TheAgitator.com
The Nature of Man
Wednesday, June 2nd, 2004A question for readers– consider the following quotes:
Nature hath made men so equal, in the faculties of body and mind that are born in them, that one man cannot in respect of these claim to himself any benefit to which another may not pretend. From this equality ariseth equality of hope in the attaining of our ends. Therefore, if two men desire the same thing which they cannot both enjoy they become enemies, and seek each the destruction of the other, each mistrusting the other. So men invade each other, first for gain, second for safety, and third for reputation. Hence, while men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in a state of war, every man against every man.
– Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
In that immense division of the animal kingdom which embodies more than one thousand species, and is so numerous that the Brazilians pretend that Brazil belongs to the ants, not to men, competition amidst the members of the same nest, or the colony of nests,does not exist. However terrible the wars between different species, and whatever the atrocities committed at war-time, mutual aid within the community, self-devotion grown into a habit, and very often self-sacrifice for the common welfare, are the rule. The ants and termites have renounced the “Hobbesian war,” and they are the better for it. Their wonderful nests, their buildings, superior in relative size to those of man; their paved roads and overground vaulted galleries; their spacious halls and granaries; their corn-fields, harvesting and “malting” of grain;(9*) their, rational methods of nursing their eggs and larvae, and of building special nests for rearing the aphides whom Linnaeus so picturesquely described as “the cows of the ants”; and, finally, their courage, pluck, and, superior intelligence — all these are the natural outcome of the mutual aid which they practise at every stage of their busy and laborious lives. [...]
As seen from the above, the war of each against all is not the law of nature. Mutual aid is as much a law of nature as mutual struggle…
– Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution
The two quotes paint contrasting pictures of the essential character of nature’s creatures, of which man might be considered a member. Which one do you think is correct? Or is there a third view that is more correct than either?
[cross-posted at Catallarchy]
I’d say both apply. History is replete with examples of both.
Think Kmer Rouge for number one and American Indians for number two.
There must be something in between that sums it up.
I think it should be clear that there must be a third alternative, as each of these is too broadly cast, and too easily dismissed with counter-examples.
Hobbes is demonstrably wrong in the distribution of capabilities.
Kropotkin would appear to be a (or the) source of Mao’s incredible notion that beings of the same species would not, ever, compete — leading to overplanting and famine, among other delights.
Shirley Knott
The difference is compassion and greed. Some people have compassion. They give aid. Some people are greedy/prideful. They take whatever satisfies them. Some people are greedy for certain things only and have compassion too. Some people are selectively compassionate and selectively greedy. This makes the human race. We are all distinctly different in the amounts of compassion, greed, and other attributes that make us who we are. Therefore, no 2 people are alike and the world is always an interesting place.
Ms. Dani, I can’t agree that a given person falls into either the category of compassion or the category of greed, nor do I agree that there is a continuum from compassion to greed along which all people lie. It is my analysis of the nature of Man that all people are fundamentally greedy and self-interested. Such is the foundational assumption of capitalism, and such was the belief of Madison when, in Federalist Paper number ten, he argued that the best way to prevent the influence of factions was to encourage their number, thereby decreasing the relative strength of any given faction.
Now, while all people are fundamentally greedy, humans are, to varying degrees, capable, in spite of their nature, of altruism. Quite obviously, some are far more capable of altruism than others (witness Mother Theresa versus Joseph Stalin). This altruism, however, is not in constant manifestation. Rather, altruism in any given person occurs as a discrete incident, immediately after which that person must either enact another moment of altruism or default back to greediness.
There have been whole books written on this subject. My favorite, now 20 years old, is Robert Axelrod’s “The Evolution of Cooperation”.
The puzzle isn’t whether intra-species and inter-species cooperation exists - it most certainly does - but rather how it got started.
The Balko, disregarding any discussion of whether humans and other species can be equated as to their “essential character”, and disregarding any discussion of Hobbes’ assertion that all humans possess equal mental and physical faculties, Kropotkin’s use of the ant as representative of non-human species is ludicrous, naive, and not a little disingenuous. Consider, among many others, the lion: the males of this species, even while living in the same pride, will take any opportunity to unseat the dominant male in order to assume control. When this occurs, the newly dominant male will immediately kill every young offspring of the previously dominant male in order to assert his genetic line. That this competition exists even within the “nest”, and that this behavior can been found by degree in countless other species, immediately refutes any conclusion that Kropotkin draws based upon his false assertion. Further, humans belong to a mere subset of the total of nature’s creatures which form nests or colonies in the first place. Countless birds, mammals, reptiles and insects live entirely solitary lives, save for the moment of conception. For these species, “the war of each against all” is absolutely “the law of nature”.
My mistake: my second comment should have been addressed to Jonathan Wilde, as he posed the original question, not The Balko.
I agree with Ms. Dani.
Homo Sapiens Sapiens are given the survival tool of consciousness, or intelligence. A cursory read of Phil K. Dick would throw empathy in there, as the true measure of human-ness.
There is another interesting read, called “The Selfish Gene”, that notes that species are genetically hard-wired to be “selfish”, and concentrate on their survival and the survival of their offspring, which lends itself to greater implications.
But Kropotkin also engages in a game of value, supposing that ants’ relative development as a species is evidence of communistic superiority.
If we are to truly engage in this game of valuation of species and tribes and colonies, who decides what the standards for value grading are? However, there can be no objective standards, so Kropotkin’s entire statement is meaningless. For all the ants’ supposed superiority and greatness, what is the goal? Survival of their species? Evolution? What?
For our country, we had it spelled out for us: liberty and justice for all; inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The “success” of homo sapiens sapiens cannot be measured objectively, however.
ants have no brain.
