multiple consequences. It is thus that the Age of Enlightment owes its influence to this new means of communication which was the printing press, which permitted a certain type of intellectual to write and be heard by many.

Thus, for even talented humans, genius was not sufficient for them to accomplish their destiny. the concrete circumstances must also exist. If Corsica had not been annexed by France two years before the birth of Napoleon Buonaparte, he would have been italian and his name would not have passed on to posterity. To have an exceptional destiny one must win two lotteries - first that of genetics, then that of circumstances. Napoleon had the luck of having the right number in the two lotteries;

When the machine tools replaced the little by little the hand tools of the artisans, the artisans were condemned to disappear. This disappearance was programmed yet their know-how, intelligence and their tastes did not merit this decline. Moreover, this was greatly regretted by the populatioin. Yet, in an inverse sense, individuals having other qualities and other aptitudes have consistantly benefited from the arrival of diverse inventions.

It suffices to take as an example the appearance of "show business" with the emergence of singers, actors, sportsmen. Many become rich and greatly admired, even idolized by the public. If all these "super-stars" had been born in the 19th century or earlier, they would have known a rather mediocre existence. Their talents would have remained latent, since the circumstances would not have allowed them to express themselves. It is the inventions in which they played no part : the cinema, the radio, the television, the record industry and the new communication technologies which have permitted them to succeed.

During the Middle Ages, the intellectual power was concentrated entirely in the church, but his state of things changed after the invention of the printing press in 1448, by a pure manual worker which Gutenberg was. Soon the great thinkers and writers were able to make known their ideas, which were far from being purely speculative. Montaigne, La Bruy_re, La fontaine or Moli_re, who had in common a sharp sense of observation, knew how to analyse the behavior of their contemporaries and to write about it.

The great majority of catholic priests preached in other times a behavior which required a constant personal effort. There were the early morning mass, the fasts, the venal and capital sins which were to be repented.... Religion prepared all the faithful for an eternal life in in a better world by teaching them to obey the morals of the church. The intellectuals of the Age of enlightment had other objectives. It is now on this earth, an not in paradise, that humanity should find the conditions for a total self realization. Thus happiness replaced salvation, and the future took the place of heaven. Science would make it possible to improve material wellbeing by helping to produce more and more consumer goods. This ineluctable "change for the better" constitute progress.

As for the improvement of morals, it was to come by education. In this optic, the human being having been formed uniquely by his acquired and his reasoning, then education could render all men tolerant, kind, fraternal, interdependent, pacific, free and perfectly happy.

Two new dogmas appeared in the 18th century : that of progress as a permanent change for the better of material life and that of the improvement of morals by education, all of which intimates an infinite perfection of the human being. These two beliefs were enthusiastically accepted by most of the intellectuals of the times and it was with great "fervour that they prepared the "singing tomorrows".

It must be understood to what point these two dogmas were revolutionary and why they founded our modern times. Both begin with the idea that man - and it is his superiority, his glory and his specificity - can pull himself away from nature and continually improve his existence, while the animal remains through the ages alway identical to what it is. Let us consider what Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote concerning this : ...

"On this difference between man and animal, there is another very specific quality which distinquishes them, and on which there can be no contestation, it is the faculty to improve, a faculty which by the help of circumstances, successively develops all the others and remains in both the individual and the species, while an animal is at the end of several months that which it will be all its life, and also its species at the end of a thousand years that which it was at the first year of the thousand years."

Thus, Jean-Jacques Rousseau thought of the possiblity of a freeing from nature, a freeing which he judged as eminently desirable and he thought it was directed by the intellectuals who should teach the unlearned working classes. For him, the further the human being moves away from animality, the better he becomes. This idea was taken up and radicalized by Emmanuel Kant.

The analysis of all the modern deviants which entrain all sorts of behaviors, sometimes criminal and unknown in animals, do not however give comfort to this thesis of the continued perfectioning of the human being thanks to his freeing from nature. Besides, when we know that behaviors are largely inborn and thus are not due to reasonable choice, we are indeed obliged to think that it is not reason which governs the human being.

If a human being feels emotions and impulses not found in animals nor in primitive man, we must in return conclude that it is his genotype which has evolved. That is not at all surprising, since the genetic patrimony of each individual is susceptible to be modified in order to adapt to changes in the sentient world. These modifications then become hereditary. It is exactly here that there is a great difference between man and animal. In nature an animal lives in a passive fashion the slow evolution of his natural milieu and is able to adapt. In human society, it is man himself who, by the adoption of innovations, transforms his sentient world.

*

Before the 18th century practically nobody believed in the all acquired. On the contrary, one thought the acquired , when it was not programmed by the inborn but imposed by exterior circumstances, remained superficial and contingent, and that it disappeared as soon as circumstances imposed it. Animals can be trained, but when the trainer disappears the lessons are forgotten little by little and nature retakes its rights. Thus they believed in the preeminence of the inborn, "Good dog hunt of race", was a common saying.

It was mainly among the church intellectuals that this belief in predestination was painfully felt. How could they admit that human beings could be born already damned? Moreover, what lession should be learned from the words of Jesus found in the parable of the bad shepherd : "You will judge man by his acts as one judges the fruits of the tree by its fruits. The good tree gives god fruits, the bad tree gives bad fruits. The bad tree must be torn down and burned !"

Montaigne, La Bruy_re, La Fontaine and Moli_re believed in the inborn personality and character of the individuals. They observed and described them. They accepted them as they were and knew that they could not change them - from whence their tolerance. In effect, intolerance comes from the desire to transform humans, or to "convert" them, even if it is made with the best of intensions, with the intimate conviction that one is doing good. But one can give good counsel only to those who resemble us and who, because they resemble us, are able the follow the same road that we have followed.

Moli_re, a self-taught, had acquired all by the apprenticeship of life. He never went to an actors school, nor attended a school where one learns how to write plays, nor one where one learns how to manage a small theatre. He learned all in the field, and his success came from his natural predispositions and his natural talent, and not from teachers. That is perhaps why he shows such an aversion for the latter. In his "Le Bourgeois gentilhomme" , he ridicules all of them : the French professor, the philosophy professor and the fencing master.

The main criticism found in this play is certainly that of social promotion. Mister Jourdain had succeeded professionally, his marriage was a success and he should have been satisfied with his life. But suddenly he decides to change his social class, to leave his state as a bourgeois to become a gentleman. Moli_re finds this intention absolutely ridiculous. To tell the truth, the differences between social classes existing in former times - marriages being made within each class - are very similar to the differences among races. Jean Giono, impassioned by the peasant world, did he not exclaim : "The peasants are not a social class, but a race" ?

This idea of social class tied to birth changed when this belonging became above all tied to money. Mister Jourdain was one of those who thought that thanks to money, he could change his social class. However, he merely became the prey of persons interested only in his fortune. They made him believe that by acquiring the same knowledge as the gentlemen, he would become like them. But he merely succeed in becoming ridiculous in the eyes of his family.

Is it not indeed curious that at a time where racism is justly condemned, a racism which considers that there are superior and inferior races, that the idea of a superior social class - the intellectuals - and an inferior class - the manuals still persists ? The school which permits a son of a manual worker to obtain a diploma, which opens the door to a career in public service, is readily qualified as a "social elevator". Now, this word "elevator" is without ambiguity . Thanks to it, it is possible to pass from an "inferior" social class to a "superior" social class. But if the social elevator worked fully, if all the sons of plumbers, carpentors, painters, masons, roofers, electricians, bakers, butchers and workers succeed in becoming "white collar" workers, how would our society be able to function ?

In the 16th and 17th century, they still thought that each social class had a function, a utility, qualities proper to their activities - and that they were all responsible for the proper functioning of society and the nation. Each class had a way of life, their values of reference and sometimes even a language. Thus it was absurd to heirarchize them, to wish to change them by vanity. Only the different inborn qualities particular to a certain social class could justify such a change. Living close to nature, all thought, for example, that it was stupid to consider a pure blood horse superior to a work horse. Each had its function corresponding to its natural qualities. Each one had his pride and did not wish to change his function, as had wished the donkey in the fable "The donkey and the little dog".

In the middle of the Age of Enlightment, Leibniz wrote : "Give me education and I will change the face of Europe before a century." In 1787, Condorcet added :

"There are no differences between the two sexes which are not the work of education." A fortiori not only between the two sexes, butalso between individuals.

These citations suffice to show how much the intellectuals had taken the opposite view of the established order concerning the aptitudes of birth. The case of Condorcet is of particular interest because he seems to be the father of of what we call today : parity between the two sexes. Let us recall that parity means the same. Most certainly one can speak of parity in the case of identical twins. If Condorcet, an intelligent and sincere man, speaks of abolishing the differences between men and women by education, it is probably that he considered that abstract knowledge, by the intervention of reason, governs our behavior.

It is certain that men and women have the same capacity to understand and to memorize abstract knowledge. The education given by our modern schools shows us that boys and girls obtain equivalent results, with perhaps a certain superiority for the girls , at least during childhood.

Let us not forget that Condorcet was an intellectual, which is defined in the dictionaries which he published as: "He who has a pronounced taste for intellectual things." And how is intellegence defined ? : "The faculty to know and to understand."

How is intelligence measured ? It is by a system of tests which determine an intelligence.quotient (the IQ). The hierachy established by schools and certified by the diplomas or by these tests correspond to this IQ. If you enter into the public service sector thanks to a diploma or by passing tests, your career will be programmed by the diploma or the test. It will be tied to your IQ. The system seems to be rather coherent. The great problem is that success in life outside the public service does not respect the heirarchy determined by the diplomas.

The French National Education system is controled by the professors who consider that intellectual knowledge is superior, enriching, gratifying and valorizing, while teaching simple know-how is inferior, impoverishing and degrading. To teach a girl sewing, cooking, and how to run a household is to degrade, while teaching her the history of art, literature and philosophy is elevating. It is also applied to the boys.

Thus, all the manual trades must disappear without really knowing how to replace them. Yet, the natural interest in all concrete activities indicates that the commercial sectors which have progressed the most, even exploded since the last world war, are gardening and doing odd jobs, yet neither is taught in the schools. While the sales of literary books have dropped notably, even though our schooling should have incited to buy them.

