Lacking substance, repetitive. Don't bother.

Griffith's insights into human behaviour crash noisily through the confusion that seems to permeate EVERY aspect of life, be it political, cultural, personal, environmental; he even delves into religion (possibly the hottest of topics going today). But more importantly than just talking about today’s realities in honest language, Griffith actually provides both an explanation of and a solution for the craziness around us! I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for an honest examination of our world and our place in it, and how on earth we are going to get out of the mess we’ve created.

This is a serious book that will blow your mind and change the way you view the world forever. Jeremy Griffith puts forward a unique explanation of human behavior based on the difference between how instincts and a conscious mind operate, and what inevitably occurs when consciousness emerges in the presence of pre-existing instincts. He suggests that all the dysfunction and trauma exhibited in human activity today can be sourced to the unavoidable conflict that emerged 2 million years ago when consciousness developed in early humans and challenged our instincts. This simple proposition is backed up by a wealth of data, from anthropology and primatology to great literature and even popular culture. Further, he suggests that human instincts were to be cooperative and loving, not brutish and aggressive—the opposite of what we’ve generally been taught for decades. These core propositions form the basis of this sweeping book. It is effectively an avalanche of new ideas that build on each other and so be prepared, it’s a lot to take in! But this book contains truly extraordinary revelations. Liberate yourself: read this book.

Is it in our nature to be competitive, selfish, lustful and violent, as we see in the countless BBC nature documentaries? And is it the function of our remarkable conscious brain to ‘manage’ these savage instincts? Or is this completely backwards and dangerously inaccurate? It’s a fascinating argument and one which there is much debate.

In 'FREEDOM: The End Of The Human Condition', biologist Jeremy Griffith draws on mythology, the scriptures, anthropological evidence and our closest living relatives, the Bonobo Chimpanzees, to present the reader with a remarkable picture of what our species’ instinctive behaviour actually is. He explains that pre-consciousness, our species experienced an “innocent, unconditionally selfless, genuinely altruistic, fully cooperative, universally loving, peaceful state”. He explains that our “moral instincts, the ‘voice’ of which is our conscience” arose from a process of ‘love-indoctrination’ that occurred in our primate forebears during this idyllic period in our species development.

He explains, through the use of a simple analogy, what the consequences were for our species when we developed our fully conscious brain — inevitably, a battle broke out between our already established instincts, and our developing intellect.

It is this division, and the sense of unease caused by not being able to explain this division, that has resulted in our conflicted, ‘good and evil’ condition — the ‘human condition’. He suggests we have lived with a subconscious sense of guilt about our worth as a species. And it is this subconscious insecurity about our worth that has been a driving force in so much of our behaviour and an issue we inevitably have had to avoid facing.

This key tenet to Griffith’s discourse is but a fraction of the scope that this book covers — I haven’t even mentioned the explanation for the meaning of life!! But my brief review cannot come close to doing justice to the scope and importance of this book.

Quite simply, the importance of this book cannot be overstated. Beyond the discussion of whether our behaviour is caused by the same forces we see at play in the animal kingdom, FREEDOM contains many questions we don’t stop to consider, and deals with subjects we subconsciously choose to avoid. This is clean, honest thinking that is both refreshing and confronting. But surely honesty is what we need for there to be any real human progress.

So be braced – this is not another feel-good, politically correct, new-age self-help book, and there is no 10-step guide to mindfulness or ego-repression. This book brings about ‘the end of the human condition’, as the title suggests, through first-principle based understanding. After presenting the biological explanation, Griffith then describes the situation facing the world, and delivers the honest assessment of our collective madness. Digesting this, you could conclude that the key to species’ emancipation is in honesty and acknowledging the extent of our alienation, which we now can, however Griffith explains that we just need to “get the truth up and move on”. As he says: “humanity now has the option to move on to an entirely new existence”.

Once you consider the simple explanation and it’s consequences, you see the human story is indeed remarkable. Griffith writes, “humans are wonderful beings after all. In fact, not just wonderful but the heroes of the whole story of life on Earth”. An absorption of this finds your whole outlook on life and yourself completely changed, with a renewed level of empathy for your fellow man and importantly, for yourself.

