The need for 'species thinking'

That these problems await us cannot be denied. But it is possible that the build up of psychological pressure they are causing in us will lead to an evolutionary breakthrough, a leap to a more refined form of thinking.

The Human Givens Charter is intended for people who wish to cooperate in designing practical ways to approach the situation from a human givens perspective. Perhaps the more we, and our institutions, are prepared to be fit enough to cope, the more likely our species is to survive.

Like many thoughtful observers today we really do sense that we are talking about the survival or extinction of the human species. If we are to enhance our consciousness and survive, we must first look to our psychology and behaviour to see how we might rise above the primitive 'greed' of identifying ourselves with our country, our 'people', our race. We have instead to develop something that might be called 'species consciousness'. This could well be the next evolutionary step we need to take, precisely because it builds upon the natural instinct we already have, to protect and promote the survival of our family. Species consciousness would lift us above the 'them and us' public policies that currently hold our leaders entrapped.

On first thought, the idea of species consciousness may seem somewhat selfish, as though we are promoting our species in preference to others. But we suggest that this is not so, because it taps into another natural template — the instinct for cooperation.[69] Early in our evolution, people wanted to protect their own families, and they realised they could only do so by making alliances with non-family members in the vicinity. They formed tribes, and that is how society evolved. We became instinctively social animals and this is now innate in us. (We know this because when people are not emotionally connected to the wider community, they suffer emotional distress.) If we now start thinking about protecting our own species, it becomes apparent that the only way we can do so is by looking after all other species that occupy the planet, and forging effective relationships with them. So species consciousness taps into a natural template — to look after our own — and should lead organically to planet consciousness and to caring for the planet as a whole.

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