The idea of parity was not born in rural France, where only a century ago 95 % of the French population lived and worked. The division of work of the peasants and artisans was constant, not by principle or by "machism" but by the simple desire for efficiency. If in the purely intellectual domain defined by the IQ we can speak of parity, as did Condorcet, it is entirely different in the professional domain. Parity today is a part of electral demagogy from which none of the candidates for a public election can escape. If the feminists are very attentive concerning the quotas for prestigious and lucrative professions, they seem to be uninterested in the work for the ordinary population.

Who has not noted that the cashiers at the supermarkets are always females ? Is it a question of discrimination by the personnel director ? Not at all ! It is simply a result of the superiority of women to do this type of work. For most small manual tasks , as for the tasks of communication, they are more precise and rapid than the men. There are other jobs and professions in which women are better than men. What is important is not to have a judgement for or against, as in other times when in Europe a woman as queen or empress was acceptable or as today in politics.

Thus, women are the same as men when it concerns the form of intelligence measured by the IQ which is tied to success in school. However, there is a capability of which nobody seems to speak ; creativity. This manifests itself by the innovations and inventions. An analysis of the patents of inventions in all domains, even in those normally feminine, shows a considerable difference between men and women. But I find these comparisons between different human beings rather absurd. Is the dog superior to the cat or the cat superior to the dog ? And why do the feminists consider that to practice a man's trade is a promotion. Why do they only worry about "intellectual professions" and not about the "manual ones" ?

*

Today, the difference between man and animals is very evident, but was it the same for primitive man ? Without arms, tools, cloths, an omnivor like the bear, man did not have a life style different from the other animals. Except that he was gregarious, like most of the superior mammalians.

What was the cause of their slow "parting" from nature which transformed the human being, his way of life and his environment ? I see only one : the inventions ! They were : first arms, traps, then raising animals which gave them an easier and more abundant supply of meat. Finally, there was agriculture which gave a means to have cerials, fruits and vegetables in abundance. Other inventions increased their security and better protection agains the elements.

The way of life of the humans changed continually, resulting in a genetic selection within the societies. We know scientifically that the structure of the chromosomes and the genes are not immutable, but that they are transformed by sexual selection and by mutations. Modifications are possible and they permit the evolution of the species and a better adaptation of the genetic patrimony to the new living conditions. It is thus, that an animal can live in extreme cold thanks to the function of certain genes. When the climate changes and the winters are no longer as frigid over a long period of time, the animal will have its genetic structure change. But the human beings have never consciously felt this evolution nor did they have the desire to arrive at a certain objective. Man has been genetically transformed without realizing it or wishing it.

The mechanism of cultural evolution is relatively simple. First there are inventions, then innovations which by definition are not forecastable, which are created in the brains of some men having this natural gift. Let use note that inventions differ from discoveries. The later is a result of an instinctive need which exists in all animals, such as the search for a new source of food or a hidden place to raise their young. One discovers only that which already exists, one invents that which did not exist before. The first traps, the first arms were inventions. An individual can be a researcher even if he has never discovered something. Yet an invention feeds on discoveries and researchers use new inventions to make new discoveries.

The adoption of an invention is notibly motivated by the search for new sensations, for least effort, for the need to protect against bad weather, to appear stronger for men, to be more desireable for women, for the need to communicate, to know all that is happening and to recount all that has happened to us. Gradually, we become hooked on the use or the consumption of these innovations, to the point where to eventually abandon them would appear as an unsupportable trial. When we think of the life style of our ancestors, we tend to think that we are contiinually happier, and that, thanks to progress, we will arrive at a degree of happiness absolutely unheard of !

Therefore, it is the inventions which pulled mankind away from nature, thus provoking an evolution which today renders the perpetuation of the human race rather problematical

I know very well that, according to the intellectuals, the human being evolved because the laws which govern society also evolved. These laws were their doing - and thus it was they who must direct evolution ! In his "Contract Social", Rousseau notably writes : "This passage from the natural state to the civil state produces in man a remarkable change by substituting justice to instinct in his conduct, and by giving him the morality which was missing before." According to Rousseau, and many others, law is therefore morality. It suffices to codify good and bad in order that each one becomes conscious of the differences between virtues and vices. Let us praise god that this be so ! During my long life I have seen many more gentle people who knew little about the subtilities of the laws, robbed by clever experts, than the contrary !

In reality, our understanding of good and bad is inborn and the laws can codify only that which the majority senses as just or unjust. That is why, in the courts of justice, the final decision is up to the jury who knows little about the written laws.and rights. Thus, the law can only condemn those who, for their misfortune, have been born with the bad or the perverse in them, or those who do not have the same understanding of good and bad as do the majority of the members of our society. They are punished because they are bad for the established order, even though they are not responsible for that which they have done.

Finally, in order to show that for laws to be respected, they must codify that which we feel is equitable. Let us take for example the right to own property. This already exists as a natural instinct in animals : it is, for example, the territory of the carnivore and his hunting territory which he knows how to delimit and made to be respected by others. The infant human also has the instinct that his toy must not be taken by another. But of course with the evolution of human society the notion of the right to have property is far from this primative simplicity.

*

Nothing is more interesting and revealing than the sense given to the word "culture". Primitively it was used purely in agriculture. One spoke of the culture of wheat or of the potato, which required a certain know-how, that is knowledge exclusively concrete. Then the word culture was used in the scientific domain with the meaning : they may develop a science but no longer a plant. Thus, one said that a man cultivated astronomy, chemistry or ornithology, that is to say he who wanted to develop the knowledge concerning these disciplines. On the contrary, one never said that a man "cultivated" himself, which would have transformed an altruistic activity into an egotistical activity.

However, it is exactly this new exception which has little by little imposed itself. At the same time that the notion of culture has limited itself more and more to abstract knowledge. the know-how has been eliminated from "culture". One says that a historian has a strong culture in the domain of Roman history, but one will not say that a carpenter having a remarkable know-how that he has a large culture. One only says it for those possessing theoretical knowledge and knows how to explain it in words.

Abstract knowledge has become an end in itself, thus he who memorizes it the best and has the talent to speak easily about it is unanomously admired. That is why the women of the upper classes take courses in the history of art in order to "cultivate" themselves. to improve their mind and improve their social status, in just the way that they go to the beauty parlors to "cultivate" their charms.

Today, the word "culture" tends to replace that of civilization.. Now civilization is all that which man has brought, invented, and created since prehistoric times : boats, automobiles, furniture, tables, beds, blankets, plates, glasses, spoons, forks, etc. These are products of civilization and not of culture, which remain confined in concepts, ideologies, religions, beliefs, etc.

In a study devoted to Claude Lévi-Strauss which appeared in the august 2003 edition of "The Novel Observateur", concerning what differentiates "savage thinking" from scientific thinking we can read :

"Lévi Strauss illustrated it using as an example do-it-yourself activity : this doer normally has no schematic like an engineer, but he discovers the right occasions and assembles elements in unexpected combinations as he proceeds. The do-it-yourselver is the magician of our societies : his thinking, more on the order of knowing-how more than just knowing, is not really scientific, but it works ! "

The intellectuals are baffled by creative invention, because one does not learn to be an inventor, one is born an inventor, and this by definition is not forecastable. Edison who left school at the age of 12 because of inaptitude and after having sold newspapers on trains, revealed himself to be a genial inventor. Be they called inventors or do-it-yourselfers, it is they who have changed the way of life and the lot of humanity.

*

These considerable changes, the causes of which I have tried to show, are they favorable or unfavorable concerning the destiny of the human species ? In order to decide we must be able to base our decision upon criteria which are accepted by all the human beings, otherwise all discussion is in vain. Now, there is only one which seems uncontestable to me because it is the condition sine qua non of all other criteria which one could propose. It is the one which makes it possible to give a sense to activity, behavior and the development of all living creatures both animal and vegetable.

It is the capacity to perpetuate, which is a trait common to all beings and at the same time the primary condition for their survival. All ideologies which could have as a consequence the disappearance of the human race would also disappear ; thus it is valueless. For example, we could support in a plausible manner that men understand each other better than women do from all points of view. or that we must abandon all that which are only "archaic" habits : like heterosexial couples. However, should this crierion be imposed as a universal principle and that all is judged in respect to it, that laws are passed in all domains to favorize this "progess", it is more than evident that human society would run to its disappearance, and with it the ideology which would have cause it.

That is why I insist that the critirion of perpetuation is uncontestable - unless ,of course, that one considers that humanity, and all the religions, all the ideologies, all the civilizations and all that they engender are of such little interest that their disappearance would be of no importance. Since such a point of view is supported by very few, I too will support this criterion and I will judge all things in report to that. Of course, it is neither simple nor easy.

I must note that even though knowing how-to-do is no longer considered a value, it does remain a necessary value. If "culture" enrichess the mind, it certainly does not feed the body. Alas, material nourishment is much more necessary for us than spiritual nourishment. As Aristotle wrote, before posing questions concerning the "good life" , we must first simply live. The spirit cannot live without the body, while the contrary is true - and is frequently so.

Paul Valéry observed :"The trade of an intellectual is to move all things under signs, names or symbols without the counter-balance of real acts. Bergson adds : "Speculation is a luxury, action is a necessity." It cannot be contested that the 18th century, thanks to the printing press developed several centuries earlier, saw the flowering of numerous intellectual talents, both scientific and philosophical. Between the two there developed an euphoric emulation.

They were convinced that they were working for a much happier future society, first thanks to education which was going to transform mankind, who until then had been directed by instincts. They were going to create a citizen governed by reason. Then by a scientific and technical program work would be much easier and consumer goods much more abundant improving considerably the general wellbeing. Unfortunately, while recognizing the intelligence, sincerity and idealism of the authors of these projects, we must study the results obtained. Considering all, the 18th century was above all one of the belief in Utopias.

 
From the animal to the human being

If you believe in Descartes, the animals are like programmed machines which accomplish marvelously that for which they were conceived but unable to do anything else. In 1646, he wrote in a letter to the marguis of Maleville : "I know very well that animals do many things better than we do, but that does not astound me, because that serves to prove that they react naturally and by elasticity, just as a clock which shows the hour better than we can by our judgement. It is without a doubt that when a swallow returns in spring, they react in a sense just like the clocks."

On his side, Jean-Jacques Rousseau affirmed in his "Discourse on the origin and the foundations of inequality among men" (1755) : I see in animals but an ingenious machine to which nature has given the means to rewind themselves, and to guarantee itself, to a certain point, against all that which tends to derange or destroy it. I note precisely the same things in the human machine, with the difference that nature alone does all the operations of an animal, while man works together with nature in his quality as a free agent.