The potential for this book is enormous. Here’s hoping this mad neurotic world has the time to read it. It might just save us yet..

I have been studying Griffith’s theory for over 25 years. I desperately wanted to believe he had found the answers to humanity’s problems. He hasn’t.

The idea that our ancestor Ardipithecus ramidus was peaceful and cooperative and that our subsequent development of aggressive and competitive tendencies is a result of a psychological conflict is sound.

The problem arises with the concept that the extended nurturing which made us loving and cooperative produced in us an unforgiving genetic conscience which demands such behaviour. Forgiveness of non-loving behaviour is an essential feature of love.

I have no doubt that idealism is the source of the human condition, but it is not an inborn genetic orientation. It is a social phenomenon arising from our conscious minds need to understand why there is such a thing as destructive behaviour. Our original example of such behaviour would most likely have been that of predatory animals.

Idealism is disintegrative. It is a destructive thought virus. By giving us a false way of explaining its nature, this book will not liberate us from the human condition.

It is hard to put into words what Freedom can do for you and will do for the world. It is absolutely the most profound and important thing in the world today, because it actually explains (with science), and thus relieves, the human condition, which is the cause of all the pain and suffering and destruction in ourselves and the world.

There are just so many things in this book that make you shake your head and think “I can’t believe I’m reading this, I can’t believe I can finally properly understand what is going on”.

Essentially the human condition is humans’ capacity for good and evil. Freedom explains why we are different from other animals in that we have a conscious brain (not an instinct driven brain), and what has happened since the emergence of consciousness that has resulted in the human condition that we now suffer from. Once you understand this overarching explanation, you can understand everything about ourselves and the world, and Jeremy Griffith explains loads of them in this book. From understanding the cause of the war between the sexes, which causes so much heartache and unhappiness to humans, to what is religion and why have we needed religion in our lives, to politics and the reason for the left and right wing, and then Griffith explains all the new age movements that have more recently become like religions to so many people seeking solace from themselves and the world, and so so so much more. It really is mind blowing what you will discover in this book.

Freedom is the truth, and therefor it can be confronting and at first difficult to swallow the explanation for how angry, egocentric, alienated, corrupt, unhappy, selfish and deluded us humans have become while at the same time trying to prove to ourselves and the world that we are good despite it being very difficult to really know why. This book doesn’t leave you alone, it completely dignifies this behaviour by explaining why humans had to become so destructive as it was an inevitable part of the developement of consiousness. Freedom then explains how to cope with the truth about ourselves by giving us the fabulous solution to how to embrace the truth and happily live in support of the information. The result being that we no longer have to live so preoccupied with trying to be something that we aren’t, trying to constantly prove to ourselves and the world that we are a good person, instead we just get to accept that we are far from being ideal, but we are exactly what we needed to be to survive until these understanding were worked out and thus enabling us to finally be relieved from our condition. And the result is that once we are relieved from the human condition, we stop living out our upset, and instead live in support of the truth, which will ultimately stop all the destruction and pain and suffering in the world. What an absolutely fabulous outcome! This really will save the world, because it deals with the underlying source of the problem, it isn’t some feel good bandaid solution that doesn’t really fix anything at all.

You really can’t afford not to read this book because when something like this turns up we have a responsibility to firstly validate its authenticity, and then do everything we can to support it, because the world is in dire straights and desperately and quickly needs a proper solution. And Freedom delivers that solution, all in one incredible book. This is the most important book you will ever read, you honestly will never need to search for anwers again once you read and understand what is in this book.

Our chaotic and moribund world is facing escalating fundamentalist extremism, a decline in the communities trust in our public institutions and their ability to restore order or credibly solve the issues they face, and a political potpourri of virulent rhetoric from the right and sibilant shrill from the left. Governments have given up on rational thinking and are mired in self-interest, short term opportunism, moralistic hubris, junk economics and are lacking any real vision, courage or conviction.

Meanwhile close to 1 billion people across the world suffer from chronic undernourishment, the 85 richest people in the world are as wealthy as the poorest half of the world, a child dies from a water related disease every 21 seconds, almost half the world — over three billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day, and according to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each day due to poverty.

