Imagine a fish that produces yellow offspring and brown offspring.
The sand is yellow, so the yellow offspring are camouflaged while the brown offspring are quickly spotted and eaten.
If you’re an old fish, you’re probably yellow.
But if the sand turns brown – from pollution, drought, whatever – the brown fish blend in while the yellow fish get eaten.
So the population is a reflection of the environment. The appearance, behavior, and physiology of every creature is a product of the dangers and resources that surround it.
Evolution takes time, but a change in the environment can immediately transform every element of the population – starting with its behavior.
The obvious lesson is: “Learn to adapt.” Be ready for the coming changes in the environment.
The less obvious lesson is: “We must create the environment which will create the species we want to become.”
* * * * *
The macho bluster of the last presidential administration was disheartening not only because it covered so many lies, but because it demanded that leadership *had* to be angry and hostile and petty and self-aggrandizing.
“Alpha males”, by definition, want the world to be run by alpha males.
Yet conservatives are strangely passive about problem-solving. The standard response to climate change is that “the climate has always changed and there’s nothing we can do about it”; masks and vaccines are rejected because “you can’t control a virus.”
When the problem is one group of people against another, the standard conservative response is defiant and strong – but when the problem comes from the environment itself, the conservative response is to surrender immediately.
And that is not an option.
* * * * *
We don’t have absolute control over the natural environment – though we can create lasting, terrible impact.
We can more easily control the social environment. We can recognize and reward intelligent, compassionate, imaginative, sustainable behavior. We can celebrate physical strength without surrendering our many other strengths. We can honor human determination without rewarding lies, insults and blind, destructive partisanship.
We can create the environment that supports constructive behavior and exposes lies. We can shape conflict itself into a constructive tool, and let unnecessary conflict sink to the bottom.
If we can’t change ourselves, we can change the things that will change us.