The animal chooses or rejects by instinct and man by an act of liberty : thus the beast cannot deviate from the rule made for it, even if it would be to its advantage to do it, and that man deviates from it often to his predjudice. It is thus that a pigeon will die of hunger in front of a dish full of the best meat, and a cat in front of a mound of fruits or grains, yet both could be nourished by the food they distain, if they merely took the decision to do so."

These comparisons between man and animals leave me perplexed. We can judge something only when considering its finality and according to criteria which, even if they are implicite, do exist objectively. A subjective judgement, or one relative to a very particular situation, is without value. To say that a man is tall does not have the same sense with the Pygmies as with the Norwegians. For each one of these peoples there exists an implicit critirion which is the mean of height of the men composing them. Shouldn't we use the same criteria when camparing man with animals ?

The finality of all living beings - vegetable, animal or human - is perpetuation. Each plant, each animal has a characteristic form, but which continues to evolve from conception to death. But in order to perpetuate they must tranmit that which commands their comportment and evolution, that is their genetic patrimony. This exists in each cell of all living beings, whatever be the stage of their evolution : that of the acorn and the maginficant hundred year old oak tree are identical.

To pretend that an embryo becomes a human being only when it has taken the form of a foetus and that before it was only a piece of inert flesh, without personality and without potential capabilities, is a grave error. That is equivalent to saying that only the mother provokes and orients its development, and that the personality of the father will be absent in his descendants - this is known by all to be false. At the moment of conception, Napoleon possessed in his genetic patrimony the possibility of an exceptional destiny. His realizations did not only depend upon circumstances and luck.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau commits a grave error when he gives as an example the inferiority to man of the pigeon and the cat, in which the two animals die of hunger in the presence of comestible food. He compares the human being, an omnivor by nature, with a granivore and a carnivore. If we had offered him only excellent hay to eat, he would have reacted in the same way as the animals he cites as examples.

If we consider that the perpetuation of his genetic patrimony is an unconscious finality but unavoidable for all living creatures, and that it is for man the condition sine qua non of all other finalities, we can affirm that the liberty to choose of the human being as compared to that of the animal is very difficult to discern. Suicide seems to be the only liberty that the animal does not have and it is the only way available to free one at will of the biological constraints.

For numerous philosophers, the liberty of choice differentiates human beings from animals. In La Fontaine's fable "the wolf and the dog", the wolf symbolizes liberty to do whatever one wishes yet being dependent upon the biological necessities and the hazards of life of the wild. In any case, the wolf feels he is totally free and independent.

On the contrary, the dog is entirely dependent upon his master. He has another oblication which is that of guarding the property. He exchanges a certain security to be fed against his liberty : he has chosen to be a bureaucrate rather than an adventurer. To tell the truth, in this fable the wolf appears to be freer than the dog, but in reality, each is satisfied with his lot and has the feeling of having chosen it freely. Which after all is the most important.

*

According to the manner in which our modern most developed societies are evolving, their tendency is to render obligatory all that is not forbidden. At birth your father must declare you at the town hall. He went there in his properly registered automobile and respected all the traffic regulations. He had to find a controlled paid parking place. Naturally your mother had declared her pregnancy to her employer and to the civil authorities. She had undergone all the required health and pregnancy examinations. When you are born you immediately receive several vaccinations.

At the age of three, your parents, influenced by the dominant ideology which thinks that you should already be "socialised" at that early age - three years before your schooling becomes obligatory, they enter you into kindergarden where the use of your time is programmed without you having any choice. Then, during your entire existence you will continue to go from control to control.

We all know that the invention and frequent use of the automobile have engendered driving rules, police to enforce these rules and sanctions for the offenders. All innovations produce the same type of effects. They impose more and more severe regulations; more surveilance and controls always more scrupulous.

It is not only dictators who create police states. They merely complete the legal constraints, the infinite extention of which comes primarily from innovations. They continue to increase day by day. They already contain the germ of the police state, the mechanics of which were so well described by George Orwell in his famous novel, "1984".

A person of today tranported by magic into the century of Louis the 14 th, the absolute monarch, he would be stupified to find himself so free. He could travel throughout Europe without a passport and have any name he desired. Identity cards did not exist in those days and no laws prevented you from changing your name. As for the maximum attack on individual liberty which is the obligation of being a soldier in case of war, it did not exist. The army was made of either volunteers, who fought for their pleasure (the noblesse d'épéé), or the mercenaries who were there for the money but could leave whenever they wished. The massive conscription came with the French revolution.

Today, the list of obligations and interdictions is so long that it would require an entire book to note them. We also depend upon all sorts of collective betterments, which were originally intended to make our lives easier. A cut in electricity of several days because of a storm is felt as a veritable catastrophy; A mere strike of our public transportation systems can completely perturb our lives.

The effects upon our lives of international events is even greater. Should another war occur, if our electricity producing centers are destroyed within a few hours, France will already be on its knees. Not one factory would be able to operate. The production of consumer goods , even food, would be paralyzed and tens of millions of workers would be out of work. There are no solutions possible !

During the times of Descartes as well as Rousseau, one could consider that the pulling away from nature - which implies taking absolute control , to stop through and through, as said by Martin Heidigger - would liberate us from our instinctive behaviors and would allows to construct a society with more liberties. We can see today that such a ideal society was utopic and that we have committed many errors in our way of conceiving our capability to "liberate" ourselves, while our development, our way of being and our behavior remain entirely dependent upon our genetic patrimony. Today, we know that we cannot modify them voluntarily, only by genetic manipulation.

*

The difference between animal intelligence and human intelligence is not as clear cut as Descartes thought. By the way what is intelligence ? The most commonly accepted definition , and included in the "Larousse" : "intelligence is the faculty to know, to understand", and this faculty is the one which "distinquishes man from animals". While the animal will always have the same behavior reactions in face of the same stimuli, man - considering his observations and experience - could modify them and improve them to render them more effective.

There is a bit of truth in this vision of things since, as we have seen, only man is capable of innovating an inventing, But only partially. I convinced myself of this by observing the behavior of certain animals. The hare hunting consists of having dogs follow his trail by smell, and the hunter to await his return to his territory. However, an experienced hare often uses tricks to hide his trail. for example he will run in a stream or return on his trail and suddenly jump to the side. Thus it is obvious that he has perfectly understood how the dogs trail him.

Let us imagine an escaped prisonner tract by police dogs. If he is intelligent, he will use the same tricks as the hare to hide his trail. Between a young delinguant who is in his first escape and another who has already made several attempts, one can observe a gradual improvement in the means used to hide the trail, exactly as a young or old hare.

During my visit with a friend, he advised me to close my door with a key to prevent their cat from entering. In effect, the cat had learned how to open the door by jumping and turning the knob. He had often watched people do the same and had been able to adapt his physical posibility to the gesture to arrive at the same result.

If you observe birds as I have for many years, you will admire their ability to adapt to modifications in their environment. In other times, before leaving France the swallows assembled on the reeds in the ponds and marshes. Since they departed on their flight to Africa at night, certain people having noted their disappearance, imagined that they passed their winter in the mud ! This is what the swedish naturalist Carl von Linné stated - without having checked the exactness of the thesis. Today, the swallows prefer resting on the electric wires which are more practical and stable. They also prefer nesting in the stables, the barns and the attics rather than on the rocky cliffs, which a long time ago were the best place which nature offered them to make their nests. Their choise of place can vary but that which does not change is the finality of their behavior.

*

Due to the superiority of human intelligence over that of animals, Jean-Jaques Rousseau advances other arguments. Here is what he wrote: "But when the difficulties which surround all those questions will permit some discussion concerning this difference between animal and man, we must note that there is another very specific quality which differentiates them and over which there can be no contesting : it is the faculty of man to perfect himself, a faculty which, with the aid of circumstances develops successively all the others and it resides in the species and in each individual; while an animal is at the end of a thousand years that which it was at the first year of the thousand years. "

Rousseau also poses another interesting question : "Why is man capable of being an imbecile ? Isn't it simply that he returns to his primative state, and that while the animal, who has acquired nothing and also has nothing to lose, always remains with its instinct; Man losing because of aging or by accident all that his perfectibility helped him acquire, falls even lower than the animal ?"

If primitive man was an imbecile, how is it that he was able to invent arms to protect himself against predators and to hunt better. How was he able to invent traps to catch his prey and agriculture and raising animals to feed himself better. All this was done before the appearance of writing and the least intellectual knowledge

Rousseau, as many intellectuals of his time, had only an approximative idea and theory of the peoples with socalled "primative" mores, and based his reasoning upon his knowledge of European society. That is not the case of Claude Levi-Strauss when wrote his response to the perfectionist theory : "If the proper of man is having a history, what status can we attribute to those "savage" societies which all indicates that they have never entered into the history of our world, thus into the specifically human world of "perfectibility" and of wrenching away from nature ? Should we not just place them in the state of animality and to compare them, since they have no history, to the hives and the termitarium which are after a thousand years that which they were the first year of the thousand years ?"

In reallity, it is the mechanism of change which the intellectuals of the Age of Reason had poorly analysed. Their error, conform to the ideology of progress, was to interprete everything as being better. For them, since man was directed by his intelligence and his reasoning, it is by developing it that "one" perfects morals. For primitive man, being more or less "bestial", it is by becoming little by little conscious of his bestiality that he has become more "human". Some men, more intelligent than others, have defined good behavior and through education teach the children to improve theirs. Of course, the great dogma of these intellectuals is that all depends upon the acquired - thus upon education.

The austrian writer, Robert Musil affirmed in his essays, that "an anthropophous transplanted as a baby into an European family would without a doubt become a good European and that a renowned poet would have become a good savage if destiny had transplanted him as a baby among the savages of the south seas" ? Let us push this idea a bit further, We could, for example, systematically replace all the babies of Brittany by African babies and visa versa. At the end of fifty years, the country completely populated by Blacks would still be the same as concerns activities, morals and culture, and the same would hold true for Afrrica. It would be advisable not to try such an experiment, for it is completely false.

