kings of the hill and the meaning of art

It wasn’t our weapons of mass destruction that made us kings of the hill. I suppose they did help us wipe out some of the bigger mammals, but mostly we just used them on each other. Still we lived pretty much in our own little niche like everybody else until we discovered agriculture, and that was when we began to take over the world.

And it was because of our intelligence that we were able to figure out agriculture, more importantly it was our intelligence that helped us invent language, or was it the other way? In any case it allowed us to pass on what we figured out to everybody else, so that we only had to have one guy figure out something and he could tell everybody else.

But animals had been around a long time, how come none of them ever became intelligent? Probably because they weren’t bipedal. Four legs pretty stable, two legs sort of wobbly, and then what good are those two other legs which are just kind of hanging there from the shoulders?

They still haven’t agreed on why we became bipedal. The most prominent theory right now is that it was hot in Africa, and if we went on two legs there wasn’t so much of us to shine on, just the tops of our head, and we had a lot of area to sweat to keep us cool, and since we were apes we were used to using our forepaws a bit like arms, and then I think we just began carrying things, and then there were all kinds of things you could do if you were a clever man and had hands, whereas if you were a clever mammoth all you could do was think deep philosophical thoughts while you munched grass and kept an eye out for the sabretooth.

And of course intelligence isn’t cheap, you need a big brain, and then you need a big head, which can’t pass through the birth canal so that we are born only partially formed and we have to stay with our parents about a dozen years which is where I think we got our morality. But then some of us decided to be bad, and did pretty well by that, and now we have that constant morality play in the background of everything we do.

But it does entertain us. And nobody knows, but those cave paintings must have something to do with entertainment. Myself I think it is just showbiz, though some of my purer in heart arty friends think it is something holy.

There is that whole thing about how art is supposed to reveal truth, and I think that is booshwa, there is no truth, but some people need to think there is, so they can go about their daily labor with the sweat of their brow and if they thought it was pointless they’d stop doing it, and then what would the rest of us have to eat? So that’s the artists’ job, to bullshit them so that they think there is a meaning in life and this way everybody eats.

Kind of a new theory of mine, haven’t worked out all the kinks yet but I think it has a nice ring.