FACE OFF

History is littered with examples of two civilisations meeting. In most cases, these first meetings decided the fate of one and the ascendancy of the other. Particularly “famous” for this state of affairs were the western powers – Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Great Britain. Wherever they went they decided unilaterally that they were “superior” to those with whom they met.

Even today, this mind-set continues but perhaps at a more subconscious level (but then again, maybe not). One would surely have expected the human animal to have learned from his past mistakes… but no, we continue in our self-delusion of “being better”.

This behaviour is most unusual in actual fact. In the natural world, two species coming together rarely show superiority, preferring to do their own thing and go their own way. This was brought home to me recently whilst taking some macro photographs, and the picture below shows the meeting of two “races” – one the right, a very small ant (about twice  life-size in the picture) face to face with a certain species of drone fly (also about twice life-size). Not wishing to anthropomorphise my “views and feelings” onto these two insects, it does seem to me there is a mutual recognition – “I am who I am, you are who you are” – a mutual respect and understanding with no hint of aggression or superiority.

I wonder whether the human race will ever reach a stage of development where we can be as intelligent as these two?

Until next time (and waiting),

Peripatetic Scribe