Some rats are unfortunate enough to find themselves in a scientific laboratory, racing around a spinning wheel, going nowhere whether they realize it or not. We might have ourselves a laugh or a chuckle. Why? Perhaps the rat reminds us of ourselves.
The human rat race is one of endless labor, embattled in a competition to acquire resources that amount to nothing of real significance. We’re dealing with the usual suspects—money, prestige, status, and so on. Our blunted sense of purpose becomes justified by pseudo-scientific reasoning. Competition, laissez faire psychology tells us, is the basic ingredient of human nature.
In the laboratory, standing outside the human rat cage, Tyler Durden, the quasi- Nietszchean superman from “Fight Club,” might reiterate some of his famous lines, “You are not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car your drive. You're not the contents of your wallet…” If Durden speaks the voice of sobriety, why are we unable to listen? Why do we define ourselves by each successive rung on the wheel to nowhere?
Because we too often see ourselves in terms of crude Darwinism, reproduction becomes for us the supreme value. The the unfolding story describes life as a fight for resources-- land, power, the fittest reproduction partner, etc. It’s a dog eat dog world, we say--survival of the the fittest. It is only natural that those who lose their momentum will stop and perish.
While persuasive to some, the story is based on a misunderstanding of evolution. We animate evolution as if it were a god-like figure, prescribing right and wrong, good and bad. Stated soberly, evolution is a story that attempts to explain some of the conditions that were necessary for us to be here today. But it tells us nothing as to whether adaptation or reproduction is a good or bad thing.
Our need to personify evolution shows that we are hungry for purpose and it cannot be found in scientific explanation.The human rat wheel represents the reduction of our human value to biological material. Our fixation on biological reproduction gives us a diminished narrative of what it means human. To be good, we need to be number one--to have the most, the biggest 'this,' and the best 'that'... because otherwise we will be unloved, unsuccessful, and bested by our competitors. Before we know it, the wheel's turning and turning and we've lost the stillness needed to discern what truly matters--love, beauty, togetherness and all that enriches our lives.
