Author: Dr. David Yourtee

ISBN: 9780978114510

Today, Norm Goldman, Publisher & Editor of Bookpleasures.com is honored to have as our guest, Dr. David Yourtee, Professor Emeritus, University of Missouri, and author of The Final Human.

Good day Dr. Yourtee and thank you for participating in our interview.

Dr. Yourtee: 

I’m happy to participate and thank you for the opportunity to familiarize readers with the book. 

Norm:

What motivated you to write The Final Human?

Dr. Yourtee:

Readers of the book will know it began with an experience in Africa, a teaching, but directly in my case being appalled, standing back and looking, really looking at us! 

When you do this you see the “Collective Insanities”.  This is to put a name on what so many of us feel describes our times. Too many people follow along, mindlessly, allowing themselves to be brainwashed into believing that absurd even horrible things are normal, acceptable. 

Routinely we’ve slipped deep into this, losing a fundamental sense of responsibility that we once had.  You know them these crazy ways of behavior.  Just to name a few, the gas guzzling vehicles, the near worship of people who have a pretty face (above those offering substance and contribution).  Of course this makes one sound like an “old fuddy-duddy”.  But, there is a far deeper pit in Collective Insanity that drove the development of The Final Human.

We are forgetting past mortal mistakes, we repeat them again and again. Compassion is disappearing and this is taking away our children, the promise of the future.   Collectively, we watch them starve to death, untried lives -undiscovered precious minds die from incredible cruelty. 

That is the motivation.  A book was needed to remind us of something quite simple we have forgotten.  We are a species!  And we are committing future suicide with every child we lose that could be our next Gandhi, our next Martin King, our next Einstein, our next near Final Perfected Human.  

The Book “The Final Human” is one effort to address this, but so much more is needed.  In short, we have a fatal problem.  We forget one simple reality.  We are a species, one of incredible promise, if we stop squandering our precious new minds.

If we all stand back and really look at us, the real question is why aren’t there more books like the Final Human?  

Norm:

Whom do you believe will benefit from The Final Human and why? What are your hopes for this book?

Dr. Yourtee:

Of course, I hope that somewhere someone about to hurt a child is made to back off, come to the realization that their own future, their humanity resides in that precious creature.  By rising up this fact, I believe those same children and their children and so on may benefit and we can ultimately learn it all.  That is the promise of Homo sapiens.   

And, frankly, I hope the book makes folks a bit angry, makes them stand back and recognize that they are not just this, that or the other society, or religion or sect.  They are all brothers and sisters together the one species that can master the Cosmos, if they respect the growth happening in their remarkable minds.  I hope they get angry (but not violent) at those cultural or societal movements that risk this for them.  I hope they are moved to change the collectively insane paradigm, but, as in the book “Change Dares”.

Here is a bit more if you don’t mind.  The hero in the final human (a most thoughtful person) is called a Pollyanna.  Of course there is an almost unsurmountalble weight of depravity and selfishness imbedded from centuries of largess thinking.  But still there are vast numbers who want to achieve more than just a state of animal leavings.  I believe there are sufficient out there who will see in the book a broader meaning to life, to the future of their children, the primary agenda of the book.  The broadest trend in humanity has been benevolence (or we wouldn’t still be here).  We can, if we focus- capitalize on this and soar.

Norm:

What kind of research did you do to write The Final Human?  How has the feedback been so far?

Dr. Yourtee:

The book is composed of “multiple mentorships” from the great minds of the centuries, and focused by one remarkable one. It was certainly a challenge to put it together, all a challenge to verify and to expand, but the literature was all there for me to research and the reality of the adventures were lived.  The main foundation was that too often forgotten entity -the library, the books on philosophy, on human thought were essential.  A marvelous compendium is the Harvard five foot shelf of books, precious, solid, proven, and of course the internet is helpful if one is careful to double check.

In addition to the basic research there was one special need in writing this book that is worthy of mention.  The story involves discussion of many subjects, some technical as well as a variety of places, languages, etc.  So it was necessary to do readability scoring.  These analysis indicated that persons who comfortable with reading the newspaper should be able to work through the book.  Still I do realize that it takes some patience, with hope that it is worthwhile to make the journey.

Even with all of this, there are certainly areas where the writing failed, some rather inadvertent for which I am sad and apologize.  For example, although the issues apply again and again even today, the book’s story takes place at an earlier time in Nigerian History.  That nation is arising, is struggling successfully to achieve many good things. Today one is impressed with the effort put into and beauty of some of the cities, the continuing effort to make a good society, in spite of the human differences, which could not be implanted in the book - a story of a revolutionary time. 

