{"id":34947,"date":"2015-01-07T12:41:09","date_gmt":"2015-01-07T19:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/?p=34947"},"modified":"2015-10-23T14:45:47","modified_gmt":"2015-10-23T21:45:47","slug":"author-rick-barker-questions-wars-inevitability-speaker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/2015\/01\/07\/author-rick-barker-questions-wars-inevitability-speaker\/","title":{"rendered":"Author Rick Barker questions war\u2019s inevitability as speaker"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_30995\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-30995\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-30995\" src=\"http:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/author-barker.jpg\" alt=\"Rick Barker, the January ICC speaker. Photo courtesy Rick Barker\" width=\"300\" height=\"450\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-30995\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rick Barker, the January ICC speaker.<br \/>Photo courtesy Rick Barker<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Philosopher Rick Barker, author of \u201cTranscending Evolution, a Christian Guide to Understanding, Accepting and Transcending Evolution\u201d (Amazon 2014), riffs on complex themes and evolutionary history much like a master jazz improviser. He connects the dissonances and sonorities of human societal growth to illustrate what is the most important end product of that growth \u2014 choice.<\/p>\n<p>He is the featured presenter this month for the Idyllwild Community Center\u2019s Speaker Series. He will examine the question, \u201cIs War Inevitable?\u201d by reviewing our continuing journey from tribal to global thinking and motivation. He notes that when we were more primitive, our drives were primarily alpha in nature \u2014 procreation and survival. But he points out we also had a drive, the empathy drive, that helped us integrate productive societal structures \u2014 division of labor, care for the young and elderly, self-sacrifice \u2014 that put the group before the individual. And that empathy drive has helped us balance our more primitive impulses, so that with awareness and recognition of our patterns we can overcome genetically wired predispositions to certain instinctive behaviors and be more at choice.<\/p>\n<p>War, said Barker, is not the same as the aggressive nature of an individual. It was historically an empathetic impulse to protect the welfare of the group, the tribe. \u201cIt could be said that the most valuable thing about the empathy drive was that it made us more warlike,\u201d said Barker. \u201cThe alpha drive alone put the individual\u2019s needs before those of the group.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But must that need to protect one group from another, to be warlike, continue as humanity evolves? How is it now, in the 21st century? How far have we evolved? And is war inevitable?<\/p>\n<p>Barker notes that the easiest way to create solidarity is to create an \u201cout\u201d group \u2014 the \u201cother.\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s what Hitler did,\u201d said Barker. \u201cHe rallied a country by creating and demonizing an \u2018out\u2019 group.\u201d But, Barker notes, we have grown to a point where, for the most part, we do not any longer create \u201cout\u201d groups based on genetically acquired traits. \u201cThat was the upshot of the 1960s,\u201d he said. \u201cIt became explicitly illegal to judge or discriminate against others based on genetically acquired traits. We have gradually come to value culturally acquired traits over genetically defined ones such as race or skin color.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He quotes Joseph Campbell, \u201cToday the planet is the only proper \u2018in\u2019 group,\u201d as an indicator of what is happening globally. \u201cOur \u2018in\u2019 group will naturally expand over time,\u201d said Barker. \u201cIt is my personal belief that the biggest challenges facing us today \u2014 including war, GMOs, climate change and factory farming \u2014 will not be solved from the top down. They can only be solved from a grassroots level. If we are ever going to get past being warlike, it will be because individual humans chose to be more connected and empathetic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Barker said much of reality is a mystery to him but what he does understand, from both a philosophical and scientific level, is human nature, why it is the way it is and how it can be changed by the individual, to increase his well-being and that of the world itself. \u201cI subscribe to the notion that meaningful change can only happen in the world when a certain critical mass of people choose to be the change that they want to see,\u201d he said. \u201cI cannot change another person, only they can do that, but I can share a few tools that can help people change, help them be aware of choices they can make.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Barker is a spirited and charismatic speaker. Although his body is dealing with the effects of Parkinson\u2019s disease \u2014 he sometimes must consciously will his body to do things like walking that others take for granted \u2014 his intelligence and ability to convey an engaging and understandable narrative of the most complex issues remain powerful. \u201cParkinson\u2019s turned out to be the luckiest thing ever,\u201d said Barker, acknowledging how it caused him to reconsider existing patterns and make different choices.<\/p>\n<p>His presentation is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 15, in the great room of Silver Pines Lodge. There will be a wine and cheese reception at 5:30 p.m. Both are free to the public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Philosopher Rick Barker, author of \u201cTranscending Evolution, a Christian Guide to Understanding, Accepting and Transcending Evolution\u201d (Amazon 2014), riffs on complex themes and evolutionary history much like a master jazz improviser. He connects the dissonances and sonorities of human societal growth to illustrate what is the most important end product of that growth \u2014 choice. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"amp_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,19],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Author Rick Barker questions war\u2019s inevitability as speaker &#8226; Idyllwild Town Crier<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/2015\/01\/07\/author-rick-barker-questions-wars-inevitability-speaker\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Marshall Smith\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/2015\/01\/07\/author-rick-barker-questions-wars-inevitability-speaker\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/2015\/01\/07\/author-rick-barker-questions-wars-inevitability-speaker\/\",\"name\":\"Author Rick Barker questions war\u2019s inevitability as speaker &#8226; Idyllwild Town Crier\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/2015\/01\/07\/author-rick-barker-questions-wars-inevitability-speaker\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/2015\/01\/07\/author-rick-barker-questions-wars-inevitability-speaker\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/author-barker.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-01-07T19:41:09+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-10-23T21:45:47+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/#\/schema\/person\/800eebb80d1e5e36859dc6c5cb500784\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/2015\/01\/07\/author-rick-barker-questions-wars-inevitability-speaker\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/2015\/01\/07\/author-rick-barker-questions-wars-inevitability-speaker\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/2015\/01\/07\/author-rick-barker-questions-wars-inevitability-speaker\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/author-barker.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"http:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/author-barker.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/2015\/01\/07\/author-rick-barker-questions-wars-inevitability-speaker\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Author Rick Barker questions war\u2019s inevitability as speaker\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/\",\"name\":\"Idyllwild Town Crier\",\"description\":\"Almost All the News \u2014\u00a0Part of the Time\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/#\/schema\/person\/800eebb80d1e5e36859dc6c5cb500784\",\"name\":\"Marshall Smith\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6f832ebbb90c77ae40e932b1b868a8db?s=96&d=retro&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6f832ebbb90c77ae40e932b1b868a8db?s=96&d=retro&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Marshall Smith\"},\"description\":\"Marshall Smith has been writing for the Town Crier since 2005. 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