A species’ universal history is its certificate of good or bad conduct. Would, on the basis of our own species’ record in this regard, an extra-terrestrial civilization entrust us with the carrying out of responsible tasks? Would they even engage us as minor auxiliaries?
Erich Fromm (1900–1980)
People who procreate implicitly attest thereby to the species’ conduct-certificate’s being free of any major taint or blemish; with the birth of their child they affix to this certificate, as it were, a stamp which renders it valid for the span of one further generation. Erich Fromm, however, states the following:
“The history of humankind reports an extraordinary destructiveness and cruelty and the aggressivity of Man is clearly of a far greater order than that of his animal ancestors; Man is, in contrast to the majority of animals, a real ‘killer’.” (Erich Fromm, Anatomy of Human Destructiveness)
