Valuing knowledge

The following ancient story exquisitely encapsulates our current situation.

A seeker after truth was walking along a remote mountain path when he noticed a stone on which the words 'turn me over' were written. He picked up the stone and turned it over. There, in beautiful script, was the following question: 'Why do you seek more knowledge when you don't make use of the knowledge you already have?'

We know that knowledge about how to survive and improve the way we live on this planet has been gathered for tens of thousands of years through the efforts of many people. Some of this knowledge has been widely adopted, some only appreciated by a few, nurtured and passed on whenever possible, and some has been lost and has had to be rediscovered.[18] But all of this learnt knowledge could only be assimilated if it first related in some way to another form of knowledge, a form that is innate in us, which has evolved over millions of years, from the possibilities inherent in the universe.

This ancient innate knowledge must always be our starting point. It is the genetic inheritance of all healthy newborn babies. In our daily lives it is expressed in the form of physical and emotional needs. When a baby's physical needs for sustenance — milk (food and drink), air, space, warmth, light, touch, etc. — are met in the environment, it means that this inner knowledge has been appropriately connected up with outside physical reality and the baby can physically grow. Likewise when a baby's innate emotional needs — for security, attention, love, connection to others etc. — are met by people around them, their personality can develop (because, in effect, more of their potential to become fully human is being fulfilled).

By making sure that each person's innate knowledge patterns are matched up well, in a balanced way, to the sensory reality of the external world, we enable people to be physically and mentally healthy, and thus we benefit the whole species by raising the quality of humanity. That makes it easier for our species consciously to evolve further (which, it seems, might be the direction in which evolution is pushing us[19]).

Working to refine the way that children and adults act to meet their innate needs is a necessary service to humanity, an easily understood common purpose that anyone could sign up to. It is our collective responsibility, one we address in this charter. This is because the 'givens' of human nature cannot be gainsaid. We cannot avoid them any more than we can avoid breathing. Recognising this, and working to ensure that innate needs are met, therefore supersedes lesser efforts that derive from conditioning, ideologies and biases based on race, religion, territory, habit, wealth or any political system.

An obvious example of the necessity of this approach on a large scale is that of the tragic situation endured by Israelis and Palestinians. This painful and bloody conflict will never be resolved until there is a genuine acceptance on both sides that neither side can win and that peace depends upon the innate needs for security, autonomy and status — which are human givens — being met for both communities.[20]

A small-scale example (but with huge implications) is what happens when the attention needs of children are not met in a well-balanced way, perhaps because of watching too much television and not conversing enough with parents and peers, in ways conducive to healthy development. This has a damaging effect on the development of children's brains and negative long-term consequences for their future lives as intelligent, capable social beings.[21]

With these types of example in mind (and they can be endlessly added to) we can see that the fundamental reason for disaffection with institutions — whether of religion, academia, finance, law, government or the various civil services — is the growth in the number of people who intuitively sense that these organisations are not properly, and fairly, meeting human needs. Indeed, institutions often seem to work actively against people getting their needs met (and therefore against nature). The consequence of the widespread ignorance of this is that ideologies fill the knowledge gap and infect the body politic, which further corrupts institutions. The results of their rampaging influence we can see all around us: the breakdown in families, the rise in acquisitiveness, criminal behaviour, violence, mental illness, and, on the international stage, violent conflict between peoples, gross exploitation of the poor nations by the rich and powerful, and the wilful, mindless destruction of the one and only environment that can sustain us.

The purpose of The Human Givens Charter is to analyse this situation dispassionately and see if anything can be done to stop the rot and reform our institutions to make them less centralised, more humane and more open to the creative thinking processes that could improve our lot. This requires, first of all, a significant number of people to audit the institutions that they work for or have contact with, to see how well or badly these bodies are contributing to the meeting of people's needs. Then their findings need to be made known and acted upon by common consent.

If we want improvement the human givens audit process is unavoidable, but it is not difficult to do, it just requires a change of focus on questions asked, though it will require a great effort from many people to bring about the necessary practical reforms to enact the findings. Clearly an institution cannot do a 'needs' audit on itself. It would be as absurd as expecting a vain person to give an objective assessment of how beautiful they were and as dangerous as asking a brain surgeon to operate on his own brain. No government could monitor its own progress in an unbiased way. The effort has to come from outsiders who, after the limitations of institutions become more clearly understood, must have effective alternatives ready. These would need to be modelled on organic prototype organisations already up and running, with those operating them ready to mentor the necessary reforms.

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