[coberst]

From Veggies to Meat: Man-Apes become human

The “man-apes” of Africa (australopithecines) was first discovered in a 1924 dig. This is considered by anthropologists as being one of the most exciting and enlightening finds of modern anthropology. The man-ape, which was first born perhaps a million years ago, represents the transition point of the transformation from ape to human. From the shuffling vegetarian ape to the upright walking carnivore human, this man-ape creature had the brain one-half the size of the modern human.

Most of what we now consider to be human has resulted from the taste for meat developing in this man-ape creature. Hunting for meat requires hunting in groups, which in turn requires better communication between individuals, which in turn requires better tools and weapons, which in turn requires newer forms of social organization, all of which leads to greater intellectual sophistication.

This greater intellectual sophistication has led this newly evolving species into the development of a much larger brain with the sophisticated reasoning ability of the modern human. Meat eating has made humans of us.

“Man developed away from the apes precisely because he had to hunt meat; and if you want to hunt meat you cannot afford yourself the luxury of baboon behavior.”

As a result of our carnivorous appetite we have developed non-primate social relations; we now regulate sexual behavior and develop families requiring new social harmonies. We now acquire our recognition from others not based upon what we take but from what we give. “Unlike the baboon who gluts himself only on food, man nourishes himself mostly on self-esteem…The hunting band lives in the security of internal peace necessary to get food, of the right of all to partake of what food there is, and of the certainty of the provision of regular sexual partners for all.”

We are now beginning to comprehend the fact that humans are primarily unique because wo/man is a total celebration of itself in distinctive self-expression.

Quotes from “The Birth and Death of Meaning”—Ernest Becker