Eat or Be Eaten : The Truth About Our Species - The Marriage of Darwin and Machiavelli [Paperback]

James Aloysius Gibson (Author), Patricia-Bravata Brozinsky (Author), Patricia Bravata-Brozinsky (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 4, 2000

"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?" -WB Yeats

"The people - that great beast." -Alexander Hamilton -

You are a wild animal. You live by your innate instincts. You awaken from a deep sleep and discover that you are without teeth and claws. You continue to be an inhabitant of the wilderness. What do you do? Stripped of all your natural defenses you begin to develop the art of intrigue and subterfuge - you become a master of deception.

This book is about deception. It is about the deception of self and of our relationship to our environment. It is a narrative of a species that once lived side-by-side with all the other animals only to find itself one day as the master of death and destruction. How we got to where we are is the beginning of our story.

Long ago we were part of a collective that lived out of instinctual wisdom. The emergence of the cerebral cortex led our species to a life of codified behavior. We became disenfranchised. We created a style of living that was contrary to the essence of being vital and alive. While not a single member of the species has been able to live by the laws and codes we established it became necessary to create the illusion of doing so. It is not the species but the laws and codes that have perverted our deep animal nature.

"EAT OR BE EATENThe Truth About Our Species - The Marriage of Darwin and Machiavelli" does not anthropocentrize the world of animals or the world of humans. Our book asks, as Angela Carter suggests, "Humans would be better off identifying with the primates rather than with the angels." It asks that we appreciate Picasso's quote, "The ultimate event of the cerebral cortex is Hiroshima." Over three hundred million fellow human beings were slaughtered in the twentieth century in war and genocide by anthropocentrism. Since the emergence of the cortex we have disassociated ourselves from the Animal Kingdom and we have spent an isolated lifetime searching for meaning. We demand order where chaos prevails. Humanity has established intellectual models to explain the universe and each of these models has ultimately failed: Aristotle contradicts Plato; Aquinas contradicts Augustine; Marx contradicts Hegel. The following quote by Albert Camus presents the human dilemma, "It is not the universe that is absurd. It is not human beings that are absurd. It is the human being living within the universe that is absurd. While the universe is random, human beings demand order: thus lies the absurdity."

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jim Gibson

"Life is too important to be taken seriously." -Oscar Wilde

Jim Gibson makes people laugh. Most people around him, even his patients, leave with a big grin. Jim Gibson also makes people think. As a graduate school professor he was the catalyst for his students pondering their way to a metamorphosis: waking up one day as psychotherapists. While he does not take himself seriously he takes his commitment to writing and lecturing with great resolve. It is the air he breathes. Concepts and formulation of the concepts are his lifeblood.

Jim has presented over one hundred workshops, most by popular demand. His workshops are stimulating and thought provoking. His writing is stimulating and thought provoking. He has had a private practice in psychotherapy for over twenty-six years. He has taught Human Behavior and the Social Environment for eighteen years on the graduate level at The School of Social Work, State University of New York at Stony Brook. He and Patricia Brozinsky have been in collaboration for the past ten years.

Pat Brozinsky

"The two most beautiful words in the English language are: 'Check enclosed.'" -Dorothy Parker

After raising a family Pat Brozinsky began to mature into a fine wine. Her insatiable curiosity expanded out into the world where she discovered her version of paradise. Pat lives and breathes curiosity. Throughout her academic career her professors identified her as the inquisitive mind. She received her associate's degree, her bachelor's degree and her Master's of Social Work degree (MSW) in rapid succession. Seven years later she earned her Ph.D. in Human Behavior.

Upon receiving her MSW degree, her alma mater hired her as an adjunct faculty member to teach a full-range of courses in psychology. She simultaneously began a full-time private practice in psychotherapy. It was in both these endeavors that Pat discovered her gift of inspiring people to flights of curiosity.

Dissolving stereotypical perceptions and moving quickly into the essence of an object is one of her greatest gifts. Pat's Piscean-intuitive abilities guide her into places the uninitiated have never ventured, opening a formerly unforeseen world for her patients, her students and her readers.