*

The study of the life mechanisms of both animals and vegetables has been well done. However, they have not been well done concerning the form of intelligence which permits animals to invent different ways to solve problems in which only the finality remains unchanged. If a bird uses horse hair to make its nest and the horse disappears from its area, the bird will find a solution by finding substitue material with similar qualities. That which remains, whatever the circumstances, is its instinctive will to build a nest at a precise time of the year. Many have seen the photos of great tits building their nests in the most unexpected places, but always answering their desire to protect their young from the predators and the weather.

What do we discover ? With animals, their intelligence serves as a means to reach tangible goals, while man uses his to modify them. The purpose of the dwellings of the mammalians have a vocation of being a resting place and a protection against predators and the weather. Once arrived at a level of satisfactory protection, the animal does not feel the necessity to change its lodging.

On the contrary, man does not cease in transforming his habitat, passing from the cave to the cabin, then to a house which has become more and more luxurious, much larger, more solid and more and more protective - without speaking of the construction of medieval chateaux and fortresses and today the gigantic sky scrappers. Todays modern dwellings, appartments or individual houses manifest the human desire for comfort which continually increases. But this which man considers to be a remarkable evolution, in the animal world would merely be considered as a derangement of instincts which would allow them to build completely useless and incomprehensible structures.

Since today we know how to manipulate genes, it would probably be possible with birds to manipulate those which command the construction of a nest. This bird would then be able to construct an extravagant nest in from, dimensions and the materials used.. But considering the finality of the act, it would be pure stupidity to do so.

Let us recall that which Alexis de Tocqueville wrote : "Nobody claims in 1780 that France is decadent : on the contrary one would say that today there is no limit to this progress. That is when the docrine of the continuous and eternal perfection of man is born. Only twenty years earlier, there was no hope in the future, now we have no more doubts. Our imagination, taking hold of this promised and unbelievable happiness, renders us insensible to the good things we already have and precipitates us toward new things."

In this text we distinguish better the veritable and most important difference between man and beast: the latter is profoundly conservative. The animal instinctively distrusts all that is new. In general, he wants nothing to do with it. A contrario, the human being is more or less fascinated by all that is new. "All new, all beautiful" as in a popular adage. During the last decades the number of new things has continued to rise - to the point that we are told that within twenty years half of the things we consume and use in all domains will be "new".

The animal, attached to a territory and a particular life style, conserves the same landmarks from birth to death. It was practically the same for the peasantry until the 19th century : they were wary, by instinct, of innovations, which besides were rare. The text of Alexis de Toqueville describes the intellectual milieu at the end of the 18th century, which thanks to the invention of the printing press saw the audience explode. We have already cited Malesherbes : "Each citizen can speak to the entire nation , by means of the press." Therefore, the intellectual class was intoxicated by this new power and rushed into many rather utopian projects. Today, at the beginning of our 21st century, the enthusiasm has really diminished. We are now searching for explanations for the successive failures to realize our dreams.

 
The Twins

Until the 18th century, all the intellectuals believed in heredity, not only of the physical characteristics of the person ( size, form of the head, color of the hair and the eyes, etc., but also of the personality, psychological characteristics, traits of character, faults and talents. From now on, it was no longer education which could impose a vocation, modify a character, develop the talents and develop the intelligence. Education did not consist of forming a child according to the desires of the teacher, but as an aid to help him fo open up, to become conscious of his character, of his aptitudes and of his intelligence - so that finally that he could use them better in his social and professional life.

During the Age of Enlightment the dominant ideology changed completely. Without denying the effect of heredity (whose laws had not as yet been discovered), they thought that it could be dominated by reason. The idea became common that our natural behavior being in the order of animals, only that governed by reason was of humain order. Thus the quarrel concerning the inborn and the acquired has never completely disappeared, at least in scientific circles. To this day, innumerable studies have been done concerning this question. Among these, we must give particular importance to those which concern twins. These studies, which have become systematic since World War Two, represent one of todays mainstays of the study of genetic behavior.

Twins are two beings of the same or different sex, born together. Triplets, quadruplets, quintuplets, etc., the occurrence which seems to increase because of modern methods to assist procreation, can also be considered as twins. There are two types of twins: the homozygotes, who are formed from the same egg, and the false twins, heterozygotes, who are formed from different eggs and are as different as two babies born at different dates. If we consider that the aspect, the character and the aptitudes of an individual depend upon his genetic patrimony, we must also know that this is the result of a veritable lottery in which the data are so great that we never find two identical beings, except precisely identical twins.

The results of this lottery are not dependent only upon hazard. Considering the importance of heredity, the child of a family of intellectuals has more chance of becoming an intellectual than a child of a worker. In the same sense, a long line of farmers have more chance of having children fit for farm work.

Scientific research has shown that contrary to commonly accepted ideas, the physical aspect of an individual is not merely a package in which one can put almost any culture or genetic contents. In scientific terms, we say that the phenotype (exterior aspect) is directly associated with the genotype (the genetic patrimony). Many theater plays and films (such as False brothers, true twins by Andrew Davis with the actor Andy Garcia), shows twins with identical looks, one was a cynical lout and the other an example of kindness and honesty. But that is in the fictional domain with little rapport with reality. Each individual constitutes a whole and his genetic imprint is found in every cell of his body.

In order to try to determine the relative importance of the inborn and the acquired, a certain number of researchers, especially american and british, have studied,over a long period of time the relative lives of identical and false twins. They have studied tens of thousands of cases, of which several hundred were pairs of identical twins separated at birth and put into different families - who were ignorant of the fact that the child had a twin brother or a sister. The best known international studies were done recently by Thomas Brochard Jr and Nancy Pedersen in the "Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart" (24,000 pairs of monozygote twins were given a battery of more than 15,000 written questions) . they used the swedish records of twins (181,OO were study, of which 61,000 were living). The results are edifying !

The false twins , who have different genetic patrimonies, will not develop the same way even though they are raised the same way. One will begin to walk six months before the other. Their attitudes, their ways and their manner of reacting can be very dissimilar. They sometimes resemble each other, but they show differences or similarities in the same proportion as two brothers or two sisters born a year or more apart; For these false twins, the fact of receiving identical family, school and social education has but a very limited influence. It will not make them more identical during shildhood and adolescence than at birth. Each will have his tastes, his talents and his personality.

Concerning twins separated at birth, the data at departure are exactly the opposite : the same genetic patrimony, but family, school and social education are completely different. Thus, when we find those identical twins thirty years later, we note that they have remained perfectly identical : they have the same talents, the same tastes, the same aptitudes and the same persanalities. They contract the same chronic diseases and have the same predispositions to contract others. Their intelligence quotient has remained identical.

We notice that they have known how to develop their talents, to use their aptitudes and to satify their tastes in the same manner. We also find that they have a tendency to die at the same age, even though they had lived in very different environments. Whether they have been raised in a family of big eaters or vegetarian intellectuals, their physical aspects will still be the same. We will not find one fat and the other skinny ! There are certainly those who will think that if there is one of the twins who is a bit fat, and has decided to follow a diet to lose weight and he succeeds, perforce he will be skinnier than his twin brother. But this is not at all so, because his twin brother, even though living elsewhere, will have the same reaction and will also wish to loss weight and will or will not succeed just like his twin brother.

These studies, of which I present only a brief outline, are also corraborated by studies made concerning, in a more general fashion, a large group of adopted children. In other studies of adopted children, it has been shown that at all ages of their lives, from childhood to adulthood, they resemble much more their biological parents , who they have never known, than their adoptive parents who have raised them. This is true not only concerning their physical appearance, but also their psychological character, their intellectual level, their qualities and their faults, etc. This is the most convincing demonstration that one can make concerning the reality of heredity.

*

The study of identical twins also teaches us other things : the communication between them is very easy. They understand and know each other perfectly on all subjects, which is the contrary of what Baudelaire concluded in his poem " The eyes of the poor" : "Thought is incommunicable, even between people who love each other." If he had had a twin brother, Baudelaire would have without a doubt moderated his affirmation. It is true, except with twins or those who are genetically very close - those who " are of the same spiritual family".

Let us imagine a class where the teacher and the students form a clone, that is they would all be genetically similar : the comprehension among them would be easy and immediate. A contrario, between a teacher and students genetically very different, effectively communication of thought becomes more difficult, even impossible. This helps us to better understand the sytem which existed in former times to transmit knowledge, know-how-to say and know-how-to do.

A few centuries ago, in France, there existed a system of social classes which was neither of philosophical or religious origin. It was instituted for practical reasons. Being very observant, our ancestors believed in the inheritance of all the characteristics of an individual. They thought that that which was valid for their animals was also so for themselves. They knew that each trade required certain special qualities. Those which helped make a good farmer were different from those which made a good artisan, a good tradesman, a good soldier, etc. Consequently, they considered it more reasonable to remain within their social category , in order to have the best chance of assuring that the aptitudes of their trade would be transmitted. In each family the father trained the sons and the mother the daughters, since both had by heredity the same aptitudes as their parents.

Of course, the genetic lottery certainly causes exceptions but, in the majority of cases, the transmission of know-how operates easily. One did not insist with a child not having the same talents as the parents. They were directed elsewhere, just as a plant which does not grow well in a certain spot and one moves it to a place where it will flourish.

The scientists who studied twins undertook their work without a priori and without rejecting the principal of the primacy of the inborn over the acquired, nor that of the acquired over inborn. This is the thesis defended by the teachers who can then target the education of the children as they wish and thus model the human society. The study of identical twins abandoned at birth, separated and adopted by very different families, overturned there former convictions. They found that after several decades these twins had conserved their resemblance and their capability to understand each other perfectly. Therefore, it appears that good and durable understanding between two persons is not due to having the same training or the same culture, but almost exclusively due to the resemblance of the genetic patrimony.

*

Today, we tend to consider that dialogue is the key to good understanding. Since the means and number of ways of communicating have developed considerably, we will now certainly be headed for a sort of universal peace. It will be the end of preconceptions, the cause of so much incomprehension ! Dialogue would lead us to a consensus governed by reason. This belief is the basis of the famous theory of "communicational action" proposed by the philosopher Jurgen Habermas.

The psychiatrist Robert Neuberger, vice-president of the French group of family therapy, has however a different opinion. He is an author of books which are considered as authorities in this discipline, as for example "New Couples" (Odile jJcob, Paris 1997) and "The intimate territories : the individual, the couple, the family" (Odile Jacob, 2000). Here is what he declared in the Swiss magazine "Construire" (9 January 2001), after several decades of practice and observation : "For the past thirty years we have insisted almost uniquely on the importance of communication in the couple.

