Comments on THE Interview

    Thanks Sharon. As is explained in Part 1, our selfish, competitive and aggressive behaviour is not due to savage instincts but is the result of a psychosis caused by the ‘instincts vs intellect’ clash. We don’t suffer from a genetic-opportunism-driven ‘animal condition’, but a conscious-mind-based, psychologically troubled human condition so there is no comparision to be made between the competitiveness of male animals and humans. You might find FAQ 8.4 ‘Is the sexist’ interesting.     In terms of what is presented in Part 3, yes, Jeremy Griffith explains that it was mothers caring for their offspring, or the female maternal instinct, which is a genetically selfish activity, that led to genuine cooperation or selflessness being developed (this nurturing based love-indoctrination process is further explained in chapter 5 of FREEDOM). However, while it is therefore true that ‘maternalism created humanity’ – in the sense that it created our cooperative loving instinctive self or soul – this nurturing based ‘love-indoctrination’ process resulted in the entire species – both males and females – developing loving and cooperative instincts. And so, as is explained in the above paragraph, the reason that men are currently selfish and aggressive is not selfish instincts, but a state of psychological upset resulting from the instinct vs intellect clash. And the point of it all is that by explaining the very good reason why our intellect had to defy our instincts, all our defensive behaviours (our anger, egocentricity and alienation) are now redundant; they can stop.

Yes, THE Interview and Jeremy Griffith’s definitive book FREEDOM are available as ebooks as well as many of his other books. Go to our homepage here to see all Jeremy’s key books and the many formats they are freely available in.

What biologist Jeremy Griffith explains in this interview is that our competitive and territorial behaviour is not driven by our genes, or ‘programmed’, as it is in the animal kingdom but rather it is the results of our upset psychology. In Part 3 especially Jeremy evidences this key biological distinction that humans suffer from the conscious-mind-based, psychologically troubled human condition, not the genetic-opportunism-based, animal condition. And, most importantly, as Part 4 explains a psychosis can be healed with understanding, so our psychologically upset human nature is fixable or changeable—not unchangeable, which is what it would essentially be if our competitive and aggressive nature was instinctive; if it was something that is in our genes and we were born with. We also suggest Video/Freedom Essay 2 and Video/Freedom Essay 14 which further explain this critical biological distinction.

Until now is wasn’t possible to enjoy full freedom without restraint Niharrchak. As Jeremy Griffith explains in THE Interview now we can understand the human condition we no longer have to learn how to behave or employ civility or impose laws to uphold human rights to control our destructive behaviour. Instead we can know that a conflict between our intellect and our cooperative instincts led to an undeserved sense of guilt and insecurity that caused us to become psychologically angry, alienated and egocentric, the upset state we refer to as the human condition. To quote Jeremy “While we have learnt to significantly restrain and conceal—‘civilise’ as we refer to it—the phenomenal amount of upset within us, under the surface we all must be boiling with rage, and sometimes, when our restraint can no longer find a way to contain it, that anger must express itself—hence our capacity for shocking acts of cruelty, sadism, hate, murder and war.” Now that we can explain and understand this conflict and the guilt it produced, all those insecure, defensive behaviours are obsoleted, brought to an end, and we free ourselves from the human condition. As Part 4 discusses, we no longer need to control our behaviour as we can legimitately return to our natural selfless way of living as it. Also see FAQs 1.4 – 1.6 and the Transformation section of our website about how this transformation works.

