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PDF Version Foreword

by Harry Prosen

I am a professor of psychiatry who has worked in the field for over 40 years, including chairing two departments of psychiatry and serving as president of the Canadian Psychiatric Association. I am also the psychiatric consultant to the Bonobo Species Preservation Society, and am assisting those working with one of the largest collections of captive bonobo primates in the world at the Milwaukee County Zoo in Wisconsin.

I first became aware of Jeremy Griffith’s explanation of the biology of the human condition when a copy of “The Human Condition Documentary Proposal” was forwarded to me in late 2004 by a colleague who works with primates. I have since obtained copies of Griffith’s earlier three books, studying them and the Documentary Proposal closely, as well as discussing their contents with prominent thinkers and well respected authors in the fields of psychiatry, primatology, anthropology, physics and philosophy. I have also corresponded and spoken at length with Griffith, and on a regular basis, throughout 2005 to the present.

It is a bold statement but I wish to be absolutely candid about the significance I see in Griffith’s latest book: I consider the biological synthesis in “The Great Exodus” to be the most important contribution to both understanding and ameliorating the human condition—our capacity for good and evil—written thus far. I am aware of no other paradigm having ever been developed that answers somewhere in its great depths all the great questions like this one does. The synthesis confirms for me my studies and work over many years on empathy in both humans and bonobos, and provides invaluable reconciling insight into human nature that I know will greatly assist my work and that of others in the field of intensive psychotherapy.

As a psychiatrist I agree with the central tenet of this book that the issue of the human condition is the most difficult of issues for humans to confront but that it is also the issue that the human race must now address if we are to successfully negotiate these perilous times in which we find ourselves in the world today. Further, I think the book deals superbly with the key scientific questions of the origins of the human condition and how it is ameliorated, with the question of meaning and purpose, and with the questions of the origins of humans’ moral sense and conscious state. In a Question and Answer section that accompanies the Documentary Proposal, Griffith makes a statement, which I have included below, about how the focus of the proposal on these key scientific questions makes possible a flood of insights into the nature of our world. It is an extraordinary statement, however the more I study Griffith’s synthesis the more this statement captures for me the full relevance of the synthesis. If understanding can be brought to the issue of the human condition then a great impasse in the human journey is breached, and answers to so many questions do finally become accessible. To quote Griffith, “it can be appreciated that these are the key questions when it becomes apparent that the ability to Page 10 of
PDF Version explain them at last allows us to answer the everyday fundamental questions we humans have been asking about ourselves and our world since time immemorial, namely ‘does God exist and if so why does he allow suffering, and why is he referred to as male, and why are we all equal before his eyes; what does it all mean; why was I born; what is the point and purpose of our lives; what are we doing on Earth; who are we and where are we going; what is the meaning of existence; what is “life” and how did it begin; what is our soul, how did we acquire it, and what has happened to it; did the human race once live in a Garden of Eden innocent state and, if so, why did we have to leave it; where does our moral sense or conscience come from; what is consciousness, intelligence and thought; are we shaped by nature or by nurture; how are men and women different; why do we fall in love; how do we explain sex as humans practice it; what is our sense of humour based on; why do we live such superficial, artificial, material lives; why is there so much loneliness, suffering, unhappiness, inequality and hunger and will they ever end; can we ever become truly moral beings; what causes human alienation, aggression, selfishness, competitiveness, envy, greed, hate and egocentricity; what does “left” and “right” wing in politics actually mean, and why do we have politics; why are people racist, sexist and elitist; why are children neglected the world over; why wars and will they ever stop; why did those people fly those planes into those buildings; why are humans religious and were prophets such as Christ humans like everyone else and, if so, why did they become so revered and even deified; what happens and where will I go when I die, and why do I have to die; what and where is “heaven” and “hell”; and are questions of “will the world and even the universe end and if so how” meaningful?’.”

Finding understanding of the human condition has been the Holy Grail of the whole Darwinian revolution and I am convinced this book presents that vital understanding, and by so doing makes possible the rehabilitation of the human race. As such I believe, as I have said, that there has never been a more important book. The honesty of its content is daunting and will initially be psychologically overwhelming for many but in my view there is no doubting its ameliorating truth.

