In the beginning was the singularity: no intentions, no thoughts, no words, no plan, no love. Some long time after the beginning came the worm, (i.e. a sack of skin with a mouth, gut, glands, and anus) motivated by the instinct to eat and not be eaten until life was passed on to a brood of begotten worms. Even in the mindless begetting, the worm was entirely driven by the survival imperative encoded in its genes.
Many stages further along came the human, much like a worm but with added bone, muscle, sense organs, and brain, all of which improved the chance of eating without being eaten. As the brain developed, new instincts emerged along with awareness of self and others. Now there are three layers of instinct: egoism, reciprocity, and altruism. We survive better together with some sharing of risks and rewards, and we have the means to refine and perpetuate this understanding so that it does not have to be rediscovered by each new generation: precept and example, story, drama, art, law, political discourse, alliance and treaty, religion and philosophy, all leading to mutual trust, specialization and co-operation.
Reciprocity and altruism distinguish humans from their vermiform ancestors, but when we are needy or threatened, the primitive impulse remains to put immediate survival of self first.
We can choose to be fair and compassionate and make the world better for everyone, or we can revert to a precarious, self-absorbed, self-reliant independence, which leaves us in need and in danger.
The universe works reliably. We have a say in what happens next.
Thanks for this Dennis. I haven't got a whole bunch to say, only that your piece sent me to do some reading about evolutionary altruism. Contrary to the inclination to think we are born to be selfish, cut-throat individuals, it appears there is a lot of research and scientific thinking to support the notion that community and collaboration are in-born traits. This is encouraging and supports your premise that we can choose to go in better directions than the "every man for himself survival of the fittest" suggests. Carry on, have a good day
ReplyDeleteYou are so agreeable, Marion. If I were replying I would be calling attention to what was missing from the argument, the 'yes-but'. In fact I have pondered individuality in the past. Do you remember my posts about haecceity meaning individual uniqueness?
DeleteSo why am I obsessing about community when there is another side to things? It is because of the toxic individuality and group polarization in the current climate of fear. We are afraid of exploitation by malevolent others: wealthy others, other races, other gender orientations, other countries, other political parties, other opinions about wearing masks or carrying guns, or climate change. Of course every community is composed of individuals and strengthened by their gifts and efforts. And the flip side is that individuals are supported by their communities. If either vector of benefit is weak, the system falls apart.
Today we are watching a bit breathlessly while democracy rebalances itself or degrades into anarchy in the United States. Of course we are thinking about community, what the community owes to individuals, and what individuals owe to community as the price of their own welfare. I sure hope people make it work.
Of course I was trying VERY hard to be in that optimistic place of not believing in the power of social Darwinism and hoping that enough "greater good" electors would come through.
ReplyDeleteNow, here we are on the next morning and feeling some despair over this not-quite-worst-case scenario. All of which lifts up the very, very great need to hang in there with the better angels folk.
How to create such a community, given the enormous pandemic constraints? Please tell me how...
"Such a community...", I think you mean a community of peace, hope, love, joy: known by other names: the kingdom of God, Zion, utopia which is literally 'no place'. It is the imagined destination of an endless journey. We have not arrived and cannot arrive, because we live for the journey. Arrival is death, the end of goals and projects and effort. We are alive in the struggle to end suffering.
DeleteYou want to know how. Me too. I think the answers lie in the tension between instinct (gut feeling, intuition, revelation, imagination) and reason (the mental processes that harmonize instinct with experience and find a promising way forward). One path trusts instinct and distrusts the intellect. Another path does the opposite. The destination requires us to be reasonably passionate, and that will never be easy.