Comments on THE Interview

Thank you for your interest, Stephen. Yes, we are certainly in critical need of a deeper understanding of ourselves so we can put an end to all the suffering and horror that our condition creates. And we suggest that the more you digest Jeremy Griffith’s ‘instinct vs intellect’ explanation, the more you will realise how accountable it is in getting to the source of all humanity’s psychological upset, which in the extreme, produces people who are capable of ‘evil’ behaviour. Of course this breakthrough explanation doesn’t condone or sanction the horrendous atrocities humans can commit rather, through bringing compassionate understanding to the source of humans’ upset behaviour, it gives us the power to ameliorate and thus subside and ultimately eliminate it, see FAQ 1.38 ‘Aren’t some people just born psychopathic, or even ‘evil’? / 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.’

    What is explained in THE Interview is that our selfish and aggressive behaviour is not instinctual but psychologically derived. It is further explained that our ancestors were completely loving and cooperative, which means that our instincts are completely loving and cooperative. When we behave competitively or aggressively, unlike chimps, it is not because of ‘savage instincts’ as has commonly been taught (see Part 2 of THE Interview), but because we are psychologically upset because of the instinct vs intellect clash.     With regard to bonobos representing a better model of our ancestors than chimpanzees, while it is true that humans share approximately 98.7% of our DNA with both chimpanzees and bonobos, the evidence reveals that on the basis of physiology, bipedality, environment, intelligence and reduced canine size, that the cooperative and gentle bonobo clearly represents a better model of our human ancestors than the chimpanzee (the evidence is presented in detail in chapter 5 of Jeremy Griffith’s definitive book,FREEDOM).

    Hi Rolf, yes, this understanding does deeply resonate with our intuitive belief that we are fundamentally good despite our competitive and selfish behaviour.     As to how this changes today’s situation, what understanding the human condition does is give us the ability for the first time ever to understand every aspect of human behaviour and our behaviour will change naturally as a result. At last we can understand that our behaviour has been driven by a deep insecurity about our fundamental goodness or worth and 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 at last we have the first principle science which liberates us to be honest about our conflicted upset state instead of denying or transcending it, which is what religions offered and why — despite the solace they provided — they were ultimately unable to actually bring an end to our condition (see our FAQs on religion).     You might find helpful FAQs 1.4 to 1.6 that explain the far-reaching application of this information and Freedom Essay 15 is all about ‘How our lives can be immediately transformed’.     And lastly, Rolf, we recommend you join our Facebook Group and register for our live events with Jeremy Griffith because these forums provide helpful and practical discussion about living with this immensely relieving knowledge!

Jeremy’s definitive book FREEDOM: The End Of The Human Condition is available for free on our homepage here, along with his other key books including the booklet version of THE Interview, to read online or download. You can also download the free Kindle versions from Amazon. Otherwise you can purchase hard copies from Amazon or other good bookstores.

Hi Jenna, yes, it is such a relief to finally learn and know, with Jeremy Griffith’s ‘instinct vs intellect’ explanation of the human condition, that despite appearing otherwise we humans are fundamentally good; and that our species' primary instinctive orientation is not selfish, must-reproduce-our-genes ‘survival’ but rather, to behave selflessly! But while we all crave an ideal world where everyone is loving, peaceful and cooperative, the great question that begged to be answered is why then did humans become so unloving and divisively competitive and aggressive? As you continue to digest Jeremy’s work you will see that this is not another pseudo idealistic request for everyone to just love and respect each other, but the answer to this key question of the source of humans’ angry, egocentric and alienated, seemingly bad behaviour. It’s such an incredible breakthrough as only through having this defence of our human-condition-afflicted reality could we finally heal ourselves and our planet and allow us to truly change and return to living in a truly idealistic loving, peaceful and cooperative way. You might be interested in FAQ 5.2 that explains the origin of our all-loving moral soul; and FAQ 6.5 which explains the important difference between this explanation and the superficial, “just transcend your upset” approach of the New Age movement.