Pat has conducted many workshops since receiving her MSW and Ph.D. As a result of these workshops Pat appeared on a local television series in which she shared her philosophy of human behavior. Both she and Jim Gibson have established excellent reputations that make them sought after speakers in the Long Island-New York area. Pat is an expert on playfulness.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

CHAPTER 46 - Be Thyself

"Although the masters make the rules For the wise men and the fools I got nothing, Ma, to live up to." - Bob Dylan

Historically, our civilization has been profoundly influenced by religion. The problem that emerged from religion in its early development was that it became too God-centered rather than human-centered (after all that is exactly what we are, human. How quickly we forget!). Religious hierarchy identified themselves as the mediators with the Godhead. They began to demand that all followers become more like God than like humans in both their behaviors and their attitude toward life.

An impossible task and one that was doomed to failure from the beginning. What our goal should have been as a race was to become human, with all its infinite aspects. There is a wonderful story about an Hasidic Rabbi, Rabbi Goldstein, who at an elderly age, is dying.

He is in his bed surrounded by the inner circle of his large congregation. One of the members looks lovingly upon the Rabbi and says, "Surely Rabbi, you are not afraid to die." The Rabbi answers: "On the contrary, I am very afraid to die." Those around him respond in a chorus-like fashion: "How can you be afraid to die? Youve lived your life just like Moses." To which the Rabbi answered: "That is the very reason that I am afraid to die. For in minutes when I meet God he will not say to me 'Rabbi Goldstein why didn't you live your life more like Moses.' But God will say, 'Rabbi Goldstein, why didn't you live your life more like Rabbi Goldstein?'"

"There is only one success--- to spend your life in your own way." - Christopher Morley

Product Details

• Paperback: 198 pages
• Publisher: Jake & Charlie Productions (April 4, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0970097204
• ISBN-13: 978-0970097200
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,443,089 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A surprisingly original and thought provoking book., February 15, 2001

By 

Blair Warren (San Antonio, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Eat or Be Eaten : The Truth About Our Species - The Marriage of Darwin and Machiavelli (Paperback)

I wasn't prepared for how profound an impact this book would have on me. While its style is VERY loose and at times frustrating, the book paints a picture of reality that is both disturbing and liberating. At its heart, the book attempts to expose and thus destroy the many invisible constraints others have placed on our lives. Eat or Be Eaten will clearly be despised by those who control others via social and/or religious precepts. For those who've played by "the rules" yet haven't experienced the joy they've been promised, this book will be a breath of fresh air. Near the end of the book is a quote by Christopher Morley that states, "There is only one success - to spend your life in your own way." Eat or Be Eaten is for those who are ready to make this happen.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A RELATIVE MATCH, April 19, 2001

By 

AstarX and Friends (Yes2Art City - CO 80907 U.S.A.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eat or Be Eaten : The Truth About Our Species - The Marriage of Darwin and Machiavelli (Paperback)

If we allow ourselves to be trapped between the jaws of our imagination and our reality -- between that better world we dream of and the worse one we inhabit -- we may find our condition a very unsatisfactory one; and one of our traditional compensations is to look down at all those 'lower' forms of life to which we suppose ourselves superior in happiness.

This book provides a mirror, a cracked mirror.

Our human world may seem cruel and brief; but in the rest of nature at least it is worse. This consolation does not bear close scrutiny, for what is revealed through the pages of "Eat or Be Eaten" then is not a universe of hazard-bestowed privilege, one in which man stands highest on the ladder of luck, but one in which -- with a single eXception -- there reigns a mysterious balance and *equality* among all the forms of animate matter. Paraphrasing Darwin, we should call this equality in eXisting **relativity of recompense**

It can be defined thus: ***Relativity of recompense is that which allows, at any stage of evolution, any sentient creature to find under normal conditions the same comparative pleasure in eXisting as all other sentient creatures of its own or any other age.*** Two factors establish this equality among all sentient forms of life, whether they be past or present, simple or compleX, with a life-span of an hour or one of decades. The first is that they are all able to feel pleasure and pain; the second is that not one of them is able to compare its own eXperience of pleasure and pain with any other creature's.

The single eXception to this happy oblivion is man. James Aloysius and friends well describe the quandary of this eXception...

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A real think piece, August 3, 2000

By 

Joel Monka (Indianapolis, IN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eat or Be Eaten : The Truth About Our Species - The Marriage of Darwin and Machiavelli (Paperback)

You may not agree with everything written...or even most of it. But it WILL make you think about the concepts brought up. In fact, you'll find yourself re-thinking old beliefs not even specificaly mentioned in the book, because you'll get in the habit of examining things from unusual perspectives while reading this. I give it three stars for philosophy- but five stars for a good read!