Thinking about the self-inflicted destruction of the past year, it becomes much more clear when you realize that throughout history, various societies have resorted to human sacrifice during times of crisis. I recently re-watched the 1973 film The Wicker Man, where a police officer investigates the disappearance of a girl on an island controlled by a pagan cult, only to discover that he is to be a human sacrifice to their make-believe gods due to the failure of their fruit trees. The final scene, when officer Howie is led to the giant wooden effigy to be burned alive, is brutal.
But haven’t we seen a variation of this same scene play out over the past year? The virus was treated by the upper class almost as an angry god, and they openly demanded the sacrifice of millions to appease it. Many even relished the spectacle of it all. How is this any different from other cultures that engage in ritual sacrifice in some vain hope of bringing prosperity and peace?
Almost every culture has engaged in this behavior, and that dark impulse that we carry within us has been a very powerful, if unspoken, driving factor in the push to inflict so much harm on ourselves.
The human mind evolved over a period of several millions years during which time we had only supernatural explanations for the inexplicable world around us. We are born with that same mind, and I believe that that product of evolution plays a far more important role in world affairs, particularly in times of crisis, than we’d like to believe.