Thank you for your question, Claudio. As Jeremy Griffith explains in THE Interview, all humans suffer from the universal psychosis caused by the clash between our instinct and intellect. This clash caused us to became angry, egocentric and alienated or psychologically ‘upset’ – so all humans, to varying degrees, suffer from the human condition. What this means is that the mental afflictions that are so rampant are really all manifestations of this fundamental issue of the human condition. And, as Jeremy explains in paragraph 953 of his definitive book FREEDOM, not only does the human condition affect our psychological state, but “with upset becoming completely unbearable for humans, the distress it entails must be straining our bodies’ ability to cope to the very limit, which is why diseases like cancer now riddle society”. However, as psychiatrist Professor Harry Prosen, a former President of the Canadian Psychiatric Association, wrote: “the beauty of Griffith’s treatise is that the healing starts at the macro level of the universal human condition; the healing of the shame and blame that the whole human race has suffered from…It brings the greater context and love to all human psychosis and suffering, and then, from under the umbrella of that safe position, everyone can gradually work inwards to their particular experience of all the imperfections in human life that have now, finally, been made sense of”. So yes, as Jeremy also states in FREEDOM, “all the millions of health clinics in the world are not going to get humans back to full health; only the ameliorating understanding of the human condition being presented in this book can achieve that.” That is the power of this breakthrough understanding!! We recommend FAQ 1.34 ‘How does understanding the human race’s condition help with an individual’s depression and psychosis?’ and also FAQ 1.35 on ‘Does this heal anxiety?’

Thanks for your feedback, Sabeen. Yes, religions contain all manner of truths about human life, however it is all coming off a pre-scientific base. Ultimately we needed to find the scientific explanation for why we are fundamentally good — answer the age-old question of 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 Griffith presents here. What Jeremy is putting forward is that for there to be a fundamental solution to our human situation we had to understand the human condition from a biological perspective. You may be interested in our FAQS about religion.

    Thank you for your feedback, Radhika, and we encourage you to keep pursuing your interest. 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? / Won’t the greedy and power-hungry simply ignore this?’.     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.’

Thank you for your question Bruce. As Jeremy Griffith explains in THE Interview, all humans suffer from the universal psychosis caused by the clash between our instinct and intellect. We became angry, egocentric and alienated or in a word ‘upset’ so all humans, to varying degrees, suffer from the human condition and therefore have mental health issues. As psychiatrist Professor Harry Prosen, a former President of the Canadian Psychiatric Association, wrote: “the beauty of Griffith’s treatise is that the healing starts at the macro level of the universal human condition; the healing of the shame and blame that the whole human race has suffered from…It brings the greater context and love to all human psychosis and suffering, and then, from under the umbrella of that safe position, everyone can gradually work inwards to their particular experience of all the imperfections in human life that have now, finally, been made sense of” — see FAQ 1.34 ‘How does understanding the human race’s condition help with an individual’s depression and psychosis?’ and also FAQ 1.35 on ‘Does this heal anxiety?’. The key breakthrough of this understanding is we no longer have to be burdened by the fundamental question of whether we are good or bad because our core goodness as individuals and as a species has been biologically established. Our psychological upset was the price humans had to pay for searching for knowledge so the human story is the greatest, most heroic story ever told. That macro comforting truth looks after all humans now and we can treat ourselves with great compassion and kindness, and most significantly, we don’t have to overly confront the upset within us. This is summarised in our FAQ 1.19 ‘A caution about the danger of over-exposure / Advice for people with mental health issues’. This FAQ explains that everyone, but especially those with mental health issues, need to manage their exposure to this very confronting information. It also importantly urges people who struggle with mental health issues to seek the support and assistance of professional counsellors and points out that any information we do provide should not be used as, or as a substitute for, professional counselling.

We currently provide translations of THE Interview, some of Jeremy Griffith’s books and essays in Afrikaans, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Polish and Spanish which you can access on our Translations Page. Also available is a German version of the WTM’s main website!!

Thanks Herb. We thought it might be helpful to mention that while great care has been taken to present the information as quickly and simply as possible (which is done in Part 1 of THE Interview) explanation of the human condition can be initially difficult to access. This is because it 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, and we have necessarily lived in almost total denial of it, see our FAQ 1.16.