If the couple worked poorly, one said : "You have relational problems because you do not communicate at all or too little". But what I often find in my consultations are couples who communicate too much. They do nothing more than communicate. They communicate about their communication and speak continually about them without ever finding a solution." What a difference as compared to our identical twins who understand each other so well and live happily together !

Of course, the life of a heterosexual couple is not like that of the identical twins. For those who think that these twins relationship can become homosexual, let us inform them that it never happens. That tends to show that our sexual impulses have no direct report with our elective affinities. One can be sexually attracted to someone without having the desire to have sexual relations with that person. Thus we find singularly refuted the famous theory that sexual understanding is necessary and sufficient for the formation of a successful couple.

It is astounding and even stupifying that long and careful studies of the lives of twins - especially of those who at been separated at birth - have not been taken into account by the theoricians of education. The study of twins has become a tabou, as also the inheritability of behaviors. The child pyschiatrists often counsel the parents of identical twins to give them different lives in all domains (clothing, food, studies, recreation) in order to differentiate them, to individualize them, whether they be or not be willing - and most of the time it is agains their will. Why insist upon not allowing them to remain together, since they are happy to be so. In any case all attempts to separate them are doomed to failure ! Preventing them from being together is merely moral torture. It is a legitimate desire not a dangerous and abnormal one.

*

Even I had believed in the absolute power of education. But after learning about the research concerning twins, I began to doubt. Was it possible that our genetic patrimony commanded our intellectual and physical development ? Our acquired, that is concrete nourishment (food) abstract (intellectual, spiritual) which we assimilate, do they depend upon something other than free choice ? Is this liberty merely a sentiment and just an intimate conviction without foundation ? In brief, our supposed free choice is it determined in advance ? After all our genetic patrimony is ours alone. . It is unique ! Why be ashamed to obey it !

If we define culture as all the knowledge acquired, we note that identical twins have the same desire to acquire knowledge in specific domains. Thus it is legitimate to consider culture as satisfying an inborn need. To be of the same spiritual family (or cultural) could signify to be of the same genetic family.

I can well understand why this thesis revolts some. It is discouraging for those who, believing in the primacy of education, use their energy in trying to model the human beings, persuaded that there is no difference between individuals which is not the result of education. But if man is infinitely malliable, would he not also be terribly vulnerable to all forms of totalitarian conditioning ?

When French students meet Chinese students, we speak of "cutural meetings", and not of ethnique meetings". The only difference between them which they would notice would be cultural. That implys that a child of any people or race, raised in any Euorpean, African or Asian country, could become a citizen totally identical to those of the country in which he was raised, since he would receive the same culture. But that is not all true. Of course, by mimicry which is a characteristic of humans living in organized society, he could assimilate a certain number of habits, but his personality, his creativity and his capabilities would continue to depend upon his inborn possibilities.

In fact, we must clearly distinquish within individuals the faculty to understand and memorize knowledge (which are those graded in school) and those to create, to innovate and invent. Two historians of music - one German the othe Italian - can have the same knowledge and from this point of view appear almost interchangeable. On the contrary, it is not at all so between a German composer and an Italian composer.

In the name of all acquired, they have tried to take the children from their families, all different one from the other, to form them all in the same mold, to give them the same civic rules and the same knowledge, in order that they all become equal and fraternal. In reality, perfect equality and fraternity exists only in identical twins. and these faculties are inborn !

*

Programs concerning twins are , from time to time, tranmitted on the radios or televisions. They are often presented as simply curiosities of nature, for example like a calf with five legs. Thus that helps avoid the need to make the sociological conclusions required. In spite of the many researches concerning identical twins, they have never found identical twins who did not understand each other perfectly, even among those who had lived apart for fourty years. This is where we should find our lessons.

Today, all our systems of education, and all our One World and One Universe projects are based on the idea that the teaching of common values will result in the disappearance of all cultural differences and would result in an understanding between all individuals. Thus, difference is perceived as intrinsically a creator of conflicts. In reallity it constitues one of the primary riches of humanity. It would be wonderful if this beautiful idea was founded on truth. Unfortunately, it is not ! To insult those who explain that it is false will not help it become true and the negative consequences of this false ideology are there to prove it.

 
The lengthening of life expectancy

Of all the benefits of "progress" - the "change for the better" - the lengthening of life expectancy seems to be the most beneficial and indisputable : you can't question the figures. Let us consider the remarks of two academics, specialists on this subject, members of the Acadamy of Science and the Acadamy of Medicine who wrote in "Le nouvel Observateur" concerning the 20th century : "This century will probably remain the one in which the lenthening of life expectancy, which was 45 years in 1900, has reached 78.5 years in 1998 and has thus transformed the human condition.

Today, at the age of 50, one is still young while in 1900 one was old." Professor Jean Bernard, of the French Academy who is of the same opinion wrote in Le Spectacle du Monde, October 2001) : "In Moli_re's time, thirty was already the beginning of old age." The lengthening of life expectancy is said to be due to medical science, of which both of the writers are eminent representatives. But in fact, how do we calculate life expectancy ? It's very simple, let us consider three individuals, one 62 years old, the second 77 and third 83. Add the three ages, which gives us 222 and now divide by 3. We obtain 74 as the mean age of death of the three persons. The number obtained, of course, is the mean life expectancy of the group considred (here that of three men).

In the case of animals is the same system used ? We noted in a book that a badger lives fifteen years, which seems reasonable, and that the female gives birth to six baby badgers each year. With this as a base let us calculate the evolution of the population of this animal. I took my pocket calculator and I considered that six would form three couples engendering 18 baby badgers. I then made the calcultation shown in the following table :

You will note that we arrive at the end of fifteen years at the extraordinary number of more than 28 million badgers ! Naturally that figure does not at all correspond to reality. In effect, at the end of fifteen years there will still be only two badgers, for in nature the population of most species remains stable over the years. Thus, using the system of calculation which we use for humans, the life expectancy will be four months ! Using the language of professors Tubiana and Bernard, we might say that a four month old badge is an aged one ready for death ! On the contrary, if our pair of badgers only produce two baby badgers in the fifteen years of their lifetime, and these two badgers also die fifeen years later after having given birth to another pair of badgers, we can conclude that the life expectancy of badgers is not four months but fifteen years.

Usng the same method, we will note that, if in a family four children are born and two of them die before the age of several months, but the other two live to the age of 80, that the mean age will be 40 years. Can we conclude from this that in this family at the age of 35 years, one is already old ?

Until the 18th century, in France the human demography was very similar to that of animals. In the absence of contraceptive methods, other than empirique, large families were the rule. Each couple had numerous children, most of which died at a young age - which resulted in a very low theoretical life expectancy figure, yet it was acompanied by a continual increase in the population. Today, in the rich western nations, the situation is just the opposite, Infant mortality is almost insignificant - thus giving a figure of life expecancy of 80 years, even if the population tends to be decreasing.

From the above, we see immediately that there is ambiguity and fraud in the methods used to calculate life expectancy. With elephants, who have few babies, the infant mortality rate is very low, which gives a high figure for mean life expectancy. On the contrary, with fish who lay thousands of eggs, using the same methods to calculate life expectancy, we arrive at several days or hours !

The life expectancy of an animal is inscribed in its genes. It is also that of an individual having excaped his predators and not having had a fatal disease, a violent death, nor died of hunger. The genome of animals have not undergone the same alteration of their genes as has man, thus all the individuals of a particular species have the same mean life expectancy.

When professor Jean Bernard claims that during Moli_re's times, one was alread "aged" at the age of 30, he was evidently led astray by the misleading calculations of the demographers. If, according to statistics (on which we can voice our doubts) the life expectancy during Moli_re's times was 32 years, that does not at all signify that one was old at the age of 3O, it was due to the fact that infant mortality was very high. To help us clear up the matter, let us consult a dictionary containing the names of important personalities having lived before the 18th century who would have been by the above reasoning oldsters at the age of 30 :

37 Personality Dates Age at death
Plato 428-348 BC 80 Saint augustine 354-430 70 Michel Angelo 1475-1564 89 Titien 1490-1576 86 Ambrose Paré 1509-1590 81 Le Bernin 1598-1680 82 Corneille 1606-1684 78 Le NÈtre 1613-1700 87 Colbert 1618-1683 64 La Fontaine 1621-1695 74 Mme de Maintenant 1635-1719 84 Strdivarius 1644-1737 93 Leibnetz 1646-1716 70 Denis Papin 1647-1712 65 Fontenelle 1657-1757 100 Scarlatti 1660-1725 65 Montesquieu 1689-1755 66 Voltaire 1694-1778 84 Dupleix 1696-1763 67 Carl von Linné 1707-1778 71 D'Alembert 1717-1783 66 Fragonard 1732-1806 74 Willial Hershel 1738-1822 84 Goyn 1746-1828 82 Laplace 1749-1827 78 Goethe 1749-1832 83 Haydn 1732-1808 77 Palmerton 1784-1865 81 We must note that Stradivarious, the greatest violin maker of all times, died at the age of 93 and produced his best violins between the age of 56 and 81. But one may complain that I cite only names of well known personages, who had the means to be cared for and treated better than the mass of peasants and artisans, who lived poorly. That is not evidently so, because Stradivarious and many others, began as poor young apprentices. Moreover, the medical care during those times did not help prolong life.

It is indeed deceptive to compare the life expectancy of men in the 21st century with that of our ancestors. It is as if one compared the life expectancy of two automobiles, one of which belongs to a retired person who drives carefully only a few thousand miles a year, with that of a parisian taxi driver. Our ancestors of those centuries did not limit their work week to 35 hours nor did they have 160 days per year of rest. Their houses were not heated and their work was physical and strenuous. Their diets differed..For example, at the beginning of the twentieth century each Frenchman consumed 900 grams of bread per day, today, a century later, it is only 150 grams !

Certainly, the soldiers of Napoleon's Grand Armée are no match for our star atheletes, but how many men of today could go by foot from France to Moscow and return in all kinds of weather, carrying heavy loads, sleeping on the ground, eating almost nothing and fighting at the same time ? The men of today are perhaps capable of exploits demanding a short term effort but permanent endurance has disappeared

In order to show that the active life expectancy of the peasants was not basically different from that of the famous men, I will take as an example the collect of the tallage, a sort of income tax calculated and collected in each village. To do this work, they chose strong men in good health capable of going from farm to farm in order to discuss firmly with each family concerning the amount due.

