The way I think of most people is reflected by what I thought it was going to mean when I first heard the term "The Collective unconscience." I thought it was going to be that most people are so stupid they might as well be unconscious.

Perhaps.

Unfortunately, the people I've been exposed to generally haven't cared about one another or other animals. Most of the talk about caring for one another was just lip service.   I've learned to base my assessment of other people on actions over time rather than mere words or a few meaningless actions. The people in my life basically act like the Bush administration.  

As for other animals...  Let's just say I saw a lot of animals tortured, beaten and killed when I was growing up: everything from frogs to black bears.  As a natural animal-lover, this had a profound effect on me.  I tried to emulate the behavior that was acceptable, but found it wasn't a good fit for me.  I had to make a conscious decision to break from that kind of behavior.  I knew there would be consequences, but I just couldn't go along with it anymore. 

Here's something that occurred to me.

By whose standards am I judging humanity?  Obviously I'm judging humanity by some kind of standard I've absorbed as a member of humanity.  Of course, any time we judge we are doing so by some human standard.

Perhaps I'm expecting too much of the naked ape? 

Perhaps not.

We should at least be moral enough that we don't destroy ourselves. 

People are people.  We have to accept that.

My brother was a prison medic and to do this he had to undergo warder training.  This was six weeks long, had psychological evaluation during it and then was probationary for six months.  They don't let anyone carry a baton. 

Yes, Susan.  I'm aware of that experiment.  It must be part of every freshman psych class. And I believe I have seen the power trip mentality in the attitude of my brother.

Interestingly, my entire nuclear family worked (or works) at the local prison.  My mother worked as an accountant there for years, then decided to become a correctional officer, which really pissed off my brother. 

My brother has been a correctional officer for most of his adult life.  He likes to see himself as a "crime fighter."  I think he just likes to poke sticks at animals in cages.  He was cruel to animals as a kid.  Now he can get paid to be cruel to humans.

When my mother decided to become a correctional officer, it wilted my brother's dick.  If your mother is doing the same job you are, it's awfully hard to envision that job as uber-macho, isn't it?   Actually, I rather enjoyed my mother's little rebellion.  If my brother had a problem with it, it was his problem.

My father was a firefighter. His last job was working with inmate volunteer firefighters.  He detested it.  I think he wanted to view himself as better than the inmates.  Working with them somehow sullied his (self) righteousness.  He made it a point to run them into the ground.  Just a few months before his death, before the return of his cancer, he was hiking up mountains like it was nothing.  The inmates, which were twenty years younger, had trouble keeping up. 

Before he worked at the local prison, my brother worked at San Quentin on Death Row.  He readily absorbed the correctional officer mentality. 

Obviously, the inmates on Death Row are the farthest thing from upstanding citizens. Still, it cheapens us all to treat them as subhuman.  Many times I've heard people claim Death Row inmates are animals.  And so they are.  So are we.  If we expect to rid ourselves of violence, we need to start treating others as we would like to be treated.

Ah, the golden rule again!  Jesus--if he existed--didn't invent it, but it's a pretty damn good idea.  I certainly wish I could follow it more consistently than I do.

From the things my brother has said, I believe he has probably been guilty of police brutality.  When San Quentin still had a gas chamber, he would taunt the inmates with visual images of the deaths they would eventually suffer.  He'd walk the row, singing, "Plop, plop.  Fizz, fizz.  Oh, what a relief it is."  This was in reference to the sulfuric acid being dropped into the potassium cyanide beneath the condemned inmate's death chair.  He told me many times he wanted to be one of the officers to drag an inmate kicking and screaming to his execution.

The death penalty is a sad commentary on human nature.  Even if someone deserves to die--and I daresay most, if not all, San Quentin Death Row inmates deserve to die--it drags down all of humanity to create such a culture of death.  I believe it hurts not only the inmate, but the victims and their survivors, the courts, the correctional officers, the executioner--everyone.  Heck, it hurts me that my brother has so bought into the culture of death.  It is reflected in his personal choices of unrestrained greed and his extreme right-wing politics.

Many of those affected may not even realize it as they decend into the savagery depicted in Lord of the Flies.

If we want to create human dignity, we must learn to treat even the worst specimens of humanity with dignity, whether or not they deserve it.  That is part of ascending out of this hole we have dug for ourselves.

I believe that human nature carries with it the capacity to commit atrocities, and I don't think anyone would disagree with that since atrocities have been committed; but humans also possess the ability to weigh their actions before they take them, to reflect on actions already taken, and to regulate urges.

Self-control, reflection, and forethought are more difficult than kicking back and letting your primal urges do all the work for you. Thinking independently is also more difficult than conforming to the group.

I don't think we are necessarily a contemptible species; I just think that there are too many of us with lazy minds. We have the capacity to be terrible, but we have the capacity to be something great. It's just harder to be great. That's the problem.

Speculation, of course.

There's a theory that it's because bonobo females forage in groups together, whereas chimpanzee females forage as individuals (because they compete with gorillas for forage on the chimpanzee side of the river).  The observed behavior suggests that when females stick together, they can counter male aggression, which is the major driving force behind chimp society. 

It's pretty clear that the environmental differences in forage competition drive the social evolution.  Something similar happens in Japanese snow monkey society too.  It's still an unanswered question how much the social differences have led to the physical/morphological differences between chimps and bonobos.  But the behavior is hardwired--bonobos in captivity raised among chimps still behave more like bonobos.