Hi Rafael, you can see all our Spanish translations, including THE Interview and some of Jeremy Griffith’s books, on our Translations page. Also the WTM Colombian Centre presents its website in Spanish, including centre founder Carlos Cruz Blanco’s welcome video, so there is a feast of material available!

    The first three chapters of FREEDOM are now freely available as an audiobook which you can access HERE on our website!! Also, audios of THE Interview and Jeremy Griffith’s other key books are available here.     As well, 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. Just search ‘World Transformation Movement’ in the App Store on your device. If you would like any more information please contact us via our contact facility.

Thank you for your comment Dr Atlabachew. We can now understand that like all humans, mechanistic scientists have been limited in their ability to understand the world because of the near universal denial of our cooperative instinctive self/soul or true self. The human condition has been the great impasse which has blocked true understanding, and so now the human condition is solved, not only will science become effective, but we will all finally be able “to listen to ourselves”. With regard to human’s extraordinary facility for language, the obvious point to make is that animals and plants are not fully conscious, and sophisticated language requires a ‘cause and effect’ understanding conscious mind. Beyond that, as Jeremy Griffith explains in chapter 8:11C of his definitive book FREEDOM, with humans conscious ability came the need to explain ourselves under the duress of the human condition, which resulted in our extraordinary facility for language.

Yes, as sociologist Erving Goffman observed, under the duress of the human condition, all our social interactions are characterised by ‘impression management’ as we all try to convince ourselves everyone else that we have ‘got it all together’ – for example, as Jeremy Griffith writes in his book Transform Your Life, “your mind is narrowly focused and preoccupied working all the angles every second of every day, defensively seeking validation and reinforcement”. We can now understand, that, as THE Interview explains, all humans are born with all-loving moral instincts but now variously suffer from a psychosis due to the human condition caused by the conscious mind’s necessary search for knowledge. So we can at last understand WHY as a species we have become so psychologically upset—angry, egocentric and alienated—as to nearly destroy our own planet. But now we can explain and understand this necessary conflict, all those insecure, defensive behaviours are obsoleted, and we free ourselves from the human condition. See this FAQ 1.3 for a nutshell explanation.

    Thank you so much for your thoughts Michael. The human condition is the realm of inquiry where science and religion overlap and just as Nobel Prize-winning physicist Charles H. Townes said “they [science and religion] both represent man’s efforts to understand his universe and must ultimately be dealing with the same substance. As we understand more in each realm, the two must grow together…converge they must”. So Jeremy Griffith’s reconciling understanding of the human condition at last makes it possible to explain and demystify all mythology, including all the parables and stories in the Bible. For instance, as Jeremy explains in Part 2 of THE Interview, the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is a metaphor for the conscious mind going in search of knowledge in the presence of pre-established loving instincts, and how the conscious mind was in effect ‘condemned’ by those instincts, and as a result became ‘upset’ or angry, egocentric and alienated. So the metaphor of eating the fruit is symbolic of us defying our cooperative instinctive self in order to begin searching for knowledge, which was what consciousness required. So we weren’t like God knowing as we were ignorant of cause and effect, we had no insight, but now with the human condition solved we do and at last can metaphorically “become like God knowing good and evil”. In religious terminology, we can now understand from scientific first principles that ‘Adam and Eve’ were ‘good’ to search for knowledge, not bad or ‘evil’ or ‘sinful’; we humans are actually the absolute heroes of the whole story! As you recognise this removes the burden of guilt from humanity; it couldn’t be a bigger breakthrough.     This new science presents an entirely new way of thinking so there is a lot to digest and re-reading FREEDOM is an excellent way to do that. We would also recommend Jeremy’s companion presentation to THE Interview titled The Great Guilt, which further explains just how guilty and ashamed humans have been of corrupting our original instinctive self or soul and therefore the understandable fear of going anywhere near the subject of the human condition and how we can overcome that intrepidation to access the relief and wonder of finally being able to understand the human journey.     In terms of Carl Jung’s work, as he was forever saying, “wholeness for humans depends on the ability to own our own shadow”. But while Jung was able to highlight a clash between instinctual drives and consciousness, he did not explain the source of the clash or that the fundamental nature of our psychosis was our repression of loving and cooperative instincts. What Jeremy has provided is the all-important clarifying, redeeming, reconciling and psychologically rehabilitating explanation for why the conflict between our instincts and our consciousness occurred. Until that was found, we humans couldn’t relieve ourselves of our psychologically upset state or condition.