In 1592, at Cormeilles-en-Vexin, a large parish situated about 25 kilometers northwest of Paris, an assembly of chiefs of family.designated as collectors "chosen among the men less than 70 years of age, without infirmaties, fathers of at least eight children and not working in public service". This text was found in the archives of Cormeille by Jean-Louis Beaucarnot who cites it in his book : "Who were our ancestors?" This age of 70 should be compared with the age at which our railroad station managers retire : 55 years of age!

Upon reading the works of La Fontaine, whose fables are really the analysis of the behavior of his contemporaries. I found two of them very relevent. The first was "Death and the woodcutter. It is the story of a very poor and very old woodcutter who is tired of carrying his load of wood. He places it on the ground and calls Death to deliver him from his suffering. Death appears and asks him what he wants. He answers : "It's to ask you to help me to pick up my wood." What is the moral of this story ?

"Death comes to cure all ;
But let's not move from where we are.
Rather suffer than die.
That is the motto of men."

It is true that this fable describes an old man but does not indicate his age. Let us find another where La Fontaine is more precise in his definition : "The old man and the three young men." Here is the beginning :

"An octogenarian was planting.
Accept that he build, but planting at his age !
Said three youngsters, children from the village."

The fable then indicates that the old man was planting the trees thinking that his great grand children , who would later be living on his property and would benefit from the shade. This fable written in the 17th century did not all chock his contemporaries, for an octogenarian planting trees did not seem extravagant to them. I ask myself how many octogenarians of today could plant trees using agricutural tools of the 17th century !

Fontenelle, a writer, philosopher and man of science of the 18th century, was above all a spiritual man. When he was already old, a friend told him that he would probably live to be a hundred. He answered : "You are pessimistic !" He was celebrating his hundreth year when he met madame La Pompadour, who was at the prime of her youth and beauty. He exclaimed: "My God, what a shame that I am not in my seventies !" In face of such facts, I ask myself the question : the lengthening of life expectancy , the principle argument to justify the benefits of progress are they reality or just the results of erroneous interpretation of the figures ?

*

Let us return to the study of the life expectancy of animals. We have shown above that using the same system to calculate it as we do for man gives results which are so absurd that it is useless. Thus, we must be content with saying, for example by basing it upon our observations, that the life expectancy of a finch is 13 years, provided that it escapes the numerous predators which eat him, as well as other prey.

In animals as well as in plants, the age which we call over sixties does not exist or rather it is very short There is only youth and adulthood. The first is very short. In nature, each living being carries a genetic patrimony which commands its development and behavior. They must pass it on from generation to generation by maximizing the number of their descendance. When they can no longer play a role in this transmission - either by sexual activity or the capability to raise their descendants - they die. Generally, in animals this incapability to play a role in the transmission of the genetic patrimony is accompanied by a loss in the capabilty to nourish themselves, to resist the predators and the bad weather. The animal then hides to die.

Finally, what was really the life expectancy of our ancestors during the 17th and 18th centuries ? Let us recall that 95 % of the population were peasants living very close to nature : without central heating or lighting, without running water and using their physical energy to do all the work which today we do with little effort thanks to oil, electricity and machines. Their life expectancy must have been about 70 years. , with a few exceptions as shown in La Fontaine's fables.

We must admit that we are well informed concerning the health and diseases of our illustrious men, that is several hundred per generation, and even if we are rather well informed concerning the plague and other epidemies, we know nothing concerning the diseases, so common in our day, which affected the general population of those times. We must admit that the state of health of the illustrious men is not at all representative of that of the peasants, since their life style was completely different. We no nothing about their problems with cancer, cardiovascular diseases, allergies,, diabetes, sexually transmitted diseases and Alsheimers disease ? About all we know is that AIDES did not exist.

To compare our state of health with that of our primitive ancestors , I see only one method : the study of wild animals living in the rare remaining regions which are still untouched by human civilization. We already know that the state of health of captive animals is often deplorable compared to those living in the wild. Concerning the famous plagues which ravaged the human population during the middle ages, they were probably produced by people coming from regions where the disease excited in a latent state. This type of mixing, always a high risk, does not exist in the fauna and flora protected from human activity.

*

The lengthening of life expectancy is presented as a result of the fablous progress achieved in medicine and chemistry are indeed uncontestable and even stupifying. We hear more and more that the French are in better and better health. I don't know how the improvement in health of our citizens is calculated. Perhaps it is measured in the following manner : Increase in medical acts + increase in the consumption of medicines = improvement in health. Naturally we can also propose the following equation : Increase in diseases and wounds = Increase in medical care + increase in the consumption of medicines.

The most spectacular progress during the past 50 years have been made in surgery : severed hands are reattached, bad hearts are replaced, as well as livers, kidneys and other organs. What a great number of lives have been saved by surgery ! However, if I observe the life of wild animals, I note that modern surgery does nothing for them.because it is useless; for wild animals do not have these problems. Useless are these marvellous operations of wounds due to autombile accidents or military combat:

The automobile does not exist in nature, nor do the wars using the most atrocious arms capable of being invented. The carnivorous animal kills to eat. The confronting between males for a female is brief : the weakest leaves the combat with little wounds. In our modern world the wild animals are wounded and killed by our automobiles and the hunters, thus our medical science can only partially repair the misdeeds provoked by man and progress.

*

Of course, thanks to progress accomplished in the medical domain infant mortality has diminished markedly - while among plants and wild animals it is considerable, even astronomical. However, in nature it is not because of sickness that most plants and animals die - the death usual occurs during the first few months of life - due to predators. They are victimes of the feeding chain, thus their disappearance is useful in the perpetuation of all the living world.

If a century old oak tree produces thousands of acorns each year, of which probably only one will survive, it is first of all because they serve as food for many animals (for example the wild boar). The small oaks produced by the survivors will diappear because of lack of space and will become humus which is very useful for the growth of the trees and plants of the forest. In nature, not one dead is useless.

After childhood - formerly so numerous and so abandoned , and in our times so rare and so protected - there is adulthood. It is often repeated that our children of today are more precocious than formerly. Of course, that depends upon one's point of view. During the Age of Enlightment several eminent philosophers (Rousseau, Voltaire, Montesqueue and others) , under the direction of Diderot edited : "The Encyclopedia or Rational Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts and Trades." The work included several pages on children : "The children having a very close relationship with those who engendered them, feed them and educate them, are because of this obliged to fulfill vis-_-vis their parents certain indispensible duties such as deference, obedience, honor and respect. It is because of the state of weakness and ignorance with which children are born, that they find themselves naturally subjected to their father and mother, to whom natuure gives the power necessary to govern them."

"In France, the father and mother must care for their children, either legitimate or adopted, and must feed them at least until they are able to make their own living, this which one fixes generally as the age of 7."

Since these children did not know how to read or write, their work was manual, such as picking acorns or chestnuts to feed the pigs, watch the goats and the sheep, pick the eggs, pluck the chickens, etc. But they were always held responsible the work for which they were paid. Thus at the age of seven, professional conscience was born.

At the age of 23, Alexander the Great had already conquired one of the greatest empires ever to exist in human history. If he had been born today in a good family, he would have just finished his studies, would still be living at the home of his parents, clothed and fed with the money of his papa and his laundry done by his mother. His only responsibility would be to make speeches at the students meetings on the need to change the world. Thus, our Alexander might be a big "talker" but probably not a big "doer" as was the first Alexander. Moreover, don't they say in early times that "the big talkers are not the big doers"?

Of course, the children of today are more precocious than those in former days concern sexuality. To tell them that boys are born in cabbages and the girls in roses makes them laugh. But it is also true that this precociousness is often purely verbal. They are also big "talkers" and not big "doers" !

*

The real life of a human being begins with adulthood which ends, until recent times, for each individual in the loss of his strengths. In the 20th century we have witnessed a considerable develpment concerning medical science which has permitted us to prolong the life of those who have lost their physical autonomy and intellectual activity. Before the appearance of this miraculous science, all human beings, when feeling their forces declining, prepared themselves for death, which they considered in general as the beginning of a new life in the beyond.

Today, we expect this new science to prolong our lives, which will effectively be longer if we are rich and can benefit from costly cares which are only available to the rich. Yes, there exists a medical care for the rich and another for the poor, while in former times their was quasi equality in face of death. Even the great Louis the 14th himself could not benefit from one effective medication or operation which might have prolonged his life !

The length of adult life, the middle years, has not varied very much over the past centuries. But more than the length, we must consider the quality and the intensity. Of course, this length is certainly longer for a museum guard than for a Napoleon the 1st., or even perhaps of an 18th century peasant, but the intensity of life of both compared to that of the guard was infinitely greater. Like our peasant, Napoleon was busy from dawn to dusk, while our guard looks at his watch continually while waiting for his replacement, which will allow him to go home to sit and watch television.

*

Globally and by simplifying, we can explain the evolution of the human species by the continual adaptation to innovations, which engender the illusion that they will improve the life of those of that species. While most living beings are well adapted to a stable environment, humanity must continually readapt to a world constantly changing.

Because of innovations, the doctors continually try to protect or heal human beings of ills generally provoked by other innovations. The medicines and drugs, the rate of consumption of which is exponential, almost all have bad secondary effects. What is the mechanism of the constant increase in medical costs ? In the play "Doctor Knock" by Jules Romains, the doctor explains that: "each persons in good health is merely a sick one who does not know it !" He was very convincing and thus built a fortune by his sense of persuasion.

Most persons try to make money in order to satisfy their desires. The search for notoriety is also an important motivation, and it is thus that the famous surgeons perform operations which are veritable exploits of which they are the stars. The search for profit and notoriety is common to all professional activities, thus it is natural that the doctors and pharmaceutical firms make a profit. If we add to the number of doctors all the persons working in the search for new products, their manufacture and their distribution, that gives us a great mass of converging interests which engender the great increase in medical expenditures.

