For a bit of perspective, try thinking Jurassic
The first takeaways originated about 150 million years ago, says Christopher Lloyd; global travel is pretty ancient, too. And as for democracy...
Bees do democracy best. They vote, you know. Not that they bother with anything as trivial as electing a new president. Nor do they worry about the colour of their ruler’s stripes. In the natural world of a beehive there are no unnecessary arguments about popular succession, no expensive lobbying or financial fuss. When election season comes, the question they vote on is simply this: where on earth to site a new nest?
Now what’s the most natural way of expressing an opinion? Let’s see... buzzing very loudly? But that might get a bit too noisy. Scribbling on a piece of paper? Not a bad idea — after all, it was a sister species of the bees that invented the world’s first paper — but then using up precious supplies of chewed-up wood is far too wasteful. How about dancing? Eureka! Shall it be the waggle or the round dance?
The system of range-voting used by bees is probably the most effective decision-making process ever devised. Finding the right location for a new colony is crucial for these creatures’ future well-being. Too exposed and their nest becomes easy prey for predators such as birds. Too far from good sources of food and the colony will starve.
So the bees dance. About 5 per cent scout out the best locations, return to the nest and divulge the co-ordinates of their prospective sites to the rest of their community in an elaborate jig. The other bees buzz off to take a look, coming back to dance with the bee they think has chosen the best site. After about two weeks (not two years) the bee with the most dancers wins, whereupon the colony relocates. Apparently they make the best possible decision about 90 per cent of the time. Democracy, you see, is a simple, highly efficient prehistoric decision-making process established in the insect kingdom more than 60 million years ago. Most modern humans just aren’t close enough to nature to learn how best to do it.
Nature provides endless examples of how human societies can improve their lot. It could even rid them of artificial neuroses that have taken over since our traditional relationship with the natural world began to break down with the rise of farming 10,000 years ago. Rediscovering the historic relationship between planet, life and people might help restore a long-lost balance.
Take democracy. It emerged — in its human form — in ancient Greece. Diogenes was a part-time philosopher, part-time beggar who lived in a barrel at the bottom of some steps leading up to a temple in Athens. He believed that without a closer link to nature, the whole idea of popular politics was flawed. The problems of neurotic human societies could be solved in an instant, he said, if only we followed the example of a dog. After all, dogs don’t fuss over what they eat, they’re happy to sleep anywhere, have sex when and where it pleases them without causing offence, don’t lie or dupe others and have no inhibitions about where they relieve themselves. The curse of modern societies, he said, is that they are artificial fictions that have deprived humans of their traditional relationships with nature.
It is telling that the only history taught in schools these days is the history of human civilisations. Anything prehistoric is restricted to a few felt-tip scribbles of Jurassic monsters in reception class. All of which probably explains why one recent newspaper report described the credit crunch as the ‘worst disaster to strike the world since the age of dinosaurs’. Whoever wrote that needs a serious pinch of perspective, since some of modernity’s most exciting joys originated with these once mighty, much maligned beasts.
Our ancient mammal ancestors responded to the threat of being devoured by dinosaurs with a range of first-rate survival features that still keep many of us happily awake at night: eyes that see in the dim light, bodies that keep themselves active after dark and female breasts, apparatus originally designed for nourishing youngsters without having to leave the safety of the nest, but more latterly adapted as entertainment centres for men. Inevitably some people, on hearing this, will feel a surge of indignation and heap opprobrium for the lax moral standards of our modern age at the dinosaurs’ door. After all, were it not for ‘stranger danger’ 200 million years ago, mammals might never have developed breasts. Without female breasts would Russell Brand ever have...? You get my drift.
People are also in the pernicious habit of blaming nature for the ills of the modern world, with a constant whinge about the weather and climate. They should try living through an ice age, like our prehistoric ancestors did. Over the past two million years glaciers more than one mile high have frequently bulldozed their way down from the North Pole, stopping just north of the Thames Barrier, destroying everything in their path. Rewind another 60 million years and the globe was suffering such a heat wave that there were no ice caps at all, CO2 levels had peaked at about 3,000 parts per million (not 300 as today) and global sea levels were some 80 metres above their present height. Britannia, literally, sank without trace.
A little more time spent studying prehistoric humanity also explains why modern humans should relax when it comes to sitting in traffic jams on overcrowded motorways, or in inner city bottlenecks, travelling at speeds no faster than a horse and cart. Why? Because we always have! Ever since humans first graced the earth, more than two million years ago, we have been nomadic wanderers, first migrating throughout Africa, then across Europe and Asia. Finally, about 12,000 years ago, we crossed a land bridge connecting Russia to Alaska and wandered, at walking pace, the whole way down America to its southernmost tip. Sedentary lifestyles in which people sit around log fires until the cows come home are as fictional as they are absurd. Humans don’t do it. They have to travel. Always have, always will.
Finally, I must take issue with what is frequently described as another modern evil. Fast-food and takeaway meals are the epitome of all that’s wrong with modern living, complain the ecologically minded, and represent the low point of our throwaway world. Time once again to dwell on some rudiments of history.
Life’s first takeaways actually originated about 150 million years ago, and eating lunch on the move is totally natural, I assure you. If you’re not convinced, then marvel for a moment at the brilliantly packaged, deliciously succulent clementine, encased in its brightly coloured biodegradable bag. All it wants in return for a quick, sweet, juicy fix is for you to swallow its few precious seeds. Then, if you don’t mind, just do as Diogenes proposed and spread them in your manure by squatting and relieving yourself in a nearby field.
Previous page
