Beyond War

Timothy Wilken, MD

Progress + warfare = human extinction
We are Time-binders and the mark of human power is everywhere. When knowledge is
incorporated into matter-energy, it becomes a tool. As Galambos explained:

“Humans develop evermore powerful knowledge and therefore evermore
powerful tools. When tools are used to harm other humans they are called
weapons. Since human knowledge can grow without limit then tools themselves
can be made without limit. And limitless tools can will produce limitless
weapons.”1

And, limitless weapons (progress) combined withleveraged adversity (warfare) must
by all definitions and understanding of science produce human extinction.

Commitment to the adversary way

“No man can regard the way of war as good. It has simply been our way. No man
can evaluate the eternal contest of weapons as anything but the sheerest waste and
the sheerest folly. It has been simply our only means of final arbitration”2

We humans are a life form. We must avoid losing at all costs. Most of us embrace human
neutrality to avoid losing. But, if our human neutrality fails to protect us from losing, then
we will fight. We will fight to surivive. We do not go quietly into that dark night. We will
kill to remain alive.

Our Time-binding has made human technology evermore powerful, it has made human
warfare evermore dangerous. Our species has the deepest of commitments to the
adversary way. We humans can choose to change our ways, but do so will require us to

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1Andrew J. Galambos, Volitional Science, Free Enterprise Institute,1962-80
2Robert Ardrey, African Genesis, 1961


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Beyond War

examine our past and to understand how we arrived at this crossroad. The human species
evolved from the world of animals. Our mother was a space-binder and she embraced the
adversary way. Robert Ardrey explains:

“Not in innocence, and not in Asia was mankind born. The home of our fathers was
that African highland reaching north form the cape to the Lakes of the Nile. Here
we came about slowly — slowly, ever so slowly — on a sky-swept Savannah
glowing with menace.

“In neither bankruptcy nor bastardy did we face our long beginnings. Man’s line is
legitimate. Our ancestry is firmly rooted in the animal world, and to its subtle,
antique ways our hearts are yet pledged. Children of all animal kind, we
inherited many a social nicety as well as the predator’s way. But most significant
of all our gifts, as things turned out, was the legacy bequeathed us by those killer
apes, our immediate fore bearers. Even in the first long days of our beginnings we
held in our hands the weapon, an instrument somewhat older than ourselves.

“What are the things that we know about man? We know above all that man is a
portion of the natural world and that much of the human reality lies hidden in
times past. We are an iceberg floating like a gleaming jewel down the cold blue
waters of the Denmark Strait; most of our presence is submerged in sea. We are a
moonlit temple in a Guatemala jungle; our foundations are the secret of darkness
and old creepers. We are a thriving , scrambling, evolving city; but no one can
find his way through our labrynith streets without awareness of the streets that
have stood there before. And so for the moment let us excavate man.

“What stands above the surface? His mind, I suppose. The mind is the city whose
streets we get lost in, the most recent construction on a very old site. After seventy
million years of most gradual primate enlargement, the brain nearly tripled in
size in a few hundred thousand years. Our city is spacious and not lacking in
magnificence, but it was the problems of any boom-town. Let us dig.

“We are Cain’s children. The union of the enlarging brain and the carnivorous way
produced man as a genetic possibility. The tightly packed weapons of the
predator form the highest, final, and most immediate foundation on which we
stand. How deep does it extend? A few million, five million, ten million? We do
not know. But it is the material of our immediate foundation as it is the basic

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Beyond War

material of our city. And we have so far been unable to buildwithout it.

“Man is a predator whose natural instinct is to kill with a weapon. The sudden
addition of the enlarged brain to the equipment of an armed already successful
predator animal created not only the human being but also the human
predicament. But the final foundation on which we stand has a strange cement.
We are badweather animals. The deposit was laid down in a time of stress. It is no
mere rubble of carnage and cunning. City and foundation alike are compacted by
a mortar of mysterious strength,” — *the mortar of time-binding— “this mortar
gives us the capacity to survive no matter what the storm. The quality of this
mortar may hold future significance far exceeding that of the material that it
binds. That choice is ours.

