Rock Video Illustrates Nihilism of Evolution

Senseless sex.  Mass death.  Religious hypocrisy.  Moral equivalence.  Impersonality.  Irresponsibility.  Male aggression, abduction and murder.  Glorification of lust.  Book burning.  Assembly-line babies.  Dehumanization.  Terrorism.  Holocaust.  Armageddon.  It’s all illustrated with raw intensity in the Pearl Jam rock video, Do the Evolution, available on YouTube.com.¹  Evolution wipes out humanity, without remorse, in just 3:53 minutes.  Watch it only if you dare.

¹Do the Evolution, from the Pearl Jam album Yield (1998).  Background information on the production is presented on Wikipedia, which also lists the lyrics.  The song got a Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance in 1998, and this particular video was nominated for a Grammy for Best Music Video; it is also on the Pearl Jam DVD, Touring Band 2000.  This year, the music video has been uploaded 82 times by subscribers on YouTube, and has been rated five stars and a favorite of all time by many of them.  Researchers may want to study the comments of young people who say “really cool” and “LOVE this vid” and express many of the same antisocial feelings.

WARNING:  This video is filled with intense and disturbing images and screaming rock.  Not suitable for children and definitely jarring to anyone.  Its value is in shocking the remaining sensible and civil adults among us to the reality of what evolutionary nihilism is doing to our world (see 08/23/2006 entry).*
    Entertainers (if that term fits here) can sometimes communicate things with an intensity beyond logic and facts.  The phantasmagoria of horror in this video is clearly shown to be mere acting out of the beast within us, from which we all emerged as bacteria long ago, according to the dominant “scientific” theory of human origins taught as fact in our schools without alternatives.  As a consequence of this world view, bombing millions of people is no different than a little girl stepping on an anthill.  There’s no responsibility, no moral consequences, no worries.  It all makes perfect nonsense when you do the evolution.
    We’d like to see the Richard Dawkinses and E. O. Wilsons of this era comment on this video.  Let them try to disown it and explain to Pearl Jam fans around the world that this is not what gentle old Father Charlie intended when he unleashed his little bombshell book to the world.  Let them explain why this kind of world view is not a logical extension of evolutionary theory.  Any comments, Eugenie Scott?  Ken Miller?  Are you proud of this?  Where is the ADL now?  Where is NOW now?  All you Tolerance people, your silence is deafening.
    Clergymen accustomed to speaking lovey-dovey platitudes to gently smiling seniors and soccer moms should be forced to watch this video before standing in their pulpits this weekend and facing the young people in the pews, who probably consider this number just ordinary fare from the grunge rock rage of the late 1990s, and pretty cool animation: “I’ll do what I want, but irresponsibly / It’s evolution, baby / I’m a thief / I’m a liar / That’s my church; I sing in the choir… I crawled the earth, but now I’m higher / Twenty-ten, watch it go to fire / It’s evolution, baby / It’s evolution, baby / Do the evolution / Come on, come on, come on!”  How about showing that in your church for Evolution Sunday, all you liberal pastors who signed allegiance to Charlie? (see 02/11/2006).  Invite Elie Wiesel to enjoy it with you (02/28/2006, 09/19/2005).
    Pearl Jam, just one band of a whole genre of grunge rock, gets thousands of screaming admirers on its world tours with its brand of sermon preaching hate and meaninglessness.  If this does not send a man of God to his knees, nothing will.

Some may relegate this kind of expression to normal youth rebelliousness and criticism of authority and hypocrisy, combined with shock value for publicity.  Some may think it was just a satire on evolution without really taking it seriously, or was actually a criticism of evolutionism.  That doesn’t seem to be the case from the Wikipedia analysis: “The video begins with the evolution of life, from the smallest cell to the extinction of dinosaurs and reign of homo sapiens,” it says matter-of factly; “The video evolves into depicting human beings in violent yet historically true scenes.”
    In other words, any intended message against violence is swamped by the assumption that evolution shows the true history of the world as one of violence and extinction, one species devouring another, for millions of years.  What humans have done to each other, and might do, is all in character with evolution.  On what basis could or should they do anything else?  Do the evolution, indeed.
    The album was apparently inspired by Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, an evolution-based novel with an overt Malthusian, anti-JudeoChristian message that has a cult following of its own.  It’s remarkable how much of this cult includes an obsessive hatred of Genesis.
    The fans get the message, too.  Consider that the Columbine High School massacre (see Wikipedia) occurred only a few months after this album was released, and one of the young killers wore a T-shirt proclaiming “Natural Selection.”  The Wikipedia article includes a quote from their diary expressing nihilistic rage very similar to that in the Pearl Jam song – again, with NATURAL SELECTION, in all caps, the centerpiece. 

Wake up, people.  This is deadly serious.