The Waning of Humaneness

by Konrad Lorenz

Book Overview

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• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0316532916
• ISBN13: 9780316532914
• Release Date: January 1987
• Publisher: Little Brown and Company
• Length: 250 Pages
• Weight: 1.02 lbs.

Customer Reviews

More relevant for today than when written.

This book is a scientific and spititual view of how the human species has evolved over all of time to become the frightened and violent and deceitful cariacature of his true nature. Humankind is experiencing "growing pains" that if seen and understood would change his inherited destructive attitudes for "solving problems" into truly humane solutions that would turn from a slow painful suicide to choices that will fulfill his potential and the destiny that is inherent in him. This book gives insight into this process so beautifully

A Rainbow of Paper Clips ...

as book marks, remain on my 1987 edition. Another swig of this marvelous gentleman's work dries out the wet algae in my thinking. Born in 1903, Konrad Lorenz, winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine/Physiology, does not speak down to his reader. For the reader is often one who perceives the illness around him, who is already frightened by his own smallness and witnesses this waning as a root cause of our present-day world problems. This gifted scholar selects concepts from his magic bag in a manner which best describes an understanding poet or novelist: straight to the reader's heart and mind, concepts which people hold in their deepest "No Admittance", but for various and often unavoidable reasons, do not express. He begins by writing truthfully that with the nuclear threat, the prospects for human survival are dismal, continuing that even if this does not occur, if somehow there is a check on human's "incredibly stupid and blind conduct", he still is in grave danger of the "progressive decline of those human attributes and attainments which constitute their humanity."This master animal behaviorist shares stories of Man's (and animals') pleasure in collecting -- baby fish miraculously appearing in one's aquarium, fruit in one's orchard, increase of the herd, a "stock split" - items which are of one kind. These, in his opinion, are more influenced by genetic programs than other kinds of joy found in possessions. But, he cites the immense danger that the greater the collection, the more intense is the desire, the urge for more. That this rage to collect can consume the personality is no secret, he wryly observes.He continues to write of the neurotic lust for power, threatening the existence of all mankind - the highest possible position in the pecking order (not sic), and the utter ridiculous sight of it.In his search into animal and human behavior, he often uses the word, "Gestalt", which means the coming together of diverse impressions and memories into one formidable idea. In his twenty-five years with shamas, birds said to be the greatest "artists" among song birds, which species assemble beautiful, complicated songs when at play, he notes that should this bird have to defend its territory, court a mate or in any way have his song forced to serve a utilitarian purpose, the resultant stress would cause a loss of the song's awe-inspiring beauty.From birds to humans, humans have an astonishing sensitivity to harmonies, the sensory and brain structures which are the Gestalt perception, one of the most important structures of the human. We cannot inspect or see this in ourselves, but enough is known that there is no doubt that they exist, can save us from not only extinction, but from having a life "not worth living." (not sic.)Excerpts:"Large populations mean that there are too many voters and too few to be voted upon.""Very few people, regardless of how intelligent or morally faultless they may be, are capable of preserving their whole hum