This said, some of the feedback was anticipated.  That is the book is not the usual “kind of read”.  Some express being disturbed over the discussions pitting rationalism vs. religious belief, which of course, is not the intention, merely the suggestion is implanted that we have much to learn. Some express disappointment that the book is not titillation or a salve for the difficult day.  The time of the story was real and as well as tragic, also one of the “fast life”.  But, we, all involved, were not interested in selling books.  Those involved had minds on minds and a much deeper purpose and so for those looking for the physical thrill in a book, they are of course disappointed. 

Moving the effort forward, however, there has indeed been the other kind of feedback, from those who have gotten into the work to open doors.  Then I have the “couldn’t put it down” letters and the one I love…” Your book has a big message.  My soul rejoices!”
 

Norm:

What are your scholarly interests and why?

Dr. Yourtee:

Well, if it helps, I was educated in a science area that by nature is multi-disiplary from which developed interests in many endeavors. A pharmacologists-toxicologists interests and education cover such a huge range from physics to psychology, through chemistry and social science that one naturally tends to, indeed, needs to transition area to area.  In the end one finds the same basic language across much of human thought just different terms...  In avocation, though I love history and take the book’s hero’s advice to heart, that is to try for both retrospective and prospective reasoning.   

Norm:

Where does your taste for philosophy come from? What is your definition of philosophy? What is the state of philosophy today?

Dr. Yourtee:

Hmmm…a three part question with one answer, which I am sure the philosophers out there, will appreciate.  I think therefore I am …here to think, and thankful for them all.  They give us meaning to seek meaning in our lives.

Norm:

As a follow up, scholars rarely have the chance to talk about those who shaped their academic aspirations. Tell me of two such people and how they influenced your growth.

Dr. Yourtee:

Aside from the mentor told in the book, there are more than two, too many to name, all these intelligent caring people I have known, as in my teenage years working with stone masons to my colleagues who in their very presence give birth to an intense appreciation of human potential, and the drive to understand its limitations and promise.

Norm:

No doubt you agree that wisdom, temperance and courage are classical virtues. What do you believe are today’s virtues and why?

Dr. Yourtee:

The same virtues apply today, they are imbedded in most humans, as told in the book we to want to be good, and you know there is tremendous courage about.  In developing countries there are millions and millions of people who live good lives against impossible odds.  The problem is that many (shamefully in developed societies) have lost the way, are entrenched in self satisfaction that gives the appearance that the classical virtues are dead. Actually, the few deflect attention from the many striving good folks and more seriously create the stresses that leave the young in many places in the world in devastated lives.

But I don’t want us to lose track.  The one paramount virtue we need to hone is for all of us to care enough to raise healthy children.  No advantage, wealth or status should ever come at the cost of a child.  If this is altruistic sounding, I can’t offer an apology for the statement.

Norm:

Do you believe, as a whole, universities are in crisis? 

Dr. Yourtee:

My credentials to answer this are only that I have been a teacher in a University.  Of course one must define “Crises”. 

My opinion is yes in the economic sense because too many societies have devalued the educator to invest in more trivial pursuits.  Thus stress is given to institutions of higher learning sacrificing quantity and quality.  Of course it glares - the low pay way we honor those who are most important outside the family in raising our children, the Teachers.  You get the idea without my going on.

My opinion is no from the standpoint of their value to society and certainly not in this aspect on a world scale.  Great-great Universities plug on standing for the one bastion of human endeavor that in the end will mean all, Intellectual Freedom.

Norm:

How do you want to be remembered?

Dr. Yourtee: 

This is not something that concerns, me.   It is the ideas and not the personality that should last.   Few of us in the billions upon billions of people coming and going will be remembered at large even those we currently think are making a mark. If all of us were living a good life, that would add the special remembrance that could sustain the species.  Fervently, I hope the message in the “Final Human” reaches out to change conditions for all the starving, beaten and repressed people, so that the next Einstein like, the next benevolent mind capable of global leadership can thrive to lead the Human  to their promised Final Perfected State.

Norm;

Is there anything else you wish to ad that we have not covered and what is next for Dr. David Yourtee?

Dr. Yourtee:

It isn’t what is next for me, but what is next for you and all the children who will live in a world paradoxically more troubling than ever before, unless we learn to put aside differences and selfishness’s that in the end are not important and that frankly, should the dawn of humans arrive one-hundred years from now will seem trivial (As have a few differences, “anti-human’ troubling ideas faded into the past).

The Final Human is a book about the potential for that future.  It would be good if those who read it entered into a discourse, expressing openly their opinions. Are we likely to have a future, do we deserve it, what might it be like, how can we insure that for our children’s children?  I would love to hear from them, severe critique or not - and promise my full attention to their ideas and thoughts.   Those can be shared directly by writing to Minds-Eye@bresnan.net  .

Norm:

Thank you and good luck with all of your future endeavors.

To read Norm's Review of The Final Human CLICK HERE