The Human Condition

Popping up on my various social media feeds over the past year or so have been ads for “THE Interview”. I'm going to take a look at this and the movement behind it.

“THE Interview” itself is an interview on a UK radio station - Radio Northumberland - though also published as a podcast, called QuaranTine. Its host is a UK actor - Craig Conway. I can't say that I'd ever heard of him (though I'm not overly renowned for my ability to recognise actors!) but he does seem to be relatively minor.

“THE Interview” is about an hour long, and involves Conway interviewing an Australian biologist Jeremy Griffith,

The interview (viewable on YouTube) is billed in the ad as “astounding”, and is the “holy grail” in the understanding of “The Human Condition” and the solution to it. That's pretty big talk - well it would be if I understood exactly what the human condition is and why it needs solving.

The interview is a little over an hour long, and was recorded back in 2020, a few months into the pandemic, from what I can tell.

In the interview, Conway talks to Griffith, and it's broken up into four parts, though I'm unsure why - maybe it needed to fit in with their radio ads. While it's billed as an interview, there does seem to be some pre-planning involved, with Conway seeming to read some pre-prepared praise of Griffith in parts. It's also strange in that it's also accompanied by various images and animated videos. It certainly felt to me like a staged ad, rather than a normal interview.

So, what is it advertising? Primarily it seems to be promoting Griffith, his book: FREEDOM: The End Of The Human Condition, and a “movement” - the World Transformation Movement.

I watched the interview and the content was far from what I would call astounding. (And, given that this is constantly referred to as THE Interview, abbreviated to TI, that makes it even more surprising.) Griffith makes some rather grandiose claims that he had discovered the solution to the human condition. Now, even after watching the interview and doing a reasonable amount of reading, I'm unable to succinctly describe what the human condition is. Griffith describes it as a great “upset” caused by the tension between our instincts, which are driven by our genes, and our intellect - that our development of consciousness in the past 2 million years has somehow got us to the point of massive conflict.

Griffith claims that “life has become unbearable” - for whom I'm not sure, and that life is a struggle to find a solution to the human condition, which he conveniently has found. He claims that just by now understanding the human condition and the biological underpinnings of it (via his interpretation) that we can become free of it. He makes the rather arrogant claim that his discovery will save the world!

His interview has a distinctly religious feel to it - and he makes a bunch of strikingly close parallels to Christianity. For example, he talks about humans living in the distant past in a sort of Garden of Eden, and talks about a mythical creature Adam the Stork, who develops consciousness and then is conflicted when migrating North he spies an island with apple trees on it.

It all leads to a website - www.HumanCondition.com - which is the home of a ton of content promoting Jeremy Griffith. Griffith seems to be a prolific author (why am I reminded of L Ron Hubbard?) but all of the books are available for free by downloadable PDFs.

His flagship book is the aforementioned FREEDOM book, which is also available on Amazon in paperback (though the Kindle edition is free). As usual, looking at the reviews is a good way to judge what others think of the book. Reading the 1-star reviews is a good way to get an idea of the criticism of the book. (And while 1-star reviews can be from people with an axe to grind, well-written thoughtful ones are often enlightening.) I found this excerpt from a review to be quite reflective of the impression I've got of this so far:

The author's great breakthrough is that humans were once kind, collaborative, loving creatures who became conscious. Once we became conscious it all went to hell and we became terrible, nasty, unforgiving beings – basically the scourge of the earth. The breakthrough is that we just can't face that our becoming conscious has led to our “bad” behavior. Once humans realize this, we will once again become loving, caring creatures and will no longer be evil. Seriously, that is the theory he presents.

But, if you don't believe him, then you suffer from something he calls the deaf effect. How do you overcome this effect, well read more of his book of course and watch his videos on his website. Still don't believe, repeat. And then if you still don't believe, well some people just can't come to terms with such a dramatic breakthrough. It is all put forth like it is your fault if you don't believe, never is there any consideration that there may be something faulty with his theory.

So, back to the Human Condition website. The site is packed full of videos, many of them by Griffith himself. There's also a bunch of essays and books. Indeed, all of his books seem to have references back to his essays and points in the FREEDOM book. The FREEDOM book is rather large, just under 600 A4 pages. Oh, and reflecting the quasi-religious nature of the book, it has chapter and verse numbering, and all paragraphs are numbered so they can be easily referenced.

I decided to take a look at one of the books, the title of which intrigued me - DEATH BY DOGMA - The biological reason why the Left is leading us to extinction, and the solution. It's a relatively short book, running at 62 A4 pages - though I mostly skimmed it, it does seem to be quite repetitive and refer back to his other books.

Looking at the content though, I wasn't convinced that it actually explained the title. Griffith definitely seems to fall on the far right of the political spectrum, railing against identity politics, woke ideas, and so-called cancel culture and describing generation-X as snowflakes. I also saw that he references the likes of Ayn Rand, Jordan Peterson, and Douglas Murray, all of whom have some extreme ideas, in my opinion.

He also has a book, Transform your Life and Save the World which is a condensed version of his FREEDOM book. Looking through that, I think I see one of the major flaws in this. Griffith seems very focused on his considered explanation for “The Human Condition” but doesn't seem to provide any concrete steps as to what to do about it. It's as if simply understanding the explanation for something is enough to fix that thing. Like understanding that my weight gain is down to eating too many calories and lack of exercise. Simply knowing that won't magically make the kilos fall away!

It all feels very cultish to me. It has a lot of the hallmarks of a religious cult - strongly centred around a leader whose words and ideas are revered, and it's selling the idea that humans are deeply flawed and in need of some sort of redemption.

There are World Transformation Movement Centres set up around the world:

And while these WTM centres sound like an actual location, as far as I can tell, they're simply a website and a community who meet virtually. So, from the map it would appear that they've found people dotted around the world who have agreed to manage a local “centre” - to be a focal point for online meetings. Even the centre in Sydney, where Griffith is based, doesn't seem to have an actual physical location.

Then there are Facebook groups, and mailing lists, T-shirts and stickers. I guess nothing quite shouts “cult” like a t-shirt with your movement's prophet plastered front and centre:

To summarise my brief encounter with this movement, albeit only through its online content, I'd say it's best to steer clear. At least if you come across one of these ads in your social media, you'll be forewarned.