{"id":111789,"date":"2017-06-14T16:59:57","date_gmt":"2017-06-14T20:59:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=111789"},"modified":"2017-06-14T22:30:00","modified_gmt":"2017-06-15T02:30:00","slug":"interview-with-the-neanderthal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/06\/14\/interview-with-the-neanderthal\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with the Neanderthal"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>

Jind\u0159ich \u0160tyrsk\u00fd, The Cave<\/i>, 1926, oil on canvas.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

THE NEANDERTHAL<\/p>\n

I\u2019m already uncomfortable with this.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Why? Are you worried people are going to misunderstand, or \u2026 ?<\/p>\n

THE NEANDERTHAL<\/p>\n

The whole thing is misleading. I\u2019m not even a Neanderthal.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Listen, there\u2019s nothing to worry about. We can start the interview right there on that note. Go ahead and explain the situation.<\/p>\n

THE NEANDERTHAL<\/p>\n

It\u2019s \u2026 I don\u2019t even know where to begin.\u00a0<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Just tell everybody what you told me. How you started \u201clistening down into yourself,\u201d your Neanderthal DNA and all that.<\/p>\n

THE NEANDERTHAL<\/p>\n

All right. My belief\u2014and I fully admit I can\u2019t prove any of this\u2014is that the whole thing got started because I was working hard at getting a grip on the differences between nearly identical feelings. My intuition was that there\u2019s a subtle but palpable distinction between, for example, the feeling of being rightly accused and the feeling of being\u00a0wrongly<\/em>\u00a0accused. The two feelings seemed identical for most of my life, which caused a lot of problems. But then I started to see\u2014<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

But you have to explain the process \u2026<\/p>\n

THE NEANDERTHAL<\/p>\n

Yes, but I don\u2019t know how to explain it. The words I use to explain it to myself are fatally vague<\/em>. I just \u201clisten down deep.\u201d I know that expression is useless \u2026<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Fine, then get to the Neanderthal stuff.<\/p>\n

THE NEANDERTHAL<\/p>\n

All right. Well, years upon years of this \u201clistening down deep\u201d eventually paid off in a surprising way. I taught myself how to reproduce complex situations, simply working backward from feelings. It turns out there\u2019s just a lot more\u00a0information<\/em>\u00a0in a feeling than people think. You know how a wine expert will take a little sip and all this great swarm of facts about weather and particular hills and families will flood into the expert\u2019s mind? Feelings are like that, too, only way more so, if you have the training.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Come to the Neanderthal stuff.<\/p>\n

THE NEANDERTHAL<\/p>\n

Yes. Again, I can\u2019t prove anything, but \u2026 I started to perceive that some of my feelings aren\u2019t connected up to anything that happened to me personally. There are feelings in there, not even in my mind but in the tissue of every one of my cells, that correspond to things that happened to my DNA\u2014essentially, things that happened to my ancestors, not to me personally.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

And some of your ancestors were Neanderthals.<\/p>\n

THE NEANDERTHAL<\/p>\n

Yes, but that\u2019s nothing special. Some of\u00a0everyone\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0ancestors were Neanderthals. Every living human being has the DNA,\u00a0the question is how much. My hypothesis is that I have more than most, because \u2026 how else am I able to do this?<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s not get distracted. You\u2019re essentially saying you can access memories from past lives. Is that correct?<\/p>\n

THE NEANDERTHAL<\/p>\n

Yes. I mean, that\u2019s misleading to put it that way, because these \u201cpast lives\u201d were not\u00a0me<\/em>. It\u2019s not like my personality existed forty thousand years ago. But I can access, I\u2019m convinced, personalities and events that occurred at the time when the Neanderthal species\u2014as a distinct thing\u2014ceased to exist.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Okay, tell people what you told me. About the meeting with the Chief.<\/p>\n

THE NEANDERTHAL<\/p>\n

[Sigh.<\/em>] Yes, that. I believe that many people would be able to remember this, if they did the listening down deep thing, because it\u2019s a momentous memory, one ramjam with intense feelings. And heaven knows, plenty of us were present \u2026<\/p>\n

What happened was the Chief called a meeting. He didn\u2019t say anything\u2014we couldn\u2019t talk\u2014but he announced his desires just the same. Body language, facial expression\u2014it was perfectly clear he wanted a meeting, and it was\u00a0pretty<\/em>\u00a0clear what it was he was going to convey to us. Here\u2019s where things get deep.<\/p>\n