The publicity for health and healing products plus products which increase health and retard aging are considerable. The multi-media which exist thanks to the income from their publicity reserve for them the best hours. During those hours the counter publicity to denounce that which is exagerated or even false in that publicity does not exist. . 42 Thus, we are witnessing the triumph of doctor Knock and a gigantic publicity, the result of which is a veritable brain washing. This publicity tries to convince the public that natural defenses are lacking or merely do not mention them. Thus, the least scratch of a child is aseptized and bandaged and the cure, although natural, is attributed to the medical care. For the least bit of fever, the doctor is called and he prescribes antalgics and antibiotics.

We continually try to substitute medical care for natural defenses, which thus weakens them. The triumph of medicine will be complete when a certain number of our natural defenses will have disappeared and each person will be born with the need to absorb a large number of medicines during all his life just to survive inscribed in his genes. To become dependent upon a medicine which requires a doctor's prescription, is it not an income for life for the doctor,the pharmacist and the laboratory which makes it ?

*

The lengthening of life expectancy is an illusion. It is only by a sort of theurapeutic relentlessness that it prolongs what is often just a sort of survival. Rarely does it bring happiness to the beneficiaries. But it does create terrible problems for the family and society.

Perpetuation of the species is the unavoidable criterion to judge the behavior of all the living. Yet, we must admit that the populations whose life style is the most modern are those who are regressing. The advances in medical science do not compensate the evident weakening of health. The fecundity has fallen so low, that it is only integration of individuals from countries having escaped this "civilization" which is permitting the compensation of this lowering in births. But this solution has the risk of accelerating the disappearance of peoples and races who believe that they are superior. We note that fifteen percent of european couples are steril and the percentage is on the rise.

 
Man sick because of progress

For all living beings, the simple fact of existing proves that they have the qualities needed to survive and prosper. They are just descendants of a long chain of living beings having had the faculty of preserving the genetic patrimony which programs their development and behavior. Thus, each living being is but the ephemeral vector of its genome, which is eternal.

At its conception, each new being, in spite of its appearance, is a complete as its most complete adult form for it is also the carrier of the same genetic patrimony. It is this genetic patrimony which which commands its development : from the embryonic state, the tiny human being carries the genes which will program not only his exterior appearance (his phenotype) during all the ages of his life, but also his vulnerabilty to certain diseases, the starting at a certain age of physiological events such as puberty or menopause, the probable length of his life (outside of accidents), his intellectual propensities, his behavioral inclinations, etc.

The animals ignore the finality of their acts. They search for food to assuage their hunger and they absorb it with great pleasure while ignoring all concerning the physico-chemical mechanisms which are going to change this food into vital energy. It searches for that which is agreeable and gives it pleasure, just as it avoids that which is disagreeable, makes it suffer or makes it afraid.

It has taken many, many centuries of selection and adaptation in order that each animal knows in an inborn and instinctive manner, that which is favorable for its survival and correlatively, for the perpetuation of its genetic patrimony. It is also thus concerning food, which is of great importantance in the life of all animals. Instinct indicates to them that which is biologically good or bad and that which they can or cannot assimilate by their digestive system. The odor, the taste and the aspect directs them toward that which is good for them and makes them refuse that which is bad.

The human being, by his inventions, has on the contrary created a great quantity of new foods and innovations are continuous in the sector. Since it is the search for profit which very often guides the innovations, the new foods flatter our smell, our eyes and our taste with little concern for our health. In this domain, as in many others, man has contrived to separate pleasure from its natural finality. Of course, science can warn us. Nutritionists make lists of foods which are good for our health, but only a small part are offered each day to most. Diets and medicines are proposed to repare the damages provoked by mans continual search for new foods which he finds pleasurable. We are continually drawn between eating foods which are good for our health and foods which are tasty but pernicious for our health.

For this continual innovation, which does not exist in animals since their food remains identical from generation to generation, we seem to be proud of it.

We tend to see it as a manifestation of our "wrenching away from nature", of our privilege of having a history. In effect, it is possible to write a history of human alimentation through the ages, while one cannot do it concerning that of wild animals.

Although somewhat less than in the 18th and 19th centuries, the word "progress" still conserves a positive resonance. Used with the word "innovation" it remains synonomous with change for the better. The number of innovations increase, thus from changes to changes for the better we should be approaching Eldorado. Yet, we have a strong feeling that it is far from true : the promises are always postponed and the radiant horizons further off. We must admit that all the living and all the machines which function perpetually and have perfectly reached their objectve, cannot be improved.

By freeing himself from nature, man has left the system which I name "the natural order" whose functioning seemed to be perpetual, which was its sole finality. Because of man perfectly happy thanks to the golden egg laid by his chicken, having killed it in order to see how it functioned in order to improve it thus to be happier, he destroyed all. By suppresing all that is disagreeable or makes him suffer and increasing all which makes him happy or he finds pleasurable, the human being thought he could reach the summit of happiness. But this improvement which he thought he could obtain thanks to his intelligence, this advance toward an Eldorado, has proven to be just a mirage. All the things which were given naturally have just become problematical

Contrary to that which many thinkers believe, man has not voluntarily pulled himself away from nature, but he has just insensibly done so by adopting innovations which have modified his life style and as a consequence also the genotype of his descendance. We can cite the classical example of homosexuality, which is sometimes presented as typical of the "wrenching from nature", when we now know that it is not an acquired behavior by free choice of the individual. It is an inborn orientation against which reason cannot fight.

*

Discoveries and inventions are closely tied, but as we have already written, they are separated by a fundamental difference : the researcher discovers that which already exists, the inventor creates that which did not exist. The researchers have an objective, the inventors do not. An invention is unpredictable. It is a sort of illumination, the direct and indirect consequences of which the inventor himself does not realize. Mr. Denis Papin upon seeing the steam raise the cover of a pot of boiling water had the idea of using this force and thus invented the steam engine. Could he have foreseen the consequences ? The Lumi_re brothers were the inventors of the moving picture but in spite of the immediate success of the new thing, they advised not to invest in its development. They were convinced that it was just a passing fancy without a future.

We know that inventions and discoveries are closely related. Each invention can permit new discoveries (microscope, telescopes). Each discovery can result in new inventions. Searchers find oil wells and analyse the properties, the inventor creates motors and the central heaters use this energy. Christopher Columbus discovered America, but he would not have been able to do it without the sail boat and the navigational instruments (compass, sextant) the results of multiple inventions.

Except for the inventors who can use their inventions themselves, which is rare, most do not make a fortune. It is often said that there are three sure ways to lose a fortune : the most exciting is gambling at the casino, the most agreeable is spending it on women and the most certain is investing in an invention. Since the famous Bernard Palissy, a large number of inventors have lost all they owned in the development of their invention. But it is also true that invention is perhaps the only free act which a human being can realize. The act is specific to man and it explains all evolution.

During the long history of humanity, inventions have been made in three directions : the concrete inventions (arms, traps, animal husbandry, agriculture, etc.), abstract inventions such as language, which give the means for men to communicate better, and finally the inventions making the liaison between the abstract and the concrete : writing, geometry, industrial and artistic design, etc. However, language and writing alone could not have made the human species evolve.

It is wrong when we speak of oral tradition to evoke transmission of knowledge before writing appeared. In effect, the know-how was transmitted especially by example. An invention may appear unimportant and yet completely change the way we understand and live. Let us take for example the mirror. Until this invention individuals did not see themselves but only saw the others. Neither the men nor the women thought of improving their looks. The possibility of seeing their own face provoked a veritable psychological mutation. Upon seeing themselves they could compare themselves to others. This resulted is the birth and formidable development of the ego. Allow me to paraphrase Descartes, they could have said : I see myself, therefore I am !

*

Certain intellectuals had sincerely believed, and had spread the idea, that progress was a voluntary and collective forward advance, in the manner of an army whose chiefs know where they are going and transmit their orders via a heirarchy going from the top to the bottom. It is the greatest thinkers and the men of science who will lead this march toward a new golden age. Here are several examples :

"The golden age of humanity is not at all behind us, it is before us, it is in the perfection of social order" (Saint Simon)..

"It is then that the doctrine of the continuous and indefinite perfectibility of man is born, twenty years before (1750), one had no hopes for the future; now one fears nothing. Imagination takes hold in advance this near and immense happiness. It renders insensible to the existing good and precipitates one towards new things." (Alexis de Tocqueville).

"The future blossoming , the near blossoming of universal wellbeing is a phenomenon which has become divinely fatal " (Victor Hugo).

Alas ! Today, it suffices to notice what is occuring around us and to listen to what is said in order to realize that the golden age, which so many great men sincerely believed in, becomes more problematical each day. Several billion individuals upon our earth live on less than one Euro per day (here in Europe, the price of a small bread). Obviously, the universal wellbeing is not here.

*

With all animals, as with primitive man, the quantity of individuals is limited by the food available and the number of predators. Yet their possibility of reproduction could allow them to explode their numbers. Also, to live the natural length of life is much rarer than an early death. That is why animals consider the death of one of theirs as something ordinary and it does not a all disturb their activities. Primitive man, by having arms , then traps, then animal husbandry and finally agriculture, had increased the nourishment available, thus the number of individuals of his species.

God had said to them to grow and multiply, but he had not given them the means - unless the small flash of genius which provoked the inventive idea had perhaps been desired and started by the almighty ! Whatever the case, it is the human race which has prospered, generally to the detriment of many wild animals which today we are trying to protect. The evident truth is that the multiplication of the number of human beings has produced much more inconviences than advantages, not only concerning the other living : animals and vegetables, but also for the human race itself. The continual need to increase and use mans resources and to protect themselves from invaders has been the origin of numerous massacres.

The word "progress" was long considered as a synonym of progression, that is, simply an advance towards an objective, without really considering if it was good or bad. For example, one said that : " His sickness has progressed", or "Our troops have progressed". This initial sense of a simple change has not disappeared but, in Tocqueville's text we cited above, we note that in the 18th century the intellectuals gave it another signification, which was: "a change for the better of the human condition".

The word has conserved its magic value in spite of the direct or indirect inconvenieces, that is that this change is "for the better", and that we all note it. Moreover, all those who contest the benefits hear the reply : "Do you want to return to the times of the oil lamps, give up electricity, your automobile, your television, your refigerator and your washing machine ?"

These arguments seem to be so preemptory that they surprise those to whom they are addressed. Yet it is merely based upon a perfectly subjective evaluation of that which is good or bad for us.