    Thank you for the suggestion of your work Malcolm. As Part 4 of THE Interview explains this understanding of the human condition liberates us from an underlying insecurity and resulting psychosis that all humans have suffered from since we became a fully conscious species some 2 million years ago, which allows the immediate transformation of everyone’s life because, as Jeremy Griffith explains, “while it will take a number of generations to heal all the upset in us humans, everyone can immediately live free of their upset. The reason we can live free of it is that while we lacked the real defence and reinforcement of understanding of our corrupted condition, we absolutely needed the artificial defences and reinforcements of attacking any criticism of our corrupted condition, of denying and blocking it out, and of finding any positive reinforcement we could—anger, alienation and egocentricity are what sustained us—but now that we have the real defence and reinforcement of our fundamental goodness, all these artificial defences and reinforcements are obsoleted, they are no longer needed.” You can read more about the immediate transformation this understanding makes possible in FAQ 4.1.     With regard to psychological therapy, ultimately it was only by bringing reconciling understanding to our conflicted selves that we could truly ameloriate and heal our psychological condition. As the distinguished psychiatrist Professor Harry Prosen (who wrote the Introduction to Jeremy’s definitive book FREEDOM) said: “What Griffith is presenting is understanding of the source insecurity that the whole human race suffers from for having destroyed our species’ innocent soul. It is a universal self-blame that his understanding at last provides healing insight into. All human behavior is saturated with that universal insecure, depressing state and resulting anger, egocentricity and alienation that has developed from it, but we finally have the compassionate foundation insight needed to dismantle all that ‘upset’/psychosis. So the real psychotherapy of our collective and individual psychoses can begin” (see FAQ 1.34). Jeremy writes more about the real therapy of the human condition that now becomes possible in his forthcoming Freedom Essay 64 (an outline of which is here on our website). Certainly there are techniques that can complement this transformation and/or therapy, which your work may provide, however, as FAQ 1.45 explains, we are a small team with limited resources and so aren’t able to consider all the suggestions we receive.

Jeremy Griffith’s definitive book FREEDOM (along with his other key books, including THE Interview) is freely available to download or read online HERE on our homepage. You can also download free Kindle versions from Amazon. (Otherwise you can purchase hard copies from Amazon or other good bookstores.)

Thank you for your considered comment Go. Yes, this does overturn the idea that our selfish and aggressive behaviour is a result of competitive, must-reproduce-our-genes within us. However, while it is true that what is presented is built upon scientific discoveries, in particular, how the gene-based and nerve-based learning systems work, we think upon digestion you will come to appreciate how unique and important Jeremy Griffith’s synthesis, which uses this information to explain the good reason for our angry, egocentric and alienated human condition, is. In that regard, we thought we would draw you attention to FAQ 1.13 ‘Is this idea original or new? / How does biologist Jeremy Griffith’s ‘instinct vs intellect’ explanation of the human condition differ from other theories that recognise these elements?’, as it explains the unique significance of Jeremy Griffith’s work.

While religions contain all manner of truths about human life, it is all from a pre-scientific view. And so while “the offer has been there for 2000 years” for anyone to abandon their angry, egocentric existence and embrace the ideals, ultimately to bring peace to the human condition we needed to find the scientific explanation for why when the universal ideals are to be loving, cooperative and selfless are we so angry, competitive and selfish. Yes, we can now understand, from scientific first principles, that ‘Adam and Eve’ were ‘good’ to search for knowledge, not bad or ‘evil’; we humans are actually the absolute heroes of the whole story! Thankfully, now this redeeming answer to the human condition has been found, we no longer have to repent. The ‘burden of guilt’ has at last been lifted from the human race and we can forgive ourselves and others and finally end our psychologically troubled human condition. All our defensive angry, competitive and selfish behaviour is now redundant. That is the truth that sets us free and transforms the world so it couldn’t be a bigger breakthrough! (see FAQ 1.5).

Yes Abimbola this breakthrough instinct vs intellect explanation of the human condition establishes the equality of all humans and brings compassionate and thus safe understanding to ALL of human behaviour — including why the horror of racism has existed under the duress of the human condition and, most importantly, finally brings it to an end, see FAQ 9.1 ‘How do you explain racism?’. For a testimonial on the power of this information to end racism, we recommend watching/reading the presentation from Franklin Mukakanga, of Zambia, in Video/​Freedom Essay 8.

Thank you for your consideration Sue. With regard to narcissists, the more you digest how the instinct vs intellect battle resulted in humans’ psychologically upset state, the clearer it becomes that, in the extreme, that upset produces very destructive behaviour, including narcissism. However, what is so utterly exonerating and psychologically healing about our ability to now understand this is that we can finally appreciate that there was a very good reason—indeed heroic reason—for such dark volcanic forces in us humans. Importantly, this understanding of why we became upset as a species does not condone or sanction such extremes of selfishness, rather, through bringing understanding to humans’ upset behaviour, it gives us the power to ameliorate and thus subside and ultimately eliminate it, see our FAQ 1.38.

Daniel, you can purchase hard copies of Jeremy Griffith’s books, including his definitive book FREEDOM, from Amazon or other good bookstores. (Otherwise they are freely available right here on our homepage to read online, download or print your own copy.)