The human condition has been like an impenetrable barrier in the human psyche but what is so extraordinary about this book is that it appears to be written from the other side of that barrier entirely. It has to be understood that the human condition has been an almost completely forbidden domain, a no-go zone, but there is no doubt this book actually lives in that forbidden domain. So it is a big shock reading it. We have little capacity to cope with its truth. Indeed I am aware that some people have both strongly rejected Griffith’s biological synthesis and even actively opposed his work and those supporting it. Since our species has lived in denial of the human condition this reaction is understandable because psychologically exposure of a denial is always determinedly resisted before it is overcome; and there is certainly no greater denial in the human psyche than of the issue of our human condition. This very significant problem of “exposure” that addressing the issue of our human condition causes is of course a challenge that must be met, not succumbed to. If there is to be a future for humankind then this greatest of all denials simply has to be overcome. Indeed while reading and digesting Griffith’s work the key question in my mind as a psychiatrist has been how best to overcome this problem of “exposure” that any discussion of the human condition causes, and the reason I have found this book, “The Great Exodus”, such an important addition to Griffith’s earlier works is because of its focus on addressing and answering this problem.

To elaborate on this problem of exposure; in each of his earlier books and toward the conclusion of the Documentary Proposal Griffith explains that finding understanding of the fundamental goodness of humans ends the unjust criticism that has so “upset” Page 11 of
PDF Version humans, thus allowing our “upset state” of, as Griffith describes it, “anger, egocentricity and alienation” to subside. While this explanation satisfied my need to understand how the human condition is remedied there remained the problem of how precisely were humans going to cope with the exposure of our “condition”. Griffith refers to this remaining problem of exposure by describing how humans have necessarily had to cope with the human condition while lacking understanding of it by adopting many artificial forms of reinforcement to sustain our sense of self-worth. The problem that arises when understanding of the human condition is presented is that this amassed falseness is suddenly exposed and that transparency can make us want to psychologically deny and even summarily reject the information being presented. Rather than paraphrase Griffith I think I will simply quote his concise description of the problem: “The truth destroys the lies, as it must, but we are now so adapted to the lies we find the truth hard to face. Honesty day, truth day, revelation day is also exposure day, transparency day, in fact the ‘judgement day’ many mythologies have long anticipated. While ‘judgement day’ is actually a day of great compassion—as an anonymous Turkish poet said, it is ‘not the day of judgment but the day of understanding’—having the truth about our false selves revealed can feel like the foundations of our whole existence are being taken from under us. When the all-precious reconciling, humanity-saving understanding of the human condition arrives, rather than it feeling like the long sought-after liberating fulfilment and reward for all our species’ accumulated efforts, it feels like a hurtfully exposing, vicious, even punishing attack.”

As I say, what is so important to me about this book, “The Great Exodus”, is that it offers an explanation of how this problem of the exposure that understanding of the human condition must inevitably bring can be overcome. I strongly urge all to read this book and assess for yourselves firstly if it doesn’t provide a persuasively accountable explanation of our meaning, of our moral nature, of our conscious state and of the human condition itself, and then that it also explains how we can cope with the problem of exposure. I believe that once you have overcome the shock of the book’s subject matter—which I can confirm is greatly assisted by rereading the material—you, like myself, will find this extraordinary book absolutely liberating and enthralling.

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I think it relevant and perhaps helpful to include a more detailed account of my professional background:

I have obtained specialist standing in psychiatry in three countries, Canada, the United States and England. Around the time I was President of the Canadian Psychiatric Association I also chaired the Specialty Committee in Psychiatry of The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada for six years. As former Head of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Manitoba and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin until late 2003, I have been responsible for continuing in a major way the development of two departments of psychiatry and am listed in the 2005—2006 America’s Registry of Outstanding Professionals.

I have been continuously involved in the teaching of psychiatry and in clinical work with patients, with special emphasis on inter-generational issues in families, focusing particularly on empathy and empathic deficits. Much of this work originated in studying variations of the life-stages of humans, then developing an inter-generational approach to psychiatric treatment. Some of my early publications focused on non-verbal communication and also variations in facial features under different emotional circumstances.

Page 12 of
PDF Version This interest in empathy prepared me for my work with primates, in particular bonobos who are thought to be the most empathic of all primates. It has allowed me to participate in the work of a group of primate experts studying bonobo culture and development and has also led to my receiving numerous consultations from the United States and other parts of the world about psychological and other problems in primates, especially bonobos, and other species. Recently, the rehabilitation of a very disturbed young bonobo named Brian by my colleagues and I generated substantial publicity.

As I have indicated, what I bring to the synthesis that Jeremy Griffith has presented, in particular the “nurturing” hypothesis for human origins and the instinct versus intellect explanation for our human condition, are my confirming experiences and studies in empathy.

Harry Prosen, 2006