“But let us dig deeper. Layer upon layer of primate preparation lies buried
beneath the predatory foundation. As the addition of a suddenly enlarged brain
to the way of the hunting primate multiplied both the problems and the promise
of the sum total, man, so the addition of carnivorous demands to the non-
aggressive, vegetarian primate way multiplied the problems and the promise of
the sum total, our ancestorial primate.

“The primate had instincts demanding the maintenance and defense of territory: an
attitude of perpetual hostility for the territorial neighbor; the formation of social
bands as the principle means of survival for a physically vulnerable creature; an
attitude of amity and loyalty for the social partner; and varying but universal
systems of dominance to insure the efficiency of his social instrument and to
promote the natural selection of the more fit from the less.

“We can only presume that when the necessities of the hunting life encountered the
basic primate instincts, then all were intensified. Conflicts became lethal,
territorial arguments minor wars. The social band as a hunting and defense unit
became harsher in its codes whether of amity or enmity. The dominant became
more dominant, the subordinate more disciplined. Overshadowing all other
qualitative changes, however, was the coming of the aggressive imperative. The
creature who had once killed only through circumstance killed now for a living.

“As we glimpsed in the predatory foundation of man’s nature the mysterious
strength of the bad weather animal, we may see in the coming of the carnivorous

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Beyond War

way something new and immense and perhaps more significant than the killing
necessity. The hunting primate was free. He was free of the forested prison;
wherever game roamed the world was his. His hands were freed from the Earth or
the bough; erect carriage opened new and unguessed opportunities for manual
answers to ancient quadruped problems. His daily life was freed from the eternal
munching; the capacity to digest high-calorie food meant a life more diverse than
one endless meal-time. And his wits were freed. Behind him lay the forest
orthodoxies. Ahead of him lay freedom of choice and invention as new
imperative if the revolutionary creature were to meet the unpredictable
challenges of a revolutionary way of life.”*Time-binding was born of space-
binding
“freedom” — as the human being means freedom — was the first gift
of the predatory way. We may excavate man deeply ever more deeply as we dig
down through pre-primate, pre-mammal and even pre-land live levels of
experience. We shall pass through the beginnings of sexual activity as a year-
around affair and a consequent beginnings of the primate family. but all the other
instincts will be there still deeper down; the instinct to dominate one’s fellows, to
defend what one deems one’s own, to form societies, to mate, to eat and avoid
being eaten. The record will grow dim and the outlines blurred. But even in the
earliest deposits of our nature where death and the individual have their start, we
shall find traces of animal nostalgia, of fear and dominance and order.

“Here is our heritage, so far as we know it today. Here is the excavated mound of
our nature with Homo sapiens boom town on top. But whatever tall towers reason
may fling against the storms and promises of the human future, their foundations
must rest on the beds of our past for there is nowhere else to build.

“Cain’s children have their problems. It is difficult to describe the invention of
nuclear weapons as anything but the consummation of a species. Our history
reveals the development and contest of superior weapons as Homo sapiens single
universal, cultural pre-occupation. Peoples may perish, nation’s dwindle,
empires fall; one civilization may surrender its memories to another civilization’s
sands. But mankind as a whole, with an instinct as true as the meadowlark’s song,
has never in a single instance allowed local failure to impede the progress of the
weapon; its most significant cultural endowment.”3

These words were written by Robert Ardrey in 1961 as a wake up call for humanity. I was

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3Robert Ardrey, African Genesis, 1961

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Beyond War

fortunate to have had several conversations with Ardrey shortly before his death in 1980.
He did not believe that humankind’s commitment to the adversary way had to be
permanent, nor necessarily mandate a death sentence for our species. He knew
humankind was morethan simply a predator. He also recognized human amity, loyalty,
and social cooperation He knew that humanity was bound by “a mortar of mysterious
strength — a mortar that gives us the capacity to survive no matter what the storm. The
quality of this mortar may hold future significance far exceeding that of the material that it
binds. That choice is ours.” I felt this mortar he was referring to was what Korzybski had
called Time-binding, although Ardrey was not familiar with the term.