Thanks Wendy. What is so important about Jeremy Griffith’s ‘instinct vs intellect’ explanation of the human condition is that it finally explains the real reason for why humans’ competitive and power-hungry behaviour became an unavoidable, indeed necessary, part of human life. Proving we were better than someone else gave us validation and reinforcement to counter the deep insecurity we felt about having to become self-corrupted. And so competition, sustained by the incentives of materialism and capitalism, are what maintained humanity’s heroic search for knowledge, ultimately for self-knowledge. With our goodness and worth now biologically established, we no longer need to be preoccupied with proving our goodness and worth. Solving the human condition solves all the confusion, frustration and suffering in human life at its source so we can actually stop the destruction of ourselves and save the world.

Thank you for your comment Jason, and it is wonderful to see the relief the interview is bringing you. We just wanted to draw your attention to the ‘ship at sea’ position Jeremy talks about which you may or may not relate to. Freedom Essay 30 titled Resignation explains that some adolescents refuse to properly resign and take up the strategy of denial of the issue of the human condition that almost everybody else does. They courageously keep facing it, refuse to ‘pull into a port’, as it were, and escape the storms of confrontation with the real horror of the human condition, which does produce an honest, although torturous existence.

While Hinduism and other religions contain all manner of truths about human life, it is all from a pre-scientific view. Ultimately we needed to find the scientific explanation for why when the universal ideals are to be loving, cooperative and selfless are we so angry, competitive and selfish. Answering this question required finding the clarifying difference between the way the intellect and instincts work, and that is the great biological breakthrough Jeremy presents in THE Interview and his book FREEDOM. We suggest FAQ 1.13 ‘Is this original or new?’ which explains the unique significance of Jeremy Griffith’s work.

Thank you AA, please pursue that interest, you won’t be disappointed! Our homepage — HumanCondition.com — provides a wonderful road map to progress with all our key material made freely available and you can register for free, live, interactive presentations with Jeremy Griffith about this immensely relieving understanding. Also our Facebook Group provides a wonderful platform for participating in, or just observing, interesting and exciting discussion with others about how we can live with this critical new science.

Thank you very much for your feedback Sudhir. Yes, explanation of the human condition does produce a huge paradigm shift in our thinking, so this critical new science does takes time to digest so we recommend people re-watch THE Interview and also explore our homepage which provides all our key material to consider.

Thank you, Ginggebeng. Yes, Jeremy Griffith’s treatise will resonate with those familiar with religious scripture, because it reconciles science and religion by bringing biological understanding to pre-scientific concepts such as innocence, sin and ‘Judgment Day’, etc. In fact, what people discover is it is the fulfillment of a time that all religions looked forward to when we could actually explain ourselves, see our FAQs on religion.

Interested

    Thank you for your feedback, Kudirat. Part 4 of THE Interview, titled ‘How does the psychological rehabilitation of the human race that the arrival of understanding of the human condition finally makes possible actually occur?’, presents the answer to how this understanding allows us to transform our lives. It explains that it will take a number of generations for the upset within us to be completely healed but it also stresses importantly we can be immediately free of its effects. Certainly there is habituation to overcome and humans do find change difficult but at last we can understand our behaviour has been driven by a deep insecurity about our fundamental goodness or worth and so now that our goodness is biologically established we no longer have to behave insecurely and selfishly and can legitimately return to a selfless way of living. ‘Legitimately’ because we have the first principle science which liberates us to be honest about our conflicted upset state instead of denying or transcending it. So instead of being focused on power, fame, fortune and glory, all our energies will be freed to truly work together on doing whatever it takes to end the suffering and save our world. How this healing is immediately open to us all is summarised in FAQ 1.5 and FAQ 1.40 addresses the questions of ‘How can you hope to transform the world? — In particular, how are you going to change the behaviour of the rich and powerful? / How are you going to reach the bastions of power? / Won’t the greedy and power-hungry simply ignore this?’. You may also be interested in FAQ 1.38 ‘How does this explanation rehabilitate people capable of ‘evil’ behaviour?’.     As the late Professor Harry Prosen, psychiatrist and former president of the Canadian Psychiatric Association, said: ‘I have no doubt Jeremy Griffith’s biological explanation of the human condition is the holy grail of insight we have sought for the psychological rehabilitation of the human race.’

