Wrote Charles:
> > CB: Human nature cannot just be defined however. We have not
> > evolved such that we maximise our niche by instinct, but rather we
> > maximize it based on a specific historical tradition. Maximization
> > is not in our genes. So, it is a historical tradition not an
> > instinct that must be undone, nor is that historical tradition
> > universal in the species. Being clear on this difference is
> > critical in making successful the effort to change the world and
> > save it from ecological catastrophe.
Responded Mark:
> You're right, and this is the only hope we have. However, it seems
>clear that niche-maximising and competitive strategies are very deeply >embedded.
I'm not so sure, actually. I think we get carried away, sadly in the manner
of Althussarians, on the extent to which homo economicus is manifest in yer
average prole. S/he behaves as s/he has to where the system's structure
enforces its daily necessity (looking for the cheapest mince; crawling over a
neighbour for a badly needed job and such - whatever), but that ain't us in
our free time at all, is it? And certainly not when the poo hits the fan.
Every time we have a decent bushfire down this way - and we get a few - you
see people donning sticky, hot, luminescent yellow clobber on a 43-degree day
and running straight at a firefront the size and shape of Manhattan - often
hopelessly underequipped and often many miles from where their own little
cache of goodies and loved ones safely reside. When we KNOW shit's coming
down, we are a species to wonder at - beyond the reach of a whole corps of
economics lecturers - we team up, put our lives on the line, cop a beating,
and love each other for a full week afterwards. Wouldn't know a prisoner's
dilemma or an optimal utility function if it smacked us in the face.
We got ESSENCE, for-shrieking-into-a-gale, and half a millenium of capitalism
might be good enough to blind us to our interests - clueless as to the myriad
potentials that reside within us - but it can't budge the particular protein
soup which constitutes us all. I'm with Singer - this 'nature=right-wing
politics and nurture=left-wing politics' just gives the other side waay too
much ground!
We bloody evolved as GROUPS, because we're the gawdamned best at communication
and empathy that there is - and the most potent at mass-endeavour this side of
the insects! We didn't compete in the great species-forming carnage that is
evolution as individual, tasty, clumsy, slow, soft, gooey organisms - we
out-competed because these tasty, clumsy, slow, soft, gooey organisms
naturally organised themselves into an organism so bloody powerful that
nothing could stand in its way ... except itself.
I'll admit the complication with being a self-conscious, abstraction-capable,
linguistically-abled social force is that our own culture becomes a material
and significant component of the environment within and through which we
evolve, but half a millenium of capitalism, much less a quarter of a century
of neoliberalism, ain't even a drop in the pool, folks.
You can watch that grainy old footage of the Somme and despair at what man has
made of man - or you can watch it and stand awestruck at what combined power
we're capable of exerting when we think we know what has to be done. Even,
manifestly, when we happen to be wrong about that ...
We gotta believe it's particularly urgent, fundamentally crucial, highly
socially valued, and manifestly possible, though. That lot, and a popularly
recognised institutional medium through which to exert our combined power.
Seems to me, the basis for our efforts should take account of each and every
one of those. As we're talking about unprecedented human carnage and an
urgency which obscenely infests our front pages on a weekly basis these days -
well, all thin silver linings and whopping great dark clouds, sure, but it's
gotta be a promising start, no? I see the last entry on the list as the
hardest nut to crack, but the birth of institutions is often to be found in
social necessity, I think. So I'd suggest we not start there - else we'd be
headed on a path of disintegrating abstract squabbles and alienating
power-plays ... but then I've said my piece on that stuff already ...
'Night all,
Rob.
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