Thanks for your comment Lars. The question of the human condition is WHY do we no longer love one another—why when the universal ideals are to be loving and selfless are we so competitive and selfish? It is this crux question that Jeremy Griffith confronts and answers through first principle biology because only through understanding the dark side of ourselves—why we departed from our all-loving instincts and became selfish—can we free ourselves from the human condition and legitimately love ourselves and each other again. As THE Interview explains anything less is pseudo or false idealism. This is the critical difference between Jeremy’s work and pseudo idealistic movements as FAQ 6.5 makes clear.

Hi Joseph, what a beautiful comment. You have really tapped into the sensitivity all humans still have access to when we’re children and young adults, which in turn does demonstrate how much innate sensitivity still exists within humans overall, even after 2 million years of the corrupting search for knowledge, which then in itself shows the incredibly sensitivity of our early ancestors! Yes, the depth of grief humans feel for our family, our first loves, even our pets, indicates the importance we place on love in our lives, as well as the intense loneliness we (individually and a species) experience once we realise the ideal state of togetherness that we all once shared is no longer a reality, but will hopefully become once again with this understanding! In addition to reading this essay on the issue of first love, which includes macro understanding of what love means, we also recommend the essays on why love is such a huge component in our lives, because they explain why love is fundamentally the underlying theme of existence: see Freedom Essay 21: How did we humans acquire our all-loving, unconditionally selfless moral conscience? and Freedom Essay 23: The integrative meaning of existence.

Hi Vincent, please pursue your curiosity, you won’t be disappointed, especially with your background in social work that is so exposed to, and empathetic of, how the human condition affects all of our lives. 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 about this immensely relieving understanding. You may also like to join our Facebook Group where there is much interesting and excited discussion taking place about the enormous effect being able to understand the human condition has on our lives.

    Yes, Dennis, because the knowledge we needed in order to be truly caring, loving and empowered to bring an end to all wars, barbarism and greed that pervade this world is this understanding of the human condition. 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 Griffith presents in THE Interview and his book FREEDOM. As Professor Harry Prosen, a former President of the Canadian Psychiatric Association, recognised, “the beauty of Griffith’s treatise is that the healing starts at the macro level of the universal human condition; the healing of the shame and blame that the whole human race has suffered from, which is non-personal and thus more easily confronted, absorbed and accepted. It brings the greater context and love to all human psychosis and suffering, and then, from under the umbrella of that safe position, everyone can gradually work inwards to their particular experience of all the imperfections in human life that have now, finally, been made sense of.”     As with any new scientific breakthrough it will take time to reach the whole world, and because the human condition has historically been such a terrifying realm, no-where is this resistance greater than when attempting to bring understanding to the human condition – but with enough people developing a deep appreciation and desire to support it our problems will be solved very quickly (see FAQ 1.6), and as the ecstatic responses at the top of our homepage show, every day more people are discovering the astonishing explanatory power of this understanding.

Hi Mooreson, Jeremy Griffith’s instinct vs intellect explanation of the human condition explains how our conscious mind became alienated from our loving, cooperative instinctive self, resulting in a universal psychosis. As Jeremy points out in THE Interview, the word ‘psychosis’ literally means ‘soul-illness’ and ‘psychiatry’ literally means ‘soul-healing’ (derived as they are from psyche meaning ‘soul’, osis meaning ‘abnormal state or condition’ and iatreia meaning ‘healing’). Basically, as is also explained in THE Interview, the argument that our behaviour is dictated by survival or selfish instincts was just a convenient excuse while we searched for the psychosis-addressing-and-solving real explanation of our divisive behaviour. We recommend reading FAQ 1.29 ‘Is the human condition biological or psychological’ as it directly addresses your comment. And, significantly, a psychosis is changeable as it can be healed through understanding!