As our FAQ 1.9 ‘Should people be sceptical’ explains, the astonishing claims being made about Jeremy Griffith’s work do warrant initial scepticism however they all withstand scrutiny as what he presents is 100% logic. People find once they begin exploring the explanation the more they do the more they realise the claims are actually true, and in time become appreciated for their forthright honesty in indicating where the solution to our problems lies — as the commendations Jeremy’s work has received from eminent scientists and thinkers attest, including from Professor Harry Prosen (a former president of the Canadian Psychiatric Association) who said, “I have no doubt Jeremy Griffith’s work is the holy grail of insight we have sought for the psychological rehabilitation of the human race”. So we encourage you to watch THE Interview and judge for yourself! You might also like to register for our live events with Jeremy which is a wonderful way to learn about the understandings.

Yes Joel, the human condition is the study of humans’ capacity for so-called ‘good and evil’and is therefore the realm of inquiry where science and religion overlap, so in explaining the human condition religion is demystified and explained. Jeremy Griffith’s treatise actually reconciles science and religion by bringing biological understanding to pre-scientific concepts. You might be interested in our FAQs about religion. FAQ 6.2 for example, explains that, “Obviously what was desperately missing was the reconciling understanding of our upset behaviour and the Godly ideals; reconciling understanding of the human condition in fact—which is exactly what Jeremy Griffith presents us with. With the understanding of the human condition that explains why we departed from those Godly ideals, no longer does anybody have to preach, or be terrorised by, religious dogma.”

Hi Mariann, thank you for your comment and interest, and for bringing to our attention Hadley’s services. We do not yet have a presentation for low vision and blind, but hope to in the near future. In the meantime, Jeremy Griffith’s key books (including THE Interview) are available in audio form HERE on our homepage. Just click ‘Get your copy for FREE!’ to access these versions. We are still in the process of completing the audiobook of FREEDOM, however chapters 1-3 are now available. Also, all the hundreds of audios of most of our books, essays and videos are now in the WTM App (which you can download for free and there is no sign in required at App Store or Google Play) and on Spotify.

Yes, Celine, we do need to get this understanding to the world as quickly as we can. As Jeremy explains in chapter 9.9 of his book FREEDOM: “Although this new world for humans, which the World Transformation Movement has been established to facilitate, will, as has been stated, have a slow beginning because humans initially find it difficult even taking in or ‘hearing’ discussion about the human condition, once the WTM is discovered, word of it and what it offers every human and the world will spread like wildfire.’” And so even though we haven’t yet reached the tipping point we are well on our way as you can see from the excitement and relief in our daily ecstatic responses to THE Interview! Also, on our homepage, you can see the rapidly growing appreciation and support for Jeremy’s work with outstanding commendations from thought leaders and WTM Centres all over the world!

As psychiatrist Professor Harry Prosen explained in his Introduction to Jeremy Griffith’s definitive book FREEDOM, “as my profession has taught me only too well, for most people, trying to think about this ultimate of questions of whether humans are fundamentally good or not has been an unbearably self-confronting exercise. Indeed, while the term ‘human condition’ has become fashionable, its superficial use masks just how profoundly unsettling a subject it really is. Again, the truth is, the issue of the human condition has been so depressing for virtually all humans that only a rare few individuals in history have been sound and secure enough in self to go anywhere near what the human condition really is. So for Jeremy to so freely and accurately talk about it as he does in this book, he clearly must be one of those rare few. Nurtured by a sheltered upbringing in the Australian ‘bush’ (countryside), Jeremy’s soundness and resulting extraordinary integrity and thus clarity of thought, coupled with his training in biology, has enabled him to successfully grapple with this most foreboding of all subjects for the human mind of the human condition and produce the breakthrough, human-behavior-demystifying-and-ameliorating explanation of it.”

Thank you for your comment Samuel. With regard to our insecure, psychologically upset human condition being due to ‘biological vulnerability’ its worth mentioning psychiatrist Professor Prosen’s words here about how powerful our psychology is in causing our behaviour, “While we can expect instances of neurochemical/neurobiological based conditions, in my experience we can’t underestimate how much our psychology affects our biology” (see FAQ 1.34). Professor Prosen then goes on to write, “What Griffith is presenting is understanding of the source insecurity that the whole human race suffers from for having destroyed our species’ innocent soul. It is a universal self-blame that his understanding at last provides healing insight into. All human behavior is saturated with that universal insecure, depressing state and resulting anger, egocentricity and alienation that has developed from it, but we finally have the compassionate foundation insight needed to dismantle all that ‘upset’/​psychosis. So the real psychotherapy of our collective and individual psychoses can begin.”

