There are mentally-stimulating, thought-provoking, and often disturbing side effects to a continuous and non-stop exposure to global events via the Internet. It offers a very unsettling, uneasy, sometimes horrific, and confusing notion of what it means to be human.

We are now exposed – through online news, social websites and many other portals – to the previously under- or non-reported effluvia and offal that constitutes a much more significant portion of human affairs than I think anyone – except the darkest cynic and harshest pessimist – would think existed.

Government-sanctioned mass murder; religiously motivated and sanctioned mass murder; human trafficking and slavery; child prostitution; forced pornography; religious intolerance manifested as overt behavior which expresses a complete lack of regard for human life; unchecked racial hatred practiced by those who preach peace; unrestricted drug cartel activity sanctioned by governments; government corruption; bureaucratic stupidity and waste; the looting of national treasuries by special-interest groups seeking only to salvage their own benefits and on and on – when such a perverse and widespread litany of willfully-directed human misery is marched in front of your eyes, you are inexorably drawn to one inescapable, unavoidable, and terrible conclusion – being human means much more than just looking like a human being.

Just because you look human, it does not make you human.

It is the grandest illusion of them all.

One of the most meaningful concepts that I will ask you to grasp in this discussion is the idea of “adaptive strategies.”

Every group of people large enough to regard itself as an “entity” has an adaptive strategy which it follows in an effort to procure success for its adherents.

Human beings on the planet Earth are fragmented and subdivided into a multitude of distinct “entities” – be they geographic, ethnic, ideological, or some other defining characteristic. These entities may be classified as nations, countries, states, regions, groups, religions, economic systems, political parties, organizations or even clusters of human beings. Adaptive strategies exist in antipathy to each other because the adherence to any one particular adaptive strategy has historically meant a harsh aversion to any other adaptive strategy.

You cannot serve two masters.

The fundamental precept of the adaptive strategy and its “success” is its mutually exclusive character – you cannot be a Muslim and a Jew at the same time; a Marxist and a Capitalist; a Liberal and a Conservative; et cetera, ad nauseum.

Adaptive strategies are followed by human beings in what can best be described as blind and unthinking obedience. The intrinsic and primary value of an adaptive strategy is that it allows the adherent to concentrate on the immediate tasks at hand – those an existing individual faces on a daily basis and which further individual and sector maintenance – without having to rationalize any action, without having to question the validity of any specific behavior (other than its relation to the practical common law under which the adaptive strategy allows itself to be placed).

The vast majority of people – sadly – follow their chosen adaptive strategy without any contemplative or introspective examination of themselves or the relationship of their adaptive strategy to the rest of humankind. In point of fact, most people blindly adopt the adaptive strategy their “leaders” advise them to adopt.

In essence, such people have traded their humanity for the promises made by the adaptive strategy. Adaptive strategies prey on the fears and insecurities of such people by offering them the cold comfort of the adaptive strategy to wrap around them and explain away those fears and insecurities with deceptions – “follow me” the adaptive strategy says, without conscious thought, and I will give you security and safety.

The ultimate way to maintain adherents who worship at the altar of the adaptive strategy is to perpetuate itself by entwining so completely around its adherents that they are totally and utterly dependent on a daily basis.

People are told that this dependence is really freedom, because they do not have to think, to worry, to bother with anything – simply “keep the faith.”

This is the freedom of the non-human. Do you imagine for one moment that a person, male or female, who would strap on a bomb, walk into a room full of women and children and explode that bomb, is human? Can people who use children in prostitution and pornography possibly be human? Can people who engage in acts of genocide and mass murder of other humans without respect to age or gender be considered human?

The people who do have a sense of morality and ethics, the people who do not blindly follow any adaptive strategy without contemplating what is means, the people who value liberty, freedom, self-responsibility, the people who believe in integrity and honor – these people are human. But you must face the harsh and unrelenting facts that humanity is NOT only about physical attributes, but also about the mental and spiritual facets of our nature – and if you ignore those you have chosen not to be human.

You cannot discuss morality and ethics with a zealous fanatic follower of any adaptive strategy. You cannot win the “hearts and minds” of people when they have no aspect of their human nature that corresponds to the values we associate with a “heart,” and their minds are closed by their utter allegiance to some stagnant adaptive strategy.

You are dealing with zombies. The undead.

At this point you are confronted with a dilemma, an imbroglio – a horrible decision.

Here is the challenge: real humans must decide if the non-humans have the ability to be educated and trained to be humans or – if they are inescapably non-human – how to contain or control them before their unwarranted and unrestricted breeding wrecks human society.

So that, my friend, is really where humanity is at presently. We must decide if we are “born” human or we “become” human. Since there are so many obvious humans in the world who are, in point of fact, not even remotely human, I think it is safe to say that we become, through society and culture, educated and trained to be humans.

To become, or not to become – THAT is the question.

For those that believe in some kind of Judeo-Christic-Islamic God/G_d/Al-lah – you need to tread carefully here. Humans, in those adaptive strategies, are made in the image of God – but that is merely a copy on the physical level. Every religious system that truly seeks to create human beings understands that the divine spark in us at birth must be nurtured and fanned into a flame, lest it perish and we fall back into barbarism and bestiality – which is happening even as we speak.

We are not being properly educated to be human.

Whereas the idea of Darwinian Natural Selection is something which is an unconscious and non-reflective force, the advent of true human consciousness impacts a willfully self-directed ability to create and guide our evolution rather than merely being helplessly subject to it.

There are some people who believe that non-humans can never be changed. This is the belief held by any “enlightened” ruling class that believes it must guide people who they think are not only incapable of guiding themselves, but cannot be educated or trained.

There are other people who believe each of has an opportunity to be human. Non-humans can be changed. The ideas of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” are possibilities for those who willfully seek to work hard at becoming human and succeeding in life.

There are many modern systems of thought that believe some people are human and some are not. They believe this is a static situation and not a dynamic one. The bell curve represents an unchanging reality for such people. They believe that a ruling class of “superior” people should rule.

Socratic Guardians. Marxist Elitists.

This ruling class is, by nature, discriminatory on all fronts – racial, religious, political, economic, physiological, cultural, et cetera – there is only one correct way of viewing the world and it is their way. They will preserve that way no matter what the cost, and there is no truth but their truth, utterly controlled by them; no law but the law they make and to which they themselves are usually not subject.

No means or methods are off-limits which permit the supposed ruling class to achieve their “noble” ends.

Honor and integrity are just words to such people – situational ethics is the norm for them and there are forms of modern political thought active today that believe truth is just a variable that can be changed whenever it suits the need. Truth is whatever they tell you.

If a government is run by such a ruling class, it will believe non-humans cannot be helped, educated or trained, and that government will act according to its own self-interest without regards to the perceived non-humans; indeed, they will actually escalate actions to hasten the demise of the non-humans – but all the while acting as though they are spokespeople for the supposed non-humans; soliciting their support through the election process. That is, until they can assume power and subvert the elective process – after all, no government, such a ruling class will argue, should be subordinated to the will of non-humans.

However, if a government is handled by people who believe that, yes, non-humans do exist, but that they can be educated, trained and helped to grow into true humans, then such a government will support self-responsibility, hard work, dedication, honor, integrity and advancement through a competitive process that rewards true human behavior.

Think about our current situation and see where your mind goes…

Think. Will. Become.

Enoch