The impact of our human behaviour on our world is stark. We have become a rotting corpse of inequality and injustice, violence and suffering, exploitation and corruption, where hunger, greed, poverty, obesity, illness, desperation, fear, anxiety and psychological despair are endemic.

We have seemingly entered a time in history, where the collective world is sensing a loss of control, leadership and courage. Fear has replaced fight, despair has replaced optimism and politically correct dogma has replaced reason.

There is seemingly no relief from our plight.

And that is why this book is so important.

In Freedom Jeremy Griffith shows that understanding of our human condition is the only real solution to our plight as a species, and that through understanding of our human condition we can stop all of this madness on the planet.

Freedom asks the key fundamental questions we face as a species: Why are we the way we are? Where does our contradictory nature and this dark side to our behavior come from? Does our divisive behavior mean that we are fundamentally “bad” or “flawed”? and how will this behavior ever be bought to an end?

Freedom then explains the full truth about our human condition. It shows the reader that it is through understanding the human condition and that there has been a very good reason for all our selfish, divisive and destructive behaviour that the underlying burden of guilt and insecurity that we have all been living with can be lifted from our individual and collective psyche and all of our crazy and destructive behaviour can subside and ultimately we can all liberate ourselves from life under the duress of the human condition.

It becomes very clear as you digest the book that not only is the issue of human condition the only real question facing the human race, but understanding it is the only real solution for all the problems facing us today.

Courage said Aristotle ‘is the first of human virtues because it makes all others possible’, and the courage needed now is to confront this truth about ourselves and bring about a new possibility and future for humanity.

Jeremy Griffith’s summa masterpiece FREEDOM: The End Of The Human Condition is the spectacular culmination of more than 40 years of researching and writing about the human condition, its effect on the psychological state of humanity and its relieving and transforming explanation. The more I read the more I could see why leading psychiatrist Professor Prosen described this book in his Introduction as the “greatest of all books”. This is because FREEDOM presents the profound and comprehensive explanation of ALL the elemental questions that have baffled humanity – science in particular – surrounding our existence on this planet. The Contents page alone reads like the collected works of all of humanity’s greatest ever thinkers and prophets; and it’s a fair assessment, judging by the vast array of quotes that Griffith draws on. Topics include: the explanation of the human condition, the meaning of life, why and how did consciousness emerge in humans, the origins of the human soul, the transformation of the human race and many others. Griffith outlines particularly the four great unconfrontable truths that have stalled any meaningful scientific enquiry, namely the biological explanation of precisely what the human condition is, the meaning of existence, how we humans acquired our altruistic moral instincts and how we became conscious when other animals didn’t. These, Griffith explains, are the major stalling points that science has heroically but fearfully tried to penetrate, but without the fundamental explanation of ourselves it has been a confounding and increasingly impossible task.

A warning to the reader that this is not another “feel-good” intellectual publication but one that leaves you with an eerie sense that something profound is being discussed over which you have little control! For those not familiar with Griffith’s earlier work the “Notes to the Reader” at the beginning of the book addresses this discomfort; “Readers are warned that the issue of the human condition that this book addresses
has been such a difficult subject for humans to confront that reading about it can initially cause a ‘deaf effect’, where it is hard to take in and absorb what is being said. However, with patience and re-reading this deaf effect wears off, allowing the compassionate and immensely relieving insights to become accessible”.

The relevance of Griffith’s book cannot be lost on the reader – from both a macro and micro view of human life on this planet, the situation is overwhelmingly desperate – from the visible signs of our wrecked environment, overpopulation and overcrowding, governmental dysfunction, escalating conflicts and rampant self-interest to the less visible but no less distressing epidemics of psychosis, neurosis, depression, and other disorders stemming form colossal levels of alienation from our natural world. The situation is very serious, the need for clarity urgent. It is in this arena that Griffith compassionately illustrates what the problem is – the human condition – and then goes about paragraph by soothing paragraph to outline the simple, logical, dignified, biologically-based explanation for this condition. The psychological outlook on our lives is upturned and re-laid out in the most simple, rational and refreshingly original explanations. Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing (whom Griffith readily quotes) wrote, “The requirement of the present, the failure of the past, is the same: to provide a thoroughly self-conscious and self-critical human account of man” (par 224). Griffith outlines that paradoxically, the human condition is “the all-important issue that had to be solved…[but] it has been the great unacknowledged ‘elephant in the living room’ of our lives, THE absolutely critical and yet completely unconfrontable and virtually unmentionable subject in life” (par 130). Interested yet?