Most inspiring and eye opening interview EVER❣️

Yes, as is mentioned at the beginning of THE Interview, Jeremy Griffith’s definitive book FREEDOM was launched at the Royal Geographical Society in London in 2016, with the keynote address by Sir Bob Geldof. You can watch this launch here on our website or read Sir Bob’s address in Jeremy’s book Transform Your Life. It’s wonderful to have your interest Alexis and once you have watched this interview our homepage—HumanCondition.com—guides you through the steps to pursue your interest!

Jeremy Griffith’s work explains that issues such as overpopulation; environmental destruction; resource depletion are merely symptoms of a deeper problem and will not fundamentally change at all until we solve this dilemma of the human condition—our capacity for ‘good’ and ‘evil’—and bring self-understanding to the human situation. This interview provides the ideal summary presentation to watch Michael and you might also find FAQ 1.6 ‘Why does understanding of the human condition solve everything?’ helpful.

THE Interview booklet, the book Transform Your Life And Save The World also by Jeremy Griffith, and our entire Introductory Essay Series are available to read in French – go to https://www.humancondition.com/translations/! Also people can watch THE Interview (and all the videos on our website) using the closed captions or subtitles function in their native language (just click on the ‘cc’ icon at the bottom of the video player/window).

Thanks very much for your consideration Robert. Explanation of this new science presents a paradigm shift in our thinking so it can take time to assimilate what’s been explained. For example, the Adam Stork analogy does not illustrate the deviation that occurs due to a genetic mutation, it is used to illustrate the deviation caused by the conscious mind seeking to experiment with the power of self-management. Importantly, at this point our ancestors had already aquired cooperative and loving instincts—Adam the stork already had an instinctive ‘gentle-soul’. (Genuinely cooperative, unconditionally selfless genetic traits are self-eliminating, and therefore cannot normally develop in animals, however, as Jeremy explains in Part 3, the selfish process of natural selection was able to create loving selflessness in our forebears through nurturing or, as Jeremy termed it, ‘love-indoctrination’, see FAQ 5.6). The result of this deviation was the conflict between our instinct and intellect, that then resulted in an undeserved sense of guilt and insecurity that caused us to become psychologically angry, alienated and egocentric, the upset state we refer to as the human condition.

Thank you for your comment David. For those who are new to this understanding the human condition has been the most terrifying of subjects to face as it is the issue of whether we are fundamentally good or bad as a species. This has meant, that until it was solved, we have had to block it out of our minds so it is common for people to initially find Jeremy Griffith’s biological explanation of the human condition difficult to access or ‘hear’ which is what is termed the ‘deaf effect’, see FAQ 1.16. So yes in that sense humans aren’t ready to hear this truth but it is the truthful compassionate understanding we so desperately need to stop our selfish and destructive behaviour that is threatening the world. This is why Jeremy Griffith has produced a companion presentation to THE Interview titled The Great Guilt that causes the Deaf Effect which comprehensively deals with our understandable fear and cynicism about confronting the human condition. It includes examples of people overcoming the deaf effect (as you suggest David) and it is an absolutely astonishingly revealing presentation. People can watch it here on our website.

You can purchase hard copies of Jeremy Griffith’s books, including THE Interview, from Amazon or other good bookstores. (Otherwise they are freely available right here on our homepage to read online, download or print your own copy.)

    It is wonderful to learn of your interest David. In terms of people who have become enthusiastic about Jeremy Griffith’s explanation of the human condition and are seeking to perhaps formally communicate it to others we provide this important and, we hope helpful, advice in FAQ 1.24. It explains “while we hope that people interested in promoting Jeremy’s understanding of the human condition will appreciate and want to participate within the WTM’s structure, people are free to use, promote, discuss and debate this explanation of the human condition in any reasonable and lawful way, which includes complying with our Terms of Use.”     Jeremy does refer to the Bible and other religious texts in his work. The study of the human condition is the study of humans’ capacity for acts of both so-called ‘good and evil’—of why, when the ideals are to be cooperative loving and selfless are we capable of incredible aggression and selfishness. This realm of inquiry is where science and religion overlap, so naturally in explaining the human condition the terms ‘good and evil’ and religious references will be used, and through scientific explanation, finally demystified and reconciled, see FAQ 1.15.