Creative destruction

I used to admire human “creative intelligence”. It´s what makes us different from animals (or “other animals”). Humans have cities, political unions between unrelated groups, division of labor, advanced architecture, agriculture, livestock herding, air conditioning, central heating, medicine and tools.

So do ants.

On the more negative side, humans also have slavery and wage wars.

So do ants.

And note that ants *in contrast to humans* evolved all these things without “creative intelligence”, apparently only based on instinct, genes and (perhaps) an impersonal élan vital. They did so millions of years before humans even existed, and their societies are much more stable than human polities.

So tell me again why humans are so bloody special? Is it because we aren´t matriarchal? 

Well, we have art and music, I suppose. And some of us claim to have experienced the Divine. Perhaps that really is crucial. Let´s sincerely hope no ants start to sing hymns to the Six-Legged God, then…

Of course, atheists and modern painters cannot use the above argument.