The 2084 Precept (65 page)

"Indeed it is. And are you going to do it,
whatever it is?"

"Yes. I will think about it and let them—and
you, Peter—know tomorrow. What they do not know, however, is that I
shall not be attending their next summit meeting, nor any other
meetings after that. After this next event, your species is on its
own. It has to prove that it has the will, the desire and the
ability to change itself. All by itself. And then, that it is
capable of implementing that change. I explained all of this to
them in detail and I explained what would probably happen to them
if they didn't. The disbelief and skepticism filling that room
could not have been greater if I had said that either Jesus Christ
or Mohammed would be returning in order to speak to them next week.
But one thing they
were
interested in was my little biology
lesson."

"Ah, yes. I wanted to hear about that."

I could hear him walking up and down,
presumably in his hotel room, and the occasional gaps were no doubt
him pausing to look out of the room's window.

"I told them," he went on, " that I could
understand their disbelief, but that what I now wanted to explain
should be of interest to them and their scientists irrespective of
the existence of aliens or otherwise. And irrespective of the
existence of a fifth dimension or otherwise, and irrespective of
the reality of the infinity concept or otherwise, and irrespective
of the many other realities external to their solar system and of
which they were unaware. And what I am about to explain, I said, is
an inevitable and essential component of the transformational
process required to mutate a species, in this case to mutate a
non-benevolent species into a benevolent one. And I expounded
briefly, and without any complex scientific details, on the
subject…and they listened."

"And the essential component you referred to
was a biological component."

"Exactly. And I tried to explain to them
why. I told them that one could reasonably enough assert that they,
the meeting's attendees, constituted the representatives of the
human race. And that they were therefore in the position if they so
wished, right now in this meeting, to create a new law, a global
law, to abolish the manufacture, sale and possession of all weapons
on this planet, either by individuals or by states—except initially
for a single small central arsenal, under their joint control,
which might be necessary to enforce the implementation of the new
law."

"I bet that provoked a lot of comments."

"Actually, it did not. There was a bit of
murmuring and some wise and cynical shaking of heads, but nobody
said anything. And then I told them why they wouldn't do it."

"You did?"

"Yes. You won't do it, I said, even though
you can, because you are human beings. And human beings are animals
which do not have it in their nature to be peaceable, I said. And
that is the crux of the matter; it is not in your nature. You are
too aggressive and you are too distrustful of others. By which I
mean of yourselves, since you are all members of the same species.
It is a biological problem."

"And did they have anything to say to
that?"

"Indeed they did. The president of the
United States in particular. He took the stand and started
referring to the vast amounts of research performed by his country
in the fields of biology, physiology, behavioral sciences and so on
and so forth, and he said that many of their experts argue against
a biological cause for aggressiveness in humans. He continued by
saying that those experts cite many causes for aggression including
ethnic ones, religious ones, territorial ones, economic ones,
social ones involving either family or external influences, and
miscellaneous other ones including the effects of certain
chemicals; he gave alcohol as an example. He also mentioned the
drive for social dominance as a frequent reason for gang warfare
and other group conflicts. And he continued in that vein for a
considerable length of time and concluded that it was more or less
a proven fact that biological origins did not enter into the
equation."

"Interesting."

"Interesting enough for me to point out to
him the major error in these findings, while at the same time
asking him why he didn't refer to those experts of his who
do
support biology as the cause. I told him that the ones
who reject a biological explanation are guilty, extremely guilty,
of confusing confrontational and other abnormal situations—and the
resulting manifestations of aggressiveness—with the very
cause
of it all. If for example, I explained, you have a
problem of religious differences, then your reaction can be either
to tackle it with aggressiveness or, alternatively, to tackle it in
a peaceful manner. So why choose aggression? What is the reason for
reacting with aggression instead of in some other way? The reason,
I told him, is biological. It is in your nature."

"Did he accept that?"

"I don't know. But he didn't say anything
more, and nor did anybody else, and so I continued. The human
species, I said, has been capable throughout its history of
perpetrating the most horrifying acts of violence on its fellow
humans. These acts of violence occur not only between different
states and different societies, but also within them. There have
been wars since before your recorded history, I said, and you, Mr.
President, have just made a reference to group violence, a
phenomenon which includes, among other things, gang wars and wars
between states. Now, in the course of the evolution of your
species, belonging to a group or a community was certainly a method
of enhancing the ability of an individual to survive or to
reproduce. There is no doubt about that. But the group or the
community did not have to decide to achieve those aims through
aggressiveness. You have in fact had several peaceful societies in
your planet's history, societies such as the Arapesh of New Guinea,
the Xingo of Brazil or the Simai of Malaysia, among others. But,
regrettably, the 'survival of the fittest' hypothesis applied.
These communities were overrun by the more numerous aggressive
societies of their time. Which brings us back to the question of
why aggressiveness is the dominating factor of your species. Where
does it come from and what is the cause of it?"

"And they were listening to all of
this?"

"Oh yes, they were finding it interesting.
There were mumbles, there were shufflings and there were coughs,
but they were listening. Let me take a step back, I continued, and
remind you again of what exactly aggression is. It is correctly
defined by your behavioral sciences as 'an intent to cause harm'.
And your sciences describe the various ways in which this intent to
cause harm can be applied: physically, verbally, psychologically
and so on. But these sciences also make it clear that needful
predatory or defensive behavior is
not
aggression, or at
least not in the same sense. On the contrary, these behaviors are
nothing other than forced necessities, and as such are also to be
found among all those non-aggressive species which find themselves
obliged to kill in order to eat, or to defend themselves against
aggressive species to ensure their own survival."

