OF MOLECULES AND MEN

Q: Why do you favor replacing an emphasis on boundaries with more inclusive terminology for conflict-resolution. Clear boundaries are important to most people.

Recent revelations in science challenge the scientific dogma that many of us have heard all our lives. For example one truism has been that survival of the fittest is the main driver of a strong evolving species. In the survival of the fittest scenario, a singular species expands its borders at the expense of another. According to this view when humans behave this way we are following a biological imperative established in nature for billions of years.

This dominant view permeates our lives, even to the point of emphasizing personal boundaries when faced with conflict.

Likewise we have been told that the DNA we are born with remains unchanged for life. This view that change must be imposed from an external source, such as a system, parent or teacher, has profoundly affected our relationships with one another - especially children.

Yet modern research has shown that DNA intelligently reorganizes in response to challenges facing the organism.  And this reorganization consistently favors inclusiveness and wholeness for lasting and far-reaching solutions.

In Earth Dance: Living Systems in Evolution Elisabet Sahtouris brings to light a new and more complete view of living relationships. Yes, competition and survival of the fittest has played an important role in the evolvement of life, including the earliest bacteria. But in time, these life forms competing for resources have invariably created a life-threatening environment for themselves.

The first protein molecules multiplied in the early chemical soup that was the young earth. Eventually, they joined in partnerships to facilitate enzymatic activity.  Grouping together in the form of a cell generated a mutual support system for the molecules and the cell that housed them.

At one point the competition for nitrogen of the monera (one-celled organisms) that formed the organic soup in Gaia’s waters caused a crisis. Faced with possible extinction, Life instead reorganized the DNA to accommodate a new solution from a new resource - solar energy. 

A couple of billion years later still another crises arose. The gas excreted by Gaia’s bacteria filled the atmosphere. Life was again in danger of extinction from the poisonous gas, oxygen, and the accompanying stronger sunlight!

But again the DNA of these organisms responded with inventive solutions. Some learned to produce enzymes to render oxygen nonpoisonous to themselves. Others learned to make ultraviolet sunscreens. Still others learned to live together in colonies housed by an protective skin of dead cells.

So, what does this have to do with human relationships and in particular adult/child relationships?

A competitive worldview, emphasizing exclusive rights and boundaries between human beings, has triggered an epidemic of self-interest at the expense of the whole. We see this all the way from huge corporations that use up both Earth resources and human beings by desecrating and enslaving life; to human relationships ruled by self-interest and competition.

Can it be that this crisis facing the latest dominant species on Planet Earth, offers yet another momentous challenge?

Based on historical precedent on our planet, to the extent that we learn to re-pattern our relationships with one another and children to facilitate unity and wholeness we can affect positive changes down to the level of our DNA.

Indeed, avant-garde science ascertains that we work, play and relate in a unified field. We will know the forerunners of this latest expansion into unity and wholeness by its by-products – inclusive language and mutually supportive behaviors. To the extent we learn the language of encouragement and inspiration, and engagement through example and invitation, we help secure an Atmosphere of Love and Understanding in a momentous planetary grouping – the Human Family.