In a recent correspondence with synergy scientist N. Arthur Coulter, Jr.4, I was reminded
of the both-andpoint of view. Coulter pointed out that we humans are omnivores, this
means that our bodies are not eithercarnivore orherbivore. But rather, our bodies are
bothcarnivore andherbivore.

R. Buckminster Fuller also took a more balanced approach in his analysis of the present
human condition. I believe he would have been in agreement with Coulter that humans
behave bothadversarily andcooperatively. Recall Fuller’s words from “Legally Piggily”:

“In my prehistory accounting I talk about the time when each ice age is engaging
an enormous amount of the oceans’ water, lowering the waterfront and bringing
together the islands of Borneo, the Philippines, and others, all to become part of
the Malay Peninsula. I also spoke of the ice cap pushing the furry animals
southward until they were suddenly pushed into the land of the previous islands
now formed into the new peninsula — into land they could never before reach.
This is how animals like tigers got out to now reislanded places like Bali. Human
being suddenly confronted with these wild animals learned how to cope, hunting
some and taming others. In following the evolution of human power structures
we are now particularly interested in the humans who found themselves
confronted with a tidal wave of wild animals. Those who were overwhelmed
became aggressive hunters, and those who were not overwhelmed became
peaceful domesticators of the animals.
Some of the most aggressive men
mounted horses, moved faster than all others, and went out to seek the beasts.

“We have learned in the last decade from our behavioral science studies that
aggression is a secondary behavior of humans — that when they get what they

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4N. Arthur Coulter, Jr., Synergetics: An Adventure in Human Development, Prentice-Hall, 1972

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Beyond War

need, when they need it, and are not overwhelmed, they are spontaneously
benevolent; it is only when they have relied on is no longer working.There are
two kinds of social behavior manifest today around the world — the benign
and the aggressive.
It is probable that this dichotomy occurred in the human-
versus-animal confrontation in the ice age time.”5

When we humans get overwhelmed we become aggressive. This too seems to be what
Ardrey’s meant when he wrote:

“No man can regard the way of war as good. It has simply been our way. No man
can evaluate the eternal contest of weapons as anything but the sheerest waste and
the sheerest folly. It has been simply our only means of finalarbitration. Any man
can suggest reasonable alternatives to the judgment of arms. But we are not
creatures of reason except in our own eyes.”6

We humans evolved from animal way — the adversary way. Our mother was a space-
binder. When our survival is threatened, we will fight rather than die.

Ardrey focuses on humankind’s commitment to the adversary way because it is this
commitment that now threatens our human survival, we are not threatened by our equally
valid
ability to act cooperatively.

Ardrey was criticized by many social scientists as looking only at the darkside, and
overlooking the positive aspects of humanity. Coulter’s correspondence helped me
realize that these critics of Ardrey’s focus are making the mistake of either/or thinking. If
humankind is eithera predator ora cooperator, then being a predator mandates the death
sentence for our species. This possibility is so frightening and unacceptable, that many
social scientists have spent great effort to deny the human commitment to the adversary
way (see i.e. Ashley Montagu7).

In my final conversation with Ardrey shortly before his death, we discussed the future of
humanity. Ardrey believed humankind could change, that we could transcend the
adversary way and thus give ourselves the option to build a safe world. But, this could
not happen unless we faced the truth. We could change only if we faced the truth of our

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5R. Buckminster Fuller, Critical Path, St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1981
6Robert Ardrey, African Genesis, 1961
7Ashley Montagu, Man and Aggression, 1973

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deep commitment to the adversary way, then we could learn from our mistakes, and
begin the repair our world.

