The Nature of Man (reposted with comments on :o( )

As I was driving tonight I saw more than a couple of cars with the little flags of different hockey teams. As I watched them I started to muse about the nature of tribalism and the little things we do all the time. I started wondering what someone outside of humanity would see by observing us, probably a bunch of great apes much like the chimps they had observed in Africa. (I know it's strange but it's been a long week, we just put on a Medieval fair with our kids at school, 12 hour workdays are not conducive to rationality)
We have oneupmanship with the alpha males beating their breasts and howling. (Here in Canada it's called Parliament, I always wonder how they can take themselves seriously) Tribalism with threats of violence (Alpha males beating each other up, except we do it by proxy, why should our alpha males get hurt when we can send someone else to do it in Irak and Afghanistan.) Tribalism is everywhere, from the fans of sports teams to street gangs and sometimes the sports fans are more violent. People have actually been beat up, even killed for a stupid sport, how useless is that? Have we come very far? Nope
As I was musing about such weighty things, the radio started playing some Gregorian chant. As I was listening I was struck by the dichotomy of our natures, how could we, the killer apes, come up with such sublimely beautiful music? Mozart's Requiem, Bach's Toccata, Handel's Messiah, Palestrina, all the music that transcends our nature. What about the great cathedrals, an act of faith made of stone. The great word smiths giving us words that will roll down through out the ages,

Shakespeare's Hamlet,

To be, or not to be--that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep--
No more--and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep--
To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

His Henry V

This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

John Doone's For whom the bell tolls

Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

Milton's Paradise Lost, Dantes Inferno, Molière's superbe understanding of human nature. We have designed mathematics so complex and elegant that it can describe the fundamental nature of reality. How can our genome come up with a selfless example of humanity like Sister Theresa and a total monster like Hitler?

Sinner or saint? Demon or angel? G*d only knows for I surely don't.

***** SOMEHOW THE COMMENTS GOT TURNED OFF SO I'VE REPOSTED WITH THEM ON NOW. MEA CULPA, MEA CULPA, MEA MAXIMA CULPA. (for people who were not brought up as a catholic in the old days of latin, it means: my fault, my fault, my great fault!)******