A Summary of Jeremy Griffith’s Biological Explanation of the Human Condition

Why do humans behave the way we do? Why are we capable of such love and compassion, yet also of anger, cruelty and destruction? For millennia, these questions have confounded philosophers, scientists, theologians and everyday people alike. Well, in this summary it will be explained that the acclaimed Australian biologist Jeremy Griffith, who has dedicated his life to answering these profound questions, has indeed answered them!

Yes, you have actually stumbled upon this dreamed-of grand solution to our “human condition” — what a deeply-respected former president of the Canadian Psychiatric Association described as the “holy grail” of insight that compassionately explains the biological reason for our capacity for good and evil and all things in-between. I have no doubt whatsoever that Jeremy Griffith has found the ultimate Truth about the human condition which “sets us free” from a bondage we have so blocked out of our minds that we have forgotten even exists. Liberation from this psychological condition, which is gained by simply understanding the nature of it, feels like waking up from a bad dream. You will feel redeemed, relieved and utterly exalted with joy, excitement and enthralment when his explanation sinks in.

At the heart of Jeremy’s work is a first principle-based biological explanation of the human condition — our species’ underlying psychosis that affects every single aspect of human behaviour. Jeremy’s explanation is presented in full in his 2016 book, FREEDOM: The End Of The Human Condition, however, the key concepts can be understood without needing a background in science or psychology.

So here is the summary of Jeremy Griffith’s definition and explanation of the human condition:

Summary of what the human condition is

Jeremy Griffith defines the human condition as the guilt and shame our species’ has lived with for seemingly corrupting our cooperative, selfless and loving state (that was achieved through nurturing in our ape ancestry) following the emergence of consciousness and its need to defiantly challenge those loving instincts in pursuit of understanding. The ensuing contradiction in human behaviour — our ability to be both profoundly loving and deeply destructive — has long been perceived as some kind of flaw in our nature, often explained by religion as ‘sin’, or in science as selfish genetic programming. But Jeremy challenges both views.

Summary of Jeremy Griffith’s core insight

Jeremy Griffith asserts that humans are not inherently bad or selfish. Instead, he says the origin of our troubled behaviour lies in this conflict between two forces within us: our instinctive, genetic orientation and our emerging conscious mind.

He explains that early humans lived cooperatively in harmony with their instincts, however, when we developed a conscious mind some two million years ago, a battle unavoidably developed between it and our already established instincts. Natural selection of genes gives species’ instinctive orientations, such as to a migratory flight path for birds, but a nerve-based conscious mind needs understanding to operate, so when a fully conscious mind emerges and begins experimenting in understanding it unavoidably comes into conflict with the already established instinctive orientations that are in effect intolerant of these deviating experiments in self-management.

The result of this conflict between our instinct and intellect was an undeserved sense of guilt and insecurity that caused us to become psychologically defensive, angry, alienated and egocentric, the upset state we refer to as the human condition — a state we sought to alleviate through a competitive, selfish and aggressive bid for the reinforcement we could gain from winning power, fame, fortune and glory. But now that we can explain and understand this conflict and the guilt it produced, all those insecure, defensive behaviours are obsoleted, brought to an end, and we free ourselves from the human condition.

Summary of the Significance of Jeremy Griffith’s explanation

To conclude this summary of Jeremy Griffith’s explanation: what makes it so significant is that it completely changes human behaviour through redeeming and compassionate understanding. Instead of seeing ourselves as flawed or doomed, we can now understand that our behaviour stems from a noble struggle to become fully conscious, thinking beings.

This understanding is what Jeremy believes can heal humanity at its core. By recognising the true cause of our psychological distress, we can finally let go of guilt, insecurity and the subsequent need to prove ourselves. In fact, Jeremy argues that this insight has the power to end all conflict by addressing the root cause of human dysfunction.

----------------------------------

As mentioned on the homepage, THE Interview offers a perfect introductory summary of Jeremy Griffith’s explanation of the human condition, and includes the following ‘Adam Stork’ analogy that Jeremy uses throughout his work to illustrate of the emergence and ultimate reconciliation of our species’ human condition.

Humanity’s Heroic Journey — The Story of Adam Stork