Great to have your interest, Dan. We think you will find Jeremy Griffith’s treatise fascinating, as while Jeremy acknowledges Freud’s courageous recognition that humans carry negative, repressed elements of our personality, a ‘repressed unconscious’, he disagrees with Freud’s contention that the ‘ID’, our unconscious, instinctive mind, contained primitive selfish ‘savage’ urges that the conscious mind or ‘ego’ has to control. What Jeremy has now explained is that our instinctive self is actually completely loving and cooperative, and that our aggressive and selfish behaviour is psychological in origin, the result of a clash between our instincts and intellect. Freud also believed that our morals are learnt and held by the superego, whereas Jeremy has now explained that they are the expression of our loving, cooperative moral soul or instincts. By starting from the false basis that we have ‘savage instincts’ that the ego had to control and mediate meant that Freud was not able to explain the ultimate source of human’s psychological problems. So while Freud made great contributions to humanity’s journey toward self-understanding, what Jeremy has provided in THE Interview is the all-important clarifying, redeeming, reconciling and psychologically rehabilitating explanation for why the conflict between our instincts and our consciousness occurred. This this longed for explanation of the source of our upset, and the key to rehabilitating all the subsequent manifestations of the human condition.

It is true that our original all-loving instinctive self or soul, or as you say, “the feminine nurturing, receptive, creative part of every human being”, was not the part of ourselves that came to be at odds with “the whole world”. However, what is so extraordinary about Jeremy Griffith’s ‘instinct vs intellect’ treatise is that it brings about the loving, soulful world of “the feminine nurturing, receptive, creative part of every human being” by defending men’s upset angry egocentric and alienated state!!! Men, it turns out, have not been villains, but the absolute heroes of the whole story of life on earth. It was only through finding the good reason that we had to defy our cooperative and nurturing instincts, which women represented, that all our defensive, ‘bad’ behaviours (our anger, egocentricity and alienation) could be made redundant and the defiance and oppression of our soul could end. Ultimately, we had to end the underlying insecurity that was driving all the destructive behaviour, which is exactly what Jeremy’s explanation of the human condition in THE Interview does. And because this biological treatise establishes all humans are equally good, worthwhile, meaningful and wonderful regardless of gender, age, religion, etc. See biologist Dr Anna Fitzgerald’s video commendation about how this explanation is the real liberation of women and also FAQ 8.1 ‘How does this reconcile the sexes’

Hi Patricia, yes we are “self programming”, however, as THE Interview explains, it was this very ability to ‘self-program’, that caused our intellect to come into conflict with our pre-established instincts or naturally selected genetic orientations, which resulted in us becoming psychologically upset. And this issue of our psychologically upset angry, egocentric and alienated state, has been a question with such terrible implications that we have had to consign it to our unconscious. What this means is that despite our apparent ability to ‘self-program’, we have still been driven by this subconscious insecurity to prove our worth, and so couldn’t bring any peace to our fundamental situation, which is why the world is in such a critical state. However, as the distinguished psychiatrist Professor Harry Prosen (who wrote the Introduction to Jeremy Griffith’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).

Hi Heather, explanation of the human condition does produce a huge paradigm shift in our thinking, so this critical new science does takes time to digest, but far from being “cold” Jeremy Griffith’s understanding of the human condition focuses upon the absolute all-importance of love, specifically unconditional love or selflessness, in our species’ development (see Freedom Essay 21: How did we humans acquire our all-loving, unconditionally selfless moral conscience?) and in the overall theme or purpose of existence (see Freedom Essay 23: The integrative meaning of existence). Indeed, Jeremy’s work has actually brought love into scientific discourse, when previously it has been cast off as an ‘unscientific term’; he cites linguist Robin Allott’s observation that ‘“Love has been described as a taboo subject, not serious, not appropriate for scientific study”. We suggest you read Jeremy’s essay, What is Love?, as we think you will find that rather than this being a cold, intellectual study, it is a compassionate, holistic account of human behaviour that actually makes sense of our seemingly-unloving human condition, thus allowing us to safely admit that love is unconditional selflessness, and central to our lives and existence.