source: YouTube
To ask the question about how human nature fits into the way we organize our world already reveals the trappings of a narrow mindset. We've come to a point where we're reaching the limits of exploiting the planet for its resources; whether it's the destruction of the biosphere, natural habitats or the doomsday clock related to climate change, alarm bells are going off everywhere. We are of course human beings, but if the speciesism implied by the question about "human nature" leads to answers that destroy the planet, maybe it's time to widen our perspective and start thinking about systems that are conducive to life in general, and not just human life.
I'll come back to the fallacies in our understanding of human nature, but let's first try to widen that perspective and come to a more holistic understanding of evolutionary biology. The trajectory of evolution suggests that life evolves by creating ever more diversity, and integrating that diversity into ever more complex systems that are primarily defined by processes of symbiosis and collaboration. If you've ever read about the complex system of collaboration and symbiosis present in natural forests for example, you'll know how every living plant, tree and creature contributes, through giving and taking, to that living ecosystem. Wherever we look in nature, we see complex systems of interdependent entities, the sum of which constitutes the optimal environment for life to thrive.
As our focus shifts from individuals and individual species as the unit of survival, to the collective of life - its complex dynamic interactions and relationships - we begin to see that collaborative and symbiotic patterns and interactions are of more fundamental importance than competition, as a driving force of evolution. Life’s key strategy to create conditions conducive to life is to optimize the system as a whole, rather than maximize only some parameters of the system for a few, at the detriment of many (Wahl, 2016).
source: Uplift
The same can be said about our species. Humans have risen to the top of every food-chain and conquered the environments we inhabit to suit our purposes through collaboration. The proof of this is everywhere around us but maybe the fact that we've evolved common languages and cultures is the most obvious and compelling proof. If there's even such a thing as "human nature", it's that we are a collaborative species, we're social creatures. And perhaps we're the most diverse species in existence because of our highly evolved self-consciousness; no two persons, not even identical twins, are the same.
Speaking of twins, they've been studied intensively and over the course of many decades to gain insight regarding the whole "nature versus nurture" debate. These studies show that the debate operates under a false dichotomy; it's not nature or nurture, it's that nurture changes nature. We now not only speak of genetics, but of epigenetics, not only of genes, but of gene expression and how the environment influences gene expression. Science, ladies and gentlemen, pushes us ever further in the direction of embracing a collaborative, symbiotic and collective understanding of the human condition.
Diversification and collaboration are terms that are exactly opposite to the current paradigm under which we've organized our socioeconomic and sociopolitical systems; they are based on an understanding of human society as a collection of individuals who have no common interests and are system-bound to maximize their own personal wealth. Individuals under capitalism have no stake in the social order other than rising to the top by and for themselves. Furthermore, building our societies around the competition by which such economic and social ascension is realized, creates the need for scarcity. Simply put, insane individual wealth can only exist by the grace of widespread poverty. We now live in the late, and I hope final stages of this insanity; only a handful of individuals own more than half of the wealth on the planet. Just think about how incredibly insane it is that Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates could single-handedly end world hunger and not even have to change their lifestyles one little bit. If they sacrificed 90 percent of their wealth, they'd still be billionaires.
So we need to change our understanding of economics and we need to question some basic assumptions upon which the narrative underlying our current economic system is built:
The narrative of separation has predisposed us to focus on scarcity, competition, and the short-term maximization of individual benefit as the basis on which to create an economic system. Life’s evolutionary story shows that systemic abundance can be unlocked through collaboratively structured symbiotic networks that optimize the whole system, so human communities and the rest of life can thrive.
source: Uplift
A world of abundance is antithetical to capitalism, as capitalism operates under the assumption of scarcity and competition, and that's a toxic combination. You see, competition isn't bad in and of itself, there are healthy ways to compete, like in sports and games. Also in non-zero-sum situations can competition be relatively healthy, like in school, where more than just one child can get an "A" on their tests and exams. But when competition is attached to scarce outcomes, and when those scarce outcomes are the stuff we need to survive and thrive, it becomes a ruthless game in which sociopaths and narcissist egoists hoard that stuff for themselves, not caring about the millions they leave to die from hunger. The planet's resources are finite, and coupled with an economic system that can not function without eternal growth juxtaposed against eternal scarcity, the inhabitants of that planet will pay the price; we'll all lose and no one will win in the end. The planet will be just fine ultimately, nature will take care of itself but it won't take care of us as long as we refuse to recognize that our relationship to it and each other is one of collaboration and symbiosis.
In the world of Star Trek humans have accomplished abundance after the invention of the replicator; just talk to the machine and your cup of coffee will materialize just the way you like it. There's no money in that world. People don't have jobs in order to be able to eat in that world. And the funny thing is that we've basically done it in the real world as well: there's no scarcity of food or houses. Scarcity is wholly manufactured by putting everything behind a pay-wall, and by purposefully destroying the surpluses we manufacture. Much of those surpluses are the consequence of our antiquated notion that everyone needs to work to survive; we create too much of almost everything, just so we can put people to work for 40 hours a week. How about we just produce what we need, and divide the work that's necessary among ourselves? Let's just all work together, so we only have to work for a couple of hours a week.
Still worried about "human nature"? Well, consider the nurture versus nature debate, and consider how epigenetics have shown us that genetics and environment are also in a symbiotic relationship. Add to that that we, and the whole of nature, have evolved through collaboration rather than competition. Now imagine a world where you're not raised with the notion that it's you against the world, that you have to compete with and conquer your fellow human beings in order to climb an unnatural human-made social ladder, but that you're in the world, part of it, and that your contribution to that world is conducive to life's collaborative nature. Imagine how much more trust there would be among us. Imagine how we wouldn't fear the greedy grabbing claws of jealous, underprivileged or poor people.
And remember that the rules of our current economic and monetary system have been designed by people and we can, therefore, re-design them. It's just a matter of choice, a choice we'll have to make collectively and collaboratively, and we'd have to start with the children by teaching them these truths, by giving them the tools and knowledge to be able to question the role of scarcity, competition, and the maximization of individual benefit has cornerstones of our competitive economy.
Well, that's enough of a rant for today. I'll leave you with a brilliant video by YUGOPNIK explaining why the question about "human nature" is the wrong question to ask, and how it is "the dumbest conservative argument" against thinking about and discussing a post-capitalist society.
Thanks so much for visiting my blog and reading my posts dear reader, I appreciate that a lot :-) If you like my content, please consider leaving a comment, upvote or resteem. I'll be back here tomorrow and sincerely hope you'll join me. Until then, stay safe, stay healthy!
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