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The ‘instinct vs intellect’ explanation of the human condition makes sense of and reconciles all the unresolved manifestations of the polarities of the human situation — ‘good’ vs ‘evil’, idealism or ‘God’ vs humans’ non-ideal existence, religion vs science, holism vs mechanism, altruism vs egotism, communism vs capitalism, conscience vs conscious, and of course, men vs women. As is shown in Freedom Essay 26 (reproduced below), men and women can, at last, understand one another and stand side by side as true partners in a human-condition-free world. (The essay is part of the Freedom Essay series that appears on the WTM website.)

Men and women are finally reconciled by the understanding of the human condition

Written by Jeremy Griffith, 2017

With the finding of understanding of the human condition the lives of men and women are finally reconciled, and the historic so-called ‘war of the sexes’ thankfully comes to an end.

Men and Women, War and Peace, by Michael Leunig

The biological explanation of the human condition that we now have (see THE Interview and Video/​F. Essay 3) allows the often combative and aggressive behaviour of men to be understood and brought to an end. This change brings about the real liberation from the oppressive world of men that feminists, indeed all women, have yearned for.

As is fully explained in chapter 8:11B of FREEDOM, ‘Men and women’s relationship after the emergence of the human condition’, with understanding of the human condition it can now be appreciated that the ignorance of our instinctive self or soul of our conscious thinking self or ego’s need to search for knowledge posed a threat to humanity and, since the historic role of males has been one of group protector (against marauding leopards, and the like), men had no choice but to take on the responsibility to fight this battle to champion our conscious thinking self or ego. This meant that when this upsetting battle against our instincts began after the emergence of consciousness some 2 million years ago, the nurturing matriarchal or female-centric priority that created our altruistic moral instincts and a cooperative humanity (see F. Essay 21), was superseded in importance by a patriarchal world. Men necessarily and unavoidably had to defeat the ignorance of our instinctive self or soul — this was humanity’s new priority — for if that battle wasn’t won humanity would self-destroy from perpetual ignorance and resulting terminal upset, in particular ever increasing and ultimately intolerable levels of alienation.

So while both men and women have suffered from the corrupted state of the human condition, men in particular have carried a burden of guilt about the exceptional angry, egocentric and alienated lives they were beset with as a result of battling so determinedly and heroically against our ignorant instinctive self or soul. For 2 million years men have had the loathsome and upsetting task of defying our all-sensitive and loving, yet unjustly condemning soul, all the while unable to explain why they were so upset and embattled. But now, having found the liberating explanation of our upset human condition, men have finally completed their job of championing our ego or conscious part of ourselves over the ignorance of the instinctive part of ourselves, and will finally find peace.

It has been a wretched position for men to not be able to explain themselves, explain why they have been so egocentric, competitive and aggressive, as this quote from the literary editor Asa Baber makes clear: ‘One of the reasons that men have been so quiet for the past two decades, as the feminist movement has blossomed, is that we do not have the vocabulary or the concept to defend ourselves as men. We do not know how to define the virtues of being male, but virtues there are’ (see paragraph 773 of FREEDOM). Indeed there are virtues; while women created humanity with their nurturing, men have been the heroes of the great battle against ignorance — they saved humanity.

Thus, far from being the villains they have so often been regarded as, men turn out to be nothing less than the heroes of the story of life on Earth. This is because humans’ fully conscious mind is surely — given its phenomenal ability to understand the world — nature’s greatest invention, so to be made to endure for some 2 million years the torture of being unjustly condemned as bad or evil for doing just that (defying our instincts in order to find understanding) has to make all humans, but men in particular, the absolute heroes of the story of life on Earth! Men have always felt they were ‘number 1’; the very best not the very worst as they were thought of as being, and it is finally revealed that they actually are! Redeeming and relieving understanding at last comes to men’s horrifically embattled lives.

With men finally in a position to metaphorically ‘put down the sword’, rest and recover, so too will women be finally able to return from looking after, supporting and inspiring men with their ‘attractive’, sex-object image of innocence, to focusing once again on the now all-important task of the nurturing of their infants. And men, no longer preoccupied with their task of championing the ego or conscious thinking self, will finally be in a position to support women in that now all-important task. The arrival of understanding of the human condition brings about the real liberation from the oppressive world of men that feminists — indeed all women — have yearned for. And, best of all, it finally reconciles the lives of men and women at the deepest level. (The inspirational role of women is explained in the next Freedom Essay 27.)

This is the time the great South African writer Olive Schreiner dreamed of when she wrote, ‘if I might but be one of those born in the future; then, perhaps, to be born a woman will not be to be born branded…​It is for love’s sake yet more than for any other that we [women] look for that new time…​Then when that time comes…​when love is no more bought or sold, when it is not a means of making bread, when each woman’s life is filled with earnest, independent labour, then love will come to her, a strange sudden sweetness breaking in upon her earnest work; not sought for, but found’ (see pars 798 & 899 of FREEDOM).

Again, much more is explained in chapter 8:11B of FREEDOM about the real relationship that has existed between men and women during the upsetting battle to solve the human condition.

And, as mentioned, F. Essay 27 explains women’s role of helping men, including by inspiring them with their ‘attractive’ sex-object image of innocence. Indeed, that essay explains the real role sex has played during humanity’s upsetting battle to solve the human condition.