Selfish Bees
Yesterday, amid the horror of yet another shooting by yet another self-righteous, hate-filled, self-pitying person playing out fantasies on those who they feel are afflicting society, I got an email from my brother with a link to an article from the Washington Post. It was on American Exceptionalism and how our ideas of America's Manifest Destiny and endless greatness lend themselves to a new, more and more common form of violence where folks that haven't quite seized that promised American dream of wealth and prosperity feel entitled to take their personal grief out on others in horrible ways. People seek out infamy when they are unable to achieve real fame, and that makes for a scary reality wherein we generate more and more aggrieved, self-righteous killers.
I stewed on that article for a while and it wasn't until this afternoon, when I was coming back from the farmer's market with maple chews and Neccos for Dad and Kettle Corn for Mom (I guess it was all the sweets) that I thought about my bees. Now, I haven't had my bees for long, but these little creatures are incredible organisms. Bees manufacture sweet honey from nectar they tirelessly scavenge the trees and fields for, and I try to not get stung while I walk around in my horribly over sized suit trying to keep my smoker lit, stealing that honey one frame at a time. (I think they remember me, because I was just walking out to the garage the other day in shorts and flip flops and one of those bees made a kamikaze swing for my head and planted his little ass right on my temple. Geez, that hurt.) Anyways, as I was pulling out of the market with all of my corn syrup loot, I thought about how bees live. They keep an immaculate hive to avoid unwanted pests, and maintain a tight swarm around a queen that they are willing to die for. That queen is the life of the hive, so they don't exploit their finite resources, and if anybody feels sick, they go far away from the hive and die, just to make sure they don't spread disease. The bees are organs of the hive, which operates as a single, efficient living thing. Bees are a good example of the fact that altruism isn't just an idea that some people aspire to, it's the way that a functioning civilization can not only live, but excel. Sacrifice is something that benefits the whole, with the understanding that the good of the whole is much more than the benefit to one small individual.
These bees are like a model for life. They have a closed system in which we can see the effects of their joint decisions. If the hive becomes infested, everyone dies. If someone steals from the winter honey, everyone dies, and, if someone gets sick and spreads it around, everyone dies. It's a great model for life; what we have to gain, and what we may stand to lose.
Us westerners have gotten away from ecology, and we don't seem to understand the idea of service to our fellow human. Our culture is messed up. And the worst part is that every developing country looks to us as the model of what they should become. We've gotten so caught up in temporary fame, or in rectifying wrongs we've experienced, that we can't even grapple with the harm that we are causing the entire 'hive' with our selfish score-settling. Capitalism is not built on the tenets of ecology and altruism, and that will be our undoing. Finite resources demand finite exploitation, and we will be much better off when we understand that we have much more to gain when working together than we do if we continue to compete to the degree which we have become accustomed.
I stewed on that article for a while and it wasn't until this afternoon, when I was coming back from the farmer's market with maple chews and Neccos for Dad and Kettle Corn for Mom (I guess it was all the sweets) that I thought about my bees. Now, I haven't had my bees for long, but these little creatures are incredible organisms. Bees manufacture sweet honey from nectar they tirelessly scavenge the trees and fields for, and I try to not get stung while I walk around in my horribly over sized suit trying to keep my smoker lit, stealing that honey one frame at a time. (I think they remember me, because I was just walking out to the garage the other day in shorts and flip flops and one of those bees made a kamikaze swing for my head and planted his little ass right on my temple. Geez, that hurt.) Anyways, as I was pulling out of the market with all of my corn syrup loot, I thought about how bees live. They keep an immaculate hive to avoid unwanted pests, and maintain a tight swarm around a queen that they are willing to die for. That queen is the life of the hive, so they don't exploit their finite resources, and if anybody feels sick, they go far away from the hive and die, just to make sure they don't spread disease. The bees are organs of the hive, which operates as a single, efficient living thing. Bees are a good example of the fact that altruism isn't just an idea that some people aspire to, it's the way that a functioning civilization can not only live, but excel. Sacrifice is something that benefits the whole, with the understanding that the good of the whole is much more than the benefit to one small individual.
These bees are like a model for life. They have a closed system in which we can see the effects of their joint decisions. If the hive becomes infested, everyone dies. If someone steals from the winter honey, everyone dies, and, if someone gets sick and spreads it around, everyone dies. It's a great model for life; what we have to gain, and what we may stand to lose.
Us westerners have gotten away from ecology, and we don't seem to understand the idea of service to our fellow human. Our culture is messed up. And the worst part is that every developing country looks to us as the model of what they should become. We've gotten so caught up in temporary fame, or in rectifying wrongs we've experienced, that we can't even grapple with the harm that we are causing the entire 'hive' with our selfish score-settling. Capitalism is not built on the tenets of ecology and altruism, and that will be our undoing. Finite resources demand finite exploitation, and we will be much better off when we understand that we have much more to gain when working together than we do if we continue to compete to the degree which we have become accustomed.
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