no more neanderthals >> by stephen van esch >> *spark-online issue twelve

I am now convinced that Neanderthals are alive and well in our society. While we may have grown beyond our primitive huts and scavenging ways, many Neanderthal characteristics are with us today. Look around you; I'm sure that you could point out a few of our primitive ancestors right now.

Now, I don't mean the jerk who cuts you off or the moron who pays for three bucks worth of gas with a credit card. I'm talking about the people whose cognitive functions have not moved beyond those of their ancestors.

A prime example of Neanderthals at work occurred recently in a city not too far from where I live. The city has been expanding recently and this precipitated the need for an expanded bus route. The city laid out the bus route and presented the bus route to the populace.

While this might seem fairly simple and innocuous it raised a furor among many residents along the proposed bus route. They claimed that the buses on the route would be harmful because the buses could injure children. They also claimed that they didn't want a stinky, smelly bus going through their neighbourhood.

Feel free to let your jaw drop in amazement. Rather than allowing a bus, which is designed to reduce traffic and pollution, they would prefer to have more cars whipping by their homes, possibly striking their loved ones and causing more pollution problems.

This is a prime example of Neanderthals at work. Our current model of environmental destruction through more cars and roads is clearly not sustainable. We cannot continue to drive wherever we please, whenever we please and expect our environmental quality to remain the same. That's all water under the bridge, however.

The point here is that if you actively oppose any initiatives designed to deal with environmental problems and you oppose them with a "not in my backyard" argument then it's clear that your brain has not evolved to the point where it recognizes the need for these measures. You are clearly unable to take into account the bigger picture and reduce arguments to what is, basically, territoriality.

Positive progress, the kind that will leave some semblance of a planet for future generations, seems to continuously run into resistance from the less cognitively active Neanderthal branch of the human family. This is not to say that all development, logging, mining, etc. should stop immediately. Reasonable alternatives to existing solutions should, however, be given a chance.

As a solution to this problem, I propose that we ship the Neanderthals to a place where they can exercise their primitive urges. A large island should do the trick. This way, the rest of society can get on with it. Sure, the toxic runoff and air pollution from the island would cause problems but a big mess in one spot is better than many little messes all over place.

With a bit of good luck, they would kill themselves off. Then again, with a bit of bad luck they would probably attack the rest of the planet. That's a chance I'm willing to take.

If the Neanderthals continue to run the world, however, then I guess we'll all wind up extinct.

Stephen Van Esch is a writer and instructional designer living near Toronto, Canada. He is the owner and CEO of the Text Pound.