Nihilism and Nature

When praying mantises mate, the female bites off the head of the male and consumes him.  Some research has shown that this may even be a strategy that helps with fertilization.  While the late Stephen Jay Gould considers sexual cannibalism to be statistically insignificant in prevalence in nature, one cannot ignore that it is an existing pattern.  If nature is defined by its least common denominator, everything about it is as brutally violent as violence can be.

So how does one consider the end of the slippery slope in nature, where violence is an end to itself?

I recall one conversation I had with a family member.  "Everything has a purpose in nature," that family member said.  "Everything...except war.  War serves no purpose whatsoever."

Had I been a bit more enlightened, I would have recognized that the family member was baiting me.  "War does serve a purpose," I said.  "It happens in nature."  Suddenly I was Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, and George W. Bush all rolled into one.  I was looked upon with such horror and incredulity.  I am an evil man, evidently, simply because I think war has a purpose.  Many species of animals go to war.  Ants.  Chimpanzees.  And, of course, humans.  Even at the time of this discussion, I identified as a humanist and anti-war.  What I failed to realize was that the discussion was baited as to leave no room to distinguish between what has a purpose in nature and what has a utility for humanist ends--a linguistic trap.

Simple, black-and-white terms leave little room for the gray area known as real life.  Unfortunately, it is much easier to follow simple black-and-white rules most of the time than to channel individual thought all of the time.  Structure and order, simplicity and anti-intellectualism are ways in which the Conformist (discussed later) lives in harmony within the surrounding environment and conserves energy.

Moral relativism, in the slippery slope, leads to some of the following possibilities:

1. Nihilism: "every man for himself, and God against all."
2. Humanism: humans as ends to themselves.
3. A point of stasis: an evolving, codified set of practical ethics based on science and prevailing views.

None of these seem particularly dictatorial; nor are these results mutually exclusive.  In fact, one can go so far as to believe them all at the same time.