But, if wild animal can follow almost blindly what their five senses indicate to them, since they usually live in a stable environment free of innovations, it is far from the same for human beings. If you propose to a smoker to surpress his tobacco, a drinker his alcohol and a drug addict his drug, he will protest strongly : yet today the bad effects provoked by the use of these products invented by man is perfectly known. Our genetic patrimony, which should awaken in us a natural repulsion for these products, is found to be incapable. Science can only warn us, often too late, of their harmfulness. Unfortunately, the good counsel of science is rarely followed.

All the innovations, which together constitute "progress", have a point in common : they must please one of the five senses, to the point where we have the desire to renew the pleasure which they procure, or often, they excite our imagination to the point where it replaces reality. The mechanism of instinctive prevention which functions very well in animals are thus perverted by drugs in man. While the individual characteristics should remain the same from generation to generation, they are transformed without ever really adapting to the changes which occur too rapidly. Thus, the perpetuation of the human species beomes more and more problematical.

Ignace Pleyel was an austrian music composer who lived in Paris, where he manufactured his famous pianos. He was the twenty fourth child of a father of thirty eight children. He died at the age of 99. That occured in the 18th century at an epoch in which for our medical authorities one was old at the age of 35 years. Mr. Pleyel's 35 children was not unusual in Austria where large families was the norm. If his twenty fourth child had not become famous, papa would have remained an unknown. I often think of him when I see the thousands of French couples in good health who seach desparately to procreate. They are often obliged to use the most sophisticated modern medical practices to finally give birth. Is not the "progress" of medical science marvellous ?

As the undeniable fragilization of human health increases little by little, the scientific knowledge available to protect and to heal wounds and diseases increase continually. The health care costs were insignificant until the 18th century. With his thirty eight children, Mr. Pleyel had probably never seen a doctor. On the contrary, in our 20th century we have seen medical care and costs explode. It would be interesting to calculate the real costs, for it also includes the expenses to cure, to nurse, as well as those made to protect. In order to remain healthy one can follow a diet, consume various special products and go to expensive excercise clubs. Enormous quantities of expensive tonics, antidepressors, euphoriants and other socalled medicines of conveniance are consumed.

There are In France over 700,000 persons with Alzheimers disease who require at least six hours per day of aid and permanent surveillance. Their number increases by 100,000 per year..Asthma, allergies, diabetes and other diseases are continually on the rise and are difficult to cure. Did these diseases exist among the ancient working population ? As for the state of the teeth of our children, today they require continuous care.

It is evident that most of our medical and surgical acts serve merely to repair the damages due to our "freeing from nature", including the cardiovascular diseases which do not exist in wild animals. The human species has learned how to surpress infant mortality due to diseases or accidents, and has been able to prolong the life of the old, but we do not seem to be able to prevent the weakening of health and the lowering of fecundity.

Another aspect of "progress" able to put in danger not only the perpetuation of the human species , but also many other forms of life on our planet, resides in the proliferation of arms of mass destruction. The next world war will perhaps incite the survivors to cease idolizing scientific and technical progress...

*

We have understood that the history of humanity is tied to innovations, which are always made by individuals, always unpredictible and always freely adopted or rejected. With certain researchers having natural predispositions, one can by education improve the effectiveness. On the contrary, one cannot improve that of inventors, even less teach how to invent. Besides, certain peoples are objectively more inventive than others. This explains the differences in civilizations, without being able to affirm, even on the contrary, that people whose civilization is the most advanced on the road to "progress" have a greater chance of perpetuation.

Why are innovations adopted ? The motivations are multiple, but by simplifying we can perceive the main catagories of innovations :

First, those which permit the groups to defend themselves better and to dominate other groups. It is a question of arms.

Second, those innovations adopted by the "profit community" to improve productivity and of course profit.

Third, those adopted by researchers to be more efficient.

Fourth, those adopted by individuals to diminish or eliminate physical effort.

Fifth, those which are motivated by the desire to appear, to dominate, to please and to seduce - all our spending on vanity.

Sixth, those concerning communication, the need and desire to echange information and to know what is happening around us, in the community to which we belong, in the country and in the world.

Seventh, those which have been determined by the search for new sensations by the five senses : music for the ears, smell for the nose, flavors for the taste, forms and colors for the sight, and finally all the sensations associated with touch. All of which is a lot. We are far from the simple and natural sensations felt by primitive man and even by our peasant ancestors until the 19th century !

*

If innovations are the motor of progress, which we measure by the increase in the standard of living, it does not however correlatively bring happiness . Let us suppose that our actual standard of living is a thousand times superior to that of the French during the times when Moli_re pictured their existence so exactly. Seriously, can we say that we are a thousand times, or even ten times happier than our ancestors ? Happiness is perceived subjectively and objectively.

The ideology of progress tries to make the happiness of man an objective and quantitative notion. That is absurd ! Yet all return to the past is impossible and even horrible. Why ? To explain why, I propose that you read La Fontaine's fable "The wolf and the dog" in entirety. He it is :

"A Wolf being naught but skin and bones,
For the dogs were such good guards.
This Wolf met a mastif as strong as handsome,
Fat, polite, who went astray accidently.
Attack him, cut him in pieces,
Sir Wolf would have willingly done it :
But it required giving battle,
And the mastif was big enough
To defend himself boldly.
The Wolf thus aborded him humbly.
Talked to him and complimented him
On his plumpness which he admired.
"It is up to you my good sir,
To be as fat as me, answered the Dog.
Leave the woods, it will do you well 
: Your alikes are miserable there,
Duds, skinny and poor devils,
Whose condition is to die of hunger.
And why ? Nothing assured : no sure meal;
All at the point of a sword.
Follow me : you will have a much better destiny."
The Wolf replied : "What have I to do ?
"Almost nothing ", said the Dog :
Give chase to people
Carrying sticks, and beggars ;
Flatter those of home, to your master please;
In that way your salary
Will in any case be large,
Bones of chickens, bones of pigeons,
Without speaking of many caresses."
The Wolf already imagining his felicity
That it made him cry with tenderness.
Walking along, he saw the Dog's neck bald:;
"What is that ? he asked. Nothing. What ? Nothing ?
- A little nothing, - But yet ?
- The collar to which I am attached
That which you see is perhaps the cause.
- Attached ? said the wolf : thus you do not run
Where you wish ? - Not always ; but of what import ?
- It imports so well, that of all your meals
I do not want of any sort.
And would not even want at that price a treasure."
That said, master Wolf fled and is still running."

Allows us to note that La Fontaine had exagerated a little the character of the wolf by presenting him as a poor devil in skin and bones. Yet, this fable is particularly interesting, because it depicts two animals of which one is the ancestor of the other (researchers have long ago established the fact that the domestic dog is a descendant of the wolf).

Each is well adapted to its life style : the wolf is totally free and autonomous but he lives a precarious life. But he is not anxious as are so many of our contemporaries. The wolf is our primative man. the dog is our modern man whose security, nourishment and protection against the elements are assured, but he who has lost all autonomy. He tends to be fat, he slumbers frequently, but he is chained, dependent and anxious. That is why he always demands more guarantees and always more assistance.

*

The large multi-media, the audiovisuals, the magazines and the newspapers do not cease in misinforming us on the state of health of the human species. We are submerged by information about new medicines, new treatments, new vaccines, new medical apparatus, new surgical techniques, and since at the same time medical costs explode, we can deduce that we are all in good health from birth to death.

In return, our medias are much more discrete about the new diseases difficult to cure, such as asthma, allergies, diabetes, boulimia, anorexia and many other less common ones whose origin is uncertain. In many domains, in spite of appearance, our state of health is regressing. The marvellous and fantastic heart operations make us forget that wild animals and primitive man did not have cardiovascular diseases. The comparative results are never given on the successes due to surgery verses the passive of the diseases and accidents which kill or handicap for life.

In effect, the socalled new diseases are not due to the increase in pollution or the disappearance of the ozone layer which are supposedly the fault of the multinational companies hungry for profits. But, they have probably existed in a latent state but our natural defenses were so strong that they were unable to develop in our organism. Who has not known an inveterate smoker who has never had a cancer and another, a non smoker, who without a doubt contracted cancer by living in a cigarette smoke polluted atmosphere ?

The weakening of the human species can be evaluated in different ways. For example, we can test the fecondity of the sperm (presently in constant regression) . the number of sterile couples, the number of abortions or premature births, the quality of the teeth (implantations and loss of teeth), all that which does not exist among wild animals. Nobody dares openly admit that good physical health, a happy disposition and joy of living are inborn and depend upon the state of our genetic patrimony.

This constant weakening has permitted many diseases which were in a latent state to develop, and we are all responsible. It is primarily due to the modern life style we have developed and chosen. We systematical look for all inovations which reduce or illiminate all effort, all physical work and all that which gives us more free time. The suppression of all physical activity + idleness + overabundance of tasty foods, that is what equals the development of a frightful explosive cocktail which will evntually destroy us.

Our life style before we procreate risks to damge the genes which we transmit. We all know that alcoholic parents frequently have abnormal and handicaped children, but that is merely the visible part of the iceberg. Our five senses need natural nourishment, but they receive mainly artificial nourishment. Instead of seeing landscapes whose immobility and colors are constant, we are confronted with the aggressive colors, images and words of publicity. Also, the silence of the plains and the woods is replaced by the deafening noises of the automobiles, the planes, the discotheques, the cinemas and the factories. Of course, one of the first consequences of this chaotic environment is the appearance in our descendants of anxiety, and depression, which we attempt to compensate by various medicines and drugs which in the end merely serve to degrade the genome to be transmitted.

In any case, this pessimistic view of the evolution of the human species, living in the more developed countries, can be tempered. There exist two reasons for hope that at least it will arrive much slower than foreseen.

1) There exists a natural selection which indicates that the families which do not practice the negative behaviors we have indicated, tend to have more children and they are in good health.

2) It is important to know if the degradation of the genetic patrimony which can be transmitted, is done before or after the procreation. For a man can become an alcoholic at the age of 40 after having already procreated. thus, his children will not have suffered the genetic consequences engendered by the alcohol. But unfortunately today, the procreation is done later and the excessive use of alcohol begins earlier !

END OF PART I

MAXIME LAGUERRE
Translated from the original french :
«Le progrès : un engrenage fatal»
by Edward S. Maykut
(5 January 2006)
(intertitres de Marc Schweizer)

 

Ce livre est paru en français aux Éditions du Petit Chemin
Copyright by MAXIME LAGUERRE 11/ 2005
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