Facing the truth
The evolution of the weapon is linked to the evolution of Time-binding. Humans create
knowledge, when knowledge is imbedded in matter-energy is becomes a tool.
When tools
are used to hurt others they become weapons
.

For most of our human history, our tools have been simple. For most of our human history
our weapons have been equally as simple. With the explosion of Time-binding released by
Institutional Neutrality, our tools have become evermore powerful, and so have our
weapons.

Evermore powerful weapons—Civil War

“The American Civil War (1861-65) was the first conflict in which the technology
produced by the Industrial Revolution — railroads, the telegraph, rifled
weapons, and armored ships-was used extensively. The doctrine of total war was
introduced by the Union general William T. Sherman, who laid waste to the
industrial and agricultural base that supported the armies of his Confederate
opponents. It began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate General P. G. T.
Beauregard opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina,
and lasted until May 26, 1865, when the last Confederate army surrendered. The
war took more than 600,000 lives, destroyed property valued at $5 billion,
brought freedom to 4 million black slaves, and opened wounds that have not yet
completely healed more than 125 years later.”8

Fifty years later—World War I

“World War I began on July 28, 1914, with the declaration of war by Austria-
Hungary on Serbia, and hostilities between the Allied and Central Powers
continued until the signing of the armistice on November 11, 1918, a period of 4
years, 3 months, and 14 days. The aggregate direct war costs of all the belligerents
amounted to about $186 billion. Casualties in the land forces amounted to more
than 37 million; in addition, close to 10 million deaths among the civilian

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8Microsoft Encarta 97 Encyclopedia. Microsoft Corporation, 1963-96

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populations were caused indirectly by the war.”9

One generation later—World War II

“A rough consensus has been reached on the total cost of the World War II. In
terms of money spent, it has been put at more than $1 trillion, which makes it
more expensive than all other wars combined. The human cost, not including
more than 5 million Jews killed in the Holocaust who were indirect victims of the
war, is estimated to have been 55 million dead — 25 million of those military and
30 million civilian.

“The U.S. spent the most money on the war, an estimated $341 billion. Germany
was next, with $272 billion; followed by the Soviet Union, $192 billion; and then
Britain, $120 billion; Italy, $94 billion; and Japan, $56 billion. Except for the U.S.,
however, and some of the less militarily active Allies, the money spent does not
come close to being the war’s true cost. The Soviet government has calculated that
the USSR lost 30 percent of its national wealth, while Nazi exactions and looting
were of incalculable amounts in the occupied countries. The full cost to Japan has
been estimated at $562 billion. In Germany, bombing and shelling had produced 4
billion cu m (5 billion cu yd) of rubble.

“The human cost of the war fell heaviest on the USSR, for which the official total,
military and civilian, is given as more than 20 million killed. The Allied military
and civilian losses were 44 million; those of the Axis, 11 million. The military
deaths on both sides in Europe numbered 19 million and in the war against Japan,
6 million. The U.S., which had no significant civilian losses, sustained 292,131
battle deaths and 115,187 deaths from other causes. The highest numbers of deaths,
military and civilian, were as follows: USSR more than 13,000,000 military and
7,000,000 civilian; China 3,500,000 and 10,000,000; Germany 3,500,000 and 3,800,000;
Poland 120,000 and 5,300,000; Japan 1,700,000 and 380,000; Yugoslavia 300,000 and
1,300,000; Romania 200,000 and 465,000; France 250,000 and 360,000; British Empire
and Commonwealth 452,000 and 60,000; Italy 330,000 and 80,000; Hungary 120,000
and 280,000; and Czechoslovakia 10,000 and 330,000.

“Perhaps the most significant casualty over the long term was the world balance of
power. Britain, France, Germany, and Japan ceased to be great powers in the

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9Encarta 97, ibid

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