devolution: [mean monkeys]

The invention of the wheel, agriculture, and paper
Pulling electricity from lightning, erecting skyscrapers
Telephones, microphones, sonar, radar, printing press
Banking systems, currency, motor vehicles, steady progress
Aerospace, solar power, high-speed internet, wi-fi
Pasteurization, irrigation, making science from sci-fi
Language, art, philosophy, music and graphics
Medicine, religion, conservation, mathematics

Miracle after miracle, humans adapt, create, and persist
But what does it all mean if we can’t coexist?

We think we’re better than animals; we assume and suppose.
We’re nothing more than mean monkeys with enough shame to wear clothes

We put each other in chains, camps of concentration and internment
Attack the weak and disenfranchised, without any discernment

Where there’s politically and state-sponsored genocide of thousands of lives
Where 20 kids get killed and Congress doesn’t blink an eye

Soon it’ll register that you ain’t better than an apex predator
That ate its competitor, you just have a better editor
Writing history to elevate and separate us from the lesser, lionizing aggressors
Short memory is a luxurious privilege of the oppressor

So while tub-thumpers debate the tenets of religion and evolution,
The truly concerned will focus on our humanity, looking for solutions

Can’t really claim to be enlightened when we still remain primal
Can’t really progress collectively if our thinking is still tribal

Can’t really eliminate our rivals and say it’s all about survival
And wait for freedom’s arrival when our actions prove suicidal

Darwin had it wrong
Survival of the fittest masks survival of the witless

So until we figure it out
We’ll remain a planet full of fatalistic junkies
I seriously doubt
We’ll ever be more than a zoo full of mean monkeys