More often than not, publications that attempt to explain elusive subjects like the human soul, religion and consciousness etc., tend to get lost in their own maze of well-meaning intellectual confusion, but what this book reveals is the absolutely incredible, terrifying, confronting, most heroic, completely unabridged, truthful story of us humans from start to finish. Never before has there been such a totally symmetrical and holistic illustration of the problem facing the world and its compassionate solution.

More often than not, publications that attempt to explain elusive subjects like the human soul, religion and consciousness etc., tend to get lost in their own maze of well-meaning intellectual confusion, but what this book reveals is the absolutely incredible, terrifying, confronting, most heroic, completely unabridged, truthful story of us humans from start to finish. Never before has there been such a totally symmetrical and holistic illustration of the problem facing the world and its compassionate solution.

After reading 'Freedom' I know this: that everything is going to be alright, in fact wonderful. The terror, neurosis and horror in this world is about to subside, as this book delivers no less than the self-knowledge we humans have desperately needed at this critical point in time. Looking around at the state of our planet, it is clear that the world is heaving under the pressure of all the problems we face - yet this book alone puts us squarely back on course to a promising future. Anyone concerned about the state of the world should have this book at the top of their reading list.

"The ultimate thought, the thought which holds the clue to the riddle of life's meaning and mystery, must be the simplest thought conceivable, the most natural, the most elemental, and therefore also the most profound". George Seaver (page 140)

Jeremy Griffith's treatise on the human condition is precisely this and so much more. This far-reaching explanation starts right at the beginning at our biological origins, with the explanation of our 'human condition' presented via an incredibly simple, yet powerful analogy followed by pages of truthful insights, providing a complete understanding of ourselves and our world.

I was walking to work the other day after reading 'Freedom' and it occurred to me how secure I was in the knowledge that our moral instincts are genuine, that we did come from an original state of cooperativeness (see Chapter 5) and even though we currently are immensely destructive and damaged, that was necessary and can change now. There's a plethora of books that talk of peace of mind, but nothing compares to this ability now to 'know' and the peace of mind that gives you.

There is a particularly moving description on page 50 regarding how humans have been waiting for this moment, and on page 76-78 regarding an honest passage from Catcher in the Rye. It's impossible to describe the level of empathy the author has for humans in his writing and how intuitively it rings true - I strongly encourage you to experience it for yourself.

A quote I came across recently keeps coming to mind: "Something good will come out of all things yet - And it will be golden and eternal just like that - there's no need to say another word".

I believe it has and it's 'Freedom'

How do you review a book that introduces a new paradigm? By what yardstick can you possibly measure it? That is the difficulty a reviewer faces with Griffith’s book ‘FREEDOM: The End Of The Human Condition’.

The main idea is that at our deepest level at humans are unsure whether we are good or bad. We are insecure, so insecure that we cant even admit it. As a result we are all preoccupied with proving ourselves. The only way humanity can become secure is through finally finding the scientific understanding that explains why humans are good even though we appear to be bad. And that is what this book presents. That explanation, so you have an idea of what it is, is as follows: “A conflict between our instinct and intellect occurred because instincts are only orientations, which means that when the insightful nerve-based learning system became sufficiently able to understand cause and effect to wrest management of self from the instincts the instinctive orientations would have challenged that takeover, leaving the intellect no choice other than to defy that resistance, with that necessary defiance being the explanation for our angry, egocentric and alienated human-condition-afflicted state.”

Griffith uses this intellect vs instinct theory to then explain religion, our egocentricity, the battle of the sexes, the ADHD epidemic, materialism, differences between races, the left and right wing in politics, adolescence, why science has had to be mechanistic, the deeper meaning of great works of literature etc etc etc etc. And what is so extraordinary — and confirming of the central concept — is just how readily all these aspects of our existence can be explained when this intellect vs instinct insight is applied.

After reading this book you will never look at the world the same way; indeed you will never look at yourself the same way. This book gives the gift of understanding. Read it.