Trump's Iran mess is what you get when you blend “paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology”

A guest poem by Zoe Weil of the Institute for Humane Education

Few moments better illustrate the bifurcated “divine and felonious” naure of the human species (a description from Bill Bryson’s 2003 book A Short History of Nearly Everything) than astronauts circling the Moon and Trump issuing a threat to end a civilization at the same time.

Google image search: '“Trump Moon Iran civilization”

My friend Zoe Weil, who spreads “humane education” and solutonary thinking, posted a poem last night that beautifully and darkly captures this discontinuity. I’m reposting her words with permission (from the passenger seat on a road trip from Maine to Nashville):

“A whole civilization will die tonight” if demands aren’t met –

Which is what happens when we run on

“Paleolithic emotions,

Medieval institutions,

And godlike technology”¹

As EO Wilson presciently quipped.

Meanwhile Victor Glover,

Cramped inside his capsule,

Loops home from the moon

And looks back at a small blue and white circle,

Our shimmering marble,

Our “oasis in the vast emptiness”

Reminding us that we exist

Together.

A human shield surrounds Iran’s nuclear power plant,

As if a circle of humans can stop a missile,

As if a missile can stop a nuclear reactor without a meltdown,

As if a meltdown respects borders,

As if our oasis is invisible.

“Can’t you just get along? Can’t you just clean up your room?”

How many exasperated parents

Have asked their children these questions?

How many parents never learned how to answer them?

Gandhi refused to hate.

Desmond Tutu refused to hate.

Martin Luther King, Jr. refused to hate.

Buddha refused to hate.

Jesus refused to hate.

I refuse to hate.

Refuse. To. Hate.

Don’t call us naive.

Don’t describe the complicated calculus.

Unearth another way.

Harness every ounce of love

To get along,

To clean up our only room,

Our oasis,

Before it’s too late.

Follow Zoe’s posts at Psychology Today and learn about her education work at the Institute for Humane Education.

Here are previous posts and conversations with Zoe and colleagues:

Zoe Weil on Forging “Solutionary” Paths to Progress

1. Tristan Harris cited this statement by E.O. Wilson in a New York Times op-ed.