"Against aggressive species such as the
human race," I said.

"Yes. I told them that they were of course
aware of the fact that the human race does
not
kill merely
in order to eat or in order to defend itself. And that the reason
for this was a biological one. And I said that, because nobody
present—as far as I was aware—was a scientist, I intended to
provide them with only a few non-technical words on the area to
which their biologists should direct their attention, and for which
they would hopefully decide to provide some fairly massive
funding—easily financeable for example by reducing their absurd and
preposterous expenditures on their various ongoing arms races and
their continuing drive for increasingly lethal destructive
power."

"So you finally got to the point."

Jeremy laughed. I could imagine him running
his hand through his hair, his moon-face crinkling into that
pleasant smile of his. "Yes, I did," he said. "And I also went on
to explain the following. The undeniable existence of biology as
the source of human aggression is already observable shortly after
birth. Human babies and small children exhibit aggressiveness long
before they have been exposed to external influences which might
possibly be deemed to be the cause of it; such as, for example,
school. And even external influences only
provoke
what is
biologically
already in place
in any case.”

Indeed, even the gender-aggression ratios
are identifiable and apparent at an early stage. The genes involved
can be identified—as your biologists already know. And the key
genes are inherently, if not exclusively, to be found in the male.
And what these genes do, they determine the structure of the
proteins in your bodies' cells. So far, so good. But what I am here
and now strongly recommending is that you have your biologists
concentrate on Step 1: the long and intricate sequence of
complicated processes interposed between the aforementioned
proteins and what, for the want of a better phrase, we can call
behavior."

"They were still listening?" I asked.

"Yes, they were still listening. But their
interest was beginning to wane. My fault. I was trying to be
helpful, but in retrospect it was unnecessary for me to elaborate
at length on which areas of the brain and which of the hormones
need to be researched."

"Testosterone is a hormone."

"Yes it is. I also spoke quite a bit about
the central role of numerous circuits within both the neocortical
and subcortical structures of the brain. And I emphasized the role
of the chemicals in the brain, especially the
neurotransmitters."

"You bored them."

"I'm afraid so. They were interested in the
subject but, in retrospect, I don't think that in the end they took
it very seriously. Their only interest in me was as a potentially
incredible new weapon, and in having that capability proved to them
beyond all doubt. And what would happen after that and in which way
they would react and what they would decide to do about it…"

"They still consider you to be a lunatic,
someone suffering from delusions."

"Yes, as you do yourself, Peter, if you
don't mind my saying so. A lunatic with, possibly, some amazing
capabilities. But I have done my best. My next 'demonstration' will
be the last and it will be the end of my attempt to prevent a
possibly unnecessary annihilation of your species. I will, so to
speak, have tried to get the wasps to choose to fly out of the
window instead of making it necessary for them to be eliminated.
The wasps' choice."

"Aren't you concerned that they may be
having you watched, followed, put under surveillance by the NSA,
the CIA, the GCHQ or some other secret service organization?"

"Not at the moment, Peter, no. I am probably
under surveillance right now but that doesn't cause me any
inconvenience. In London, it was different. There was a perceived
need, initially, for me to protect you and your private affairs. In
the meantime, I don't think they have too much interest in you any
more, except for the fact that they would still like to have your
assistance and cooperation as a person who, in their view, has a
close relationship with me and who knows me fairly well. Mind you,
after the next demonstration, the nature of their interest in me
will possibly change definitively, as will their decisions on how
to 'handle' me. We shall have to wait and see."

"So we will be talking again tomorrow?"

"Yes, Peter, I will call you."

And we said our goodbyes.

I realized that in my contacts with Jeremy
over the past few weeks I had progressively been talking to him
more and more as if he were a perfectly normal person, one whom in
fact I had come to quite like. He was pleasant, he was courteous,
he was well-meaning, he was never intentionally rude and he
complied meticulously with any agreements he made. This made him
superior to the majority of other individuals who had floated past
my life raft on their own particular ocean currents. Certainly,
Jeremy was deranged, very seriously deranged, but in all other
respects, in his Dr. Jekyll respects let us say, he was perfectly
normal. And, to be truthful, I would not even think he were
deranged if the feasibility of his being an alien were not such an
inconceivable, impossible and ridiculous concept. My neurons would
not budge on that one and quite right too.

I was tired, but before crashing out, I
typed up and printed a two page document for my visit to the
Naviera's bank tomorrow.

My review of this morning's invoices turned
up nothing of interest. I wandered around my office and made a
leisurely inspection of Alfonso's maritime souvenirs, an old ship's
lamp was impressive, and then I went into town, had a coffee near
the Plaça de la Reina and turned up at five to ten at the bank.

The manager was polite and courteous but he
was unable to hide the fact that he was worried. He was worried
about our loan balances and our maximum use of the expensive
overdraft facility. And so, notwithstanding my station in life as
an honest person, I lied through my teeth to him. I explained how
the company was being turned around, how I had replaced the
previous general manager, how he would soon (a delightfully vague
and hazy word) be seeing monthly reductions in the amount of our
debt, also how the situation in twelve months' time would be such
that he would probably be wanting to make additional new loans to
us. Ha, ha, create confidence, has to be done.

In the meantime, I continued, elements of
the turnaround initiative involved recuperating some of our 40-ton
container cargo business and reducing the number of lost transits,
and for those purposes we needed a small amount of additional
financing to repair the wharf crane in Palma and the top deck of
one of the ships. And I handed him my two page document which
showed the estimated investment requirements, the additional
revenues and profit which would be incrementally generated, and a
fairly rapid repayment plan for the additional loan facility.