McCAIN ATTACKS KERRY AND LOSES

At first, I had a flash of anger at John McCain’s attack on Secretary of State Kerry. That only became worse when Sen. Corker added his jab expanding his attack to include Syria, my anger increased. When Sen. Bob Menendez piled on, I realized that there are two things at play. As disgusting as it can be, one is just politics; these people are “vantijestas”, advantage takers. The second thing at play is more important. To make the point, ask how and of what are they taking advantage. They are using evolutionary psychology. We have a genetic propensity, knee jerk, or bestial reaction to respond to a hurt. Evan an unsophisticated child responds to physical and emotional affronts. Obviously, an affront is in the mind of the beholder.

As I have explained in previous blog posts, there is a perception in the minds of Americans that we are somehow superior in the sense that everyone else in the world should show us deference. On an individual basis, this is no different from what a primitive tribal leader or a King expects. We should recognize that this is an individual phenomenon projected to an entire group: within our society, the economic elite who feel they deserve—hence expect deference—everyone’s respect. Assad, Putin, Kim Jung Un, or any other member of the axis of evil who has done something Americans find offensive. We want to strike back.  People like McCain are especially sensitive to sign of “lack of respect”. I am convinced his bestial level of combativeness has led to the general impression of his being a warmonger; it is also the foundation of his remarks.

Over the past 150,000 years, our humanization has been evolving; we have been learning how to modify our bestial impulses; fight or flight to negotiation. There is the tired old biological axiom of ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, where careful study of a developing embryo reveals anatomical evidence as traces of how we evolved physically. By observing children as they develop, we see the same phenomenon of how we evolved behaviorally. In either case, we could refer to what happens as the development of our physical and behavioral humanization. It is my contention that people like McCain, in contrast to people like Obama, respond to the way they do along the same lines. If you are a genecist, tied up into knots by the laborious requirement of mutations followed by natural selection, and need a timeline to make that statement digestible, think of 2 to 3 billion years of physical evolution verses 15 centuries of behavioral modification to which we attribute humanization—a blink of an eye.  

Obama has caused Syria’s Assad to destroy his store of poison gas, he is patiently waiting for the people of North Korea to depose of Kim Jung Un, and he is in the process of tightening the economic sanctions on Putin that will bring him to his knees. As Secretary of State Kerry said, he is following the directions of a thoughtful President Obama and is using 21st century techniques to control 20^th century behavior. He has moved the United States out of the primitive behavior mode; our president is humanizing our foreign policy. McCain (R), Corker (R), and Menendez (D) can learn much from Obama, but so can the American people; he is a true leader. What happened was that Kerry beat his critics—in a way that makes me proud to be an American and especially proud of our president. He used the biggest stick of all which is 20th century logic. 

URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated