People need a sacred narrative. They must have a sense of larger purpose, in one form or another, however intellectualized. They will find a way to keep ancestral spirits alive.
Interpretation
This quote stresses the human need for a meaningful narrative and connection to our history.
E. O. Wilson highlights the fundamental human desire for a greater purpose beyond individual existence. He suggests that people actively seek out stories or beliefs that provide their lives with meaning, often drawing from their cultural or ancestral heritage to keep the memory and influence of past generations alive. This reflects a deep need for connection and continuity in human experience.
In practice
During a motivational speech about the importance of cultural heritage, I might say, 'As E. O. Wilson reminds us, people need a sacred narrative to find purpose.'
Consider the nematode roundworm, the most abundant of all animals. Four out of five animals on Earth are nematode worms β if all solid materials except nematode worms were to be eliminated, you could still see the ghostly outline of most of it in nematode worms.
Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction.
The worst thing that will probably happen-in fact is already well underway-is not energy depletion, economic collapse, conventional war, or the expansion of totalitarian governments. As terrible as these catastrophes would be for us, they can be repaired in a few generations. The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us.
Humanity today is like a waking dreamer, caught between the fantasies of sleep and the chaos of the real world. The mind seeks but cannot find the precise place and hour. We have created a Star Wars civilization, with Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. We thrash about. We are terribly confused by the mere fact of our existence, and a danger to ourselves and to the rest of life.
Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.
An Armageddon is approaching at the beginning of the third millennium. But it is not the cosmic war and fiery collapse of mankind foretold in sacred scripture. It is the wreckage of the planet by an exuberantly plentiful and ingenious humanity.
A clash of doctrine is not a disaster, it is an opportunity.
Sin is cruelty and injustice, all else is peccadillo. Oh, a sense of sin comes from violating the customs of your tribe. But breaking custom is not sin even when it feels so; sin is wronging another person.
The becoming of man is the history of the exhaustion of his possibilities.
That his prayer was nothing else but a sense of the presence of GOD, his soul being at that time insensible to everything but Divine love: and that when the appointed times of prayer were past, he found no difference, because he still continued with GOD, praising and blessing Him with all his might, so that he passed his life in continual joy; yet hoped that GOD would give him somewhat to suffer, when he should grow stronger.
Someone ought to do it, but why should I? Someone ought to do it, so why not I? Between these two sentences lie whole centuries of moral evolution.
To exchange one orthodoxy for another is not necessarily an advance. The enemy is the gramophone mind, whether or not one agrees with the record that is being played at the moment.
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