Neil and I share some of the same opinions but have very opposing solutions to many of today’s problems. He puts up long rants and I attempt to reply.
Wanting to Make a mark
No I do not agree that human civilisations or individuals all want to make a mark. That is the province of post-agricultural civilisations. Most people wanted to live in harmony with nature and the natural work and not alter it. Religion has a lot to answer for.
Turning Our World the Right Way Up – Free Life (libertarianism.uk)
Opher, an important point I made is that in order to live in harmony with nature, each of us must live in harmony with our own nature; the nature of human beings. You don’t seem to dispute that it is in the nature of human beings to build civilizations. Your point seems to be that you think human beings do not naturally want to alter the world around them, or as I put it “make a mark.”
But to me, building civilizations and making a mark go together. In my view, it is in our nature to alter the world for our own benefit, both as individuals and as a species. If we did not have a yen to make a mark, then no-one would write great literature, no-one would compose great music, no-one would build great buildings (like, say, the Parthenon). This yen to make a mark is one of the things we acquired way back at the Neolithic revolution, and it is one of the things that makes us human beings, as opposed to mere apex predators.
Oh, and when you say “Religion has a lot to answer for,” I totally agree! Institutional religion and churches are second only to institutional politics and political states in our list of entities hostile to humanity.