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The continuing progress of society, science, and culture and some individuals' lust for control of their environment and the people around them seem to be loosely (though not necessarily) connected in the sense that the former can be used as a means to achieve the latter. However, I had a strange thought, as I was commuting to work the other day, and I have been mulling it over in my mind ever sense. I began to wonder if our desire to innovate and some people's pathological lust for control might spring forth from the same "place" in our minds and I started to think that this "place" may be one of fear. That is to say, both our greatest achievements and our worst abuses are built upon the most primal of emotions. After considering this issue, I have come believe that we are afraid of the things that we are powerless against and that our desire to innovate and our lust control are both different sorts of manifestations that fear.

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We do not typically find ourselves trembling when we see a pigeon but a wild lion may make you think twice about wondering in the wilderness without arming yourself because one has the ability to harm us and the other does not. Naked and alone, we are powerless against the lion. It's strength and speed trumps our will to live and this seems to be the root of our fear, from my perspective. There are a number of scary things that we are powerless against. Disease can strike without warning. Bad weather and other natural disasters can cause unprepared civilizations to crumble. We may be caught off-guard (and thus, powerless) by thieves and have our possessions taken from us and be left without adequate means of survival. Death ultimately strikes us all down and no amount of preparation, planning, or plotting can prevent that eventuality. The common theme between these things is that a power gap exists between the fearful and the feared.

While there isn't anything that we can do to even the odds with death, we, as a species, do have some agency to close the power gaps that exists between us and the things that we are afraid of and this, I believe, has been the major driving force behind our advancement as species. We wanted to keep the lions away so we built villages and walls to protect them. That requires increased cooperation between individuals, so society and culture are born as a result. We know that a drought will come one day, so we learn to store food and this leads to an increased population and workforce which allows cities and nations arise. That larger population and the greater amount of leisure time that it allows gives people the opportunity to ponder things like fighting sickness and other similarly powerful foes. Those aspirations may be actualized and the quality of our lives increases accordingly. These things are all great achievements but the important bit (to my argument) is that they all seem reduce the power disparity between our us and our environment. It makes sense (to me, at least) to view our drive to innovate as an expression or our fear of powerlessness. 

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In the same way that our fear of being powerless can cause us to take positive actions like curing diseases and learning to preserve food for the dry times, it can also lead some people down a much darker path. Some individuals grow to lust for power because they are reacting to their fear in a different and more destructive way. They know that possessing more power, whether it is through political influence, wealth, oppression, violence, or what have you, will reduce the likelihood of them facing a threat that they are unable to guard against. They are compelled, by their fear, to gain control of their surroundings and they do so at the expense of others, often by stealing power that once belonged to the broader society. Again we see a an expression of fear but instead of improving the lives of the people, it causes them harm and robs them of their agency for the benefit of a single person or a relatively small group.

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This a strange paradox and it is one that comes with real problems. If both this positive drive and negative lust are manifestations of the same emotion, how can we reduce one without reducing the other? Our impulse to innovate is something that we should value but is it so closely tied to its "evil twin" that it can never be fully separated? I don't have an answer to those questions but I tend to think that we can, to some degree, master our minds and, with them, our more destructive desires. Perhaps, we can learn how to distinguish between our negative and positive reactions to fear and encourage ourselves to choose innovation over over oppression. We can try to derive our power from our work and the progress it brings instead of taking it from others. Of course, some people are just irredeemable douche-bags and will never take those steps but if the rest of us try to think about how our fear influences our actions and if we make positive choices as a result, I believe that the world would better for our efforts.

Peace. 

All the images in this post are sourced from the free image website, unsplash.com.