Before examining the issue of ethics and morality, we must ask ourselves the question: what is it that grants such heat to the matter of right and wrong, good and evil? Why is it that mankind on the whole feels a need to be accountable for its actions? When considering the fluctuating moods of mankind's social evolution since it's earliest written history, it is clear that there is a pervasive mystery within the heart of man, one which propels tremendous upheaval in search of it's own solution.
             In The Large Ant, Howard Fast presents a cynicism stating that mankind is doomed to suffer the fate of what the character Fitzgerald called "the curse of fear", and that under this curse mankind is locked on course to it's own self-destruction. An opinion such as this is not so much an opinion as it is an attitude. There is no doubt that if this is the attitude felt in the heart of man, there will never be any hope of change. In a sense, it will become the self-fulfilling prophecy to end all self-fulfilling prophecies.
             It is a kind of laziness to observe all the murder, hatred, and suffering in the world and simply throw our hands up in the air and say "We can't change. We are what we are." (Fitzgerald). If it's our choice to associate our identity as a human race with violence and aggression, then for as long as we continue to maintain that association, it will remain true. Violence and aggression will fill our newscasts. Since written history comprises only the last ten thousand or so years, and since human evolution spans many millions of years, it is not logical to extrapolate an identity from such a tiny sample of our past. The fact of the matter is that we do not understand who we are, or what is inherent in our nature.
             Also found within our miniscule ten thousand year caption of human history is the pressing question of right and wrong I mentioned earlier. Indeed, all
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