A Cynic Might Conclude That The Real

Natural Selection, As It Has Operated In Human History, Favors Not Only The Clever But The Murderous.

The Urge To Transform One's Appearance, To Dance Outdoors, To Mock The Powerful And Embrace Perfect Strangers Is Not Easy To Suppress." --barbara Ehrenreich, Dancing In The Streets, 260.

War Has Dug Itself Into Economic Systems, Where It Offers A Livelihood To Millions ... It Has Lodged In Our Souls As A Kind Of Religion, A Quick Tonic For Political Malaise And A Bracing Antidote To The Moral Torpor Of Consumerist, Market-driven Cultures.

The Question Is Why One Should Be So Inwardly Preoccupied At All. Why Not Reach Out To Others In Love And Solidarity Or Peer Into The Natural World For Some Glimmer Of Understanding? Why Retreat Into Anxious Introspection When, As Emerson Might Have Said, There Is A Vast World Outside To Explore? Why Spend So Much Time Working On Oneself When There Is So Much Real Work To Be Done?

Marriage Probably Originated As A Straightforward Food-for-sex Deal Among Foraging Primates. Compatibility Was Not A Big Issue, Nor, Of Course, Was There Any Tension Over Who Would Control The Remote.