You gotta understand. Our kind was under threat from the Cro-Magnons, down the pike. From time out of mind, they had been harmless, but they had recently started to turn what had always been their biggest disadvantages to good account. Two key things I\u2019ll mention. There was language, which constantly misled them and kept them in a muddle; and single-mindedness, which made them easy to manipulate. But, see, all of a sudden, what had been perpetual bungling on their part transformed almost overnight into a kind of low cunning, very efficient and pernicious. Their numbers multiplied, they ate everything, they were willing to break heads\u2014the works. Anybody could see we \u2026 were not gonna win this one. So the Chief called a meeting. We could see how sad and disgusted he was. With his face he said, \u201cAs distasteful as it is, we\u2019re going to have to intermingle with them. It\u2019s the only way to have the DNA line continue. There\u2019s no use trying to persuade them of anything. They only listen to words and arguments. Our feelings\u2014and even their own\u2014don\u2019t mean shit to them, unless those feelings can be made to cooperate with their nasty little desires \u2026 \u201d<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

But the Chief thought that interbreeding would save the Neanderthal way of life?<\/p>\n

THE NEANDERTHAL<\/p>\n

No, no. He thought we were cooked. See, it would have been one thing if there were a million of us and a thousand of them. But it was the other way around. So, we all left that meeting with our heads full of very somber colors. And we didn\u2019t have any faith in the blend effect\u00a0at all<\/em>. We thought it was going to be like putting a drop of ink into a swimming pool. Do it, don\u2019t do it\u2014same result.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

But it didn\u2019t work out that way.<\/p>\n

THE NEANDERTHAL<\/p>\n

No! It\u2019s nice. A lot of stuff we invented simply emerged intact in the next generation. And even the blend stuff wasn\u2019t all bad.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Give examples.<\/p>\n

THE NEANDERTHAL<\/p>\n

Okay, well obviously we invented music. Cro-Magnons never would have come up with that. But the kids we had with the Cro-Magnons picked up on it, no problem. Kids, grandkids, it was fine. And then of course everything that depends on music, poetry and especially epic poetry\u2014that stuff arose from the blend. It\u2019s what happens when you mix their chatter with our music.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s another thing we had that they didn\u2019t. They couldn\u2019t hold a thought. Holding a thought is pure Neanderthal. Chasing after every little puff of wind, that\u2019s Cro-Magnon. On the other hand,\u00a0enterprise<\/em>\u00a0is much more Cro-Magnon. Generally speaking, we Neanderthals were content with little. Put it this way. Both Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals had clothes, but\u00a0fashion<\/em>\u00a0is pure Cro-Magnon. Palaces\u2014Cro-Magnon. Money\u2014Cro-Magnon.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not really a merit, by the way, that Neanderthals were so much more interested in persuasion. Persuasion would have appealed to Cro-Magnons, too, if they had observed it working to their advantage. We Neanderthals were much more devoted to it, because it worked for us. Remember, we had the advantage of dealing directly with each other\u2019s feelings. Cro-Magnons always had language between them, getting in the way. Half the time, trying to get through to their feelings was like trying to see a person waving on the other side of a mountain range. The difference being that Cro-Magnons\u00a0put<\/em>\u00a0the mountain range there, thinking this would help you see \u2019em better.<\/p>\n

Among the moderns, Homer and Tolstoy, you can tell, had a lot of Neanderthal DNA. It\u2019s the\u00a0objectivity<\/em>\u00a0that\u2019s the giveaway. Objectivity was our strong suit. And peace. You might think the author of the Iliad cannot have been a peacenik, but that\u2019s \u2019cuz you\u2019re thinking like a Cro-Magnon. Cro-Magnon thinks, War is bad because look at all these crying persons! One of \u2019em could be you! or your daughter! In other words, it\u2019s against one\u2019s self-interest. Neanderthal thinks, War is many things, including fun and glory for some of the people doing it. But you also have to look at the cost in terms of tastelessness, self-deceit, waste of resources. And anyhow aren\u2019t there\u00a0other<\/em>\u00a0activities that could yield just as much fun and glory without all the throwing up and bandages and blighted futures? Neanderthals always try to look at the whole picture. We think, When a person is persuaded by \u201cone key point,\u201d the person is a Cro-Magnon and moreover will reverse him- or herself in a heartbeat.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

We have to stop this, but I wonder, Do you ever think you can tell who has a lot of Neanderthal DNA by their appearance?<\/p>\n

THE NEANDERTHAL<\/p>\n

Ha. I used to think having a really pronounced eyebrow ridge had to mean\u00a0something<\/em>\u2014after all, as you can see, I have this trait myself. But see, that just goes to show I\u2019m not a true throwback. It would have never occurred to any of the people at the big meeting I was describing to hang a bunch of significance on some outward trait like that. More \u201ckey fact\u201d mongering. Pure Cro-Magnon.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Anthony Madrid<\/a> lives in Victoria, Texas. <\/em>His second book of poems is\u00a0<\/em>Try Never<\/a>\u00a0(Canarium Books, 2017). He is a correspondent for the\u00a0<\/em>Daily.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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