Both quotes are modelled fairly simplistically from human responses to particular situations.
When we feel threatened, we instinctively look for the security of a larger group, and when external threats seem remote, we instinctively look to increase our individual power at the expense of the group we are a part of.
Thus, for example, the enormous push for togetherness after 9-11, and the subsequent unravelling of that cohesion as the perceived magnitude of the threat has receded with time.
The structure of society, and the antagonism between individuals or groups will always depend on how we perceive the big picture.
Peck, sorry I wasn’t more specific. I didn’t mean that compassion and greed were the extremes of a continuum, but that they are a couple of many characteristics on a multi-dimensional continuum. I re-read your comment and seem to think you are saying the same thing I was saying but using fancier terms. I agree that people are naturally selfish, but I also think that one can, in each decision, choose to either be selfish or selfless. We’re not hard-wired that way. We are hard wired selfish and then learn (maturity) that the world does not revolve around us.
I think the problem with both analyses is that they ignore the line between friend and enemy, family and stranger at the heart of community.
Humans cooperate for groups of humans against other groups and nature. These bonds are based on ideology, ethnic and linguistic similarity, geography, and history. These cooperative examples without government; members of the same ethnic group find it easier to trust one another, see themselves in the same boat, and often have objectively common interests.
Communites can live at peace with one another, of course, but the atmoistic individual, shorn of all community, rarely exists. Men have families, friends, and other bonds. They quickly form groups because a unified, cohesive group is many times more powerful than lone wolves.
This truth seems to have very relevant consequences to the neoconservative/liberal delusion that America is a creedal nation, capable of absorbing any and all groups and remaining strong, self-govenring, and peaceful. It also seems to have strong consequences for the libertarian idea that the individual acting in his self-interest can through an englightened self-interest lead to a peaceable, contract-based society. The possibility of organized violent groups seeking their own welfare against the mass of disorganized individuals threatens this possibility; something other than “enlightened self interest” like blood ties must typically be in place for me to place my trust in a particular group with whom I will form a community. That community can be organized along liberal lines, of course, but these ethnic, linguistic, and historical ties are why I’m in such a community in the US as opposed to Australia or the Czech Republic
Natural, historical, ethnic, and linguistic communities are as real an entity as individuals and define under whom those individuals could be governed by the minimal state.
Are you trying to get someone to write a Western Civ. paper?
Someone say ‘Western Civ’…..? I’m outta here…AHHHHHAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
Essential Characteristics? Humans have more soft wired traits than hard wired as we evolve the gap widens. Pick a time in history and your answer can change.
How are we evolving? Human evolution (at least genetically) ended 10 to 50,000 years ago. We’re no different than cavemen biologically.
Ants may all work together for the good of the colony, but take a shovel and toss some ants from one hill on another and you have war. They work to see their own colony survive, not all ant colonies. The species doesn’t stick together, just the immediate groups. This is true in most social animals, including humans.
Survival being the source of happiness is hard-wired into life. Sometimes, happiness comes from selfish actions; other times, it comes from unselfish actions. Since happiness is the goal of all people, some actions are selfish while others are not.
With respect to what Ms. Dani said: Pretending the world revolves around oneself and selfishness are two separate concepts. Children are born thinking the world revolves around themselves; that is, a child cannot conceive of a world that does not focus on himself. You seem to be describing selfishness as the lamentable default of humanity â lamentable because altruism is the goal of people.
Anonymous, to Kropotkin’s credit, he does not specifically say that separate colonies of ants won’t fight eachother. The opening line of the quote:
In that immense division of the animal kingdom which embodies more than one thousand species, and is so numerous that the Brazilians pretend that Brazil belongs to the ants, not to men, competition amidst the members of the same nest, or the colony of nests,does not exist.
I will grant, however, that the sentiment his words express seems to indicate that he fancies a universal cohesiveness of this greater-than-Man animal, the Ant. Oh, what lessons we should learn from so noble a creature!
10-50,000 years in evolution is a blip in time.
Are our characteristics the Jonathon alludes to influenced by technology? If so then…
The genetic modifications happen through breeding. By its very nature we never stop evolving…
We are definitely not evolving. If anything, we are devolving, becoming less self efficient and less capable of survival without modern day conveniences and technology. I’m more impressed with what the Egyptians did B.C. than with what we have “created” or invented in this age.
Brian Graham, I must take issue with your comment on several bases.
First, your seemingly-nihilistic view that survival is the fundamental driving force behind every human action is unforgivably outdated. I will take the time to offer only one example. My consumption of Shiner Bock (a thoroughly enjoyable beer available almost exclusively in Texas) is in no way, shape, or form a result of survival instinct. Quite to the contrary, some might argue.
Second, that your understanding of cognitive development is primitive is not cause for disdain, but your stark assertion of knowledge in the matter, specifically your statement that “[c]hildren are born thinking the world revolves around themselves”, is really quite unacceptable.
Third, precisely what is your point? After erecting a false distinction between selfishness and self-centeredness, and then claiming against Ms. Dani a value judgement she never made, you fail to draw a conclusion. What were you driving at?
this is a fascinating discussion, i can’t say anything for any of the arguments better than what has already been said. y’all are smarties! go on! love! reproduce! love some more! pls create more sensitive, thoughtful, kind, intelligent and altruistic humans so that we can make the world a better place! y’all are awesome. michelle
I agree with Matthew Peck on this one. Remember what Scar did to Mufassa and Simba in the Lion King?
They stacked rocks on top of each other using slave labor.
Last 100 years: automobile, national highway system, microchip, women’s suffrage, etc., etc.
We’re not devolving. Evolution is nature’s process of altering life to better survival. Intelligence overcomes this, doesn’t it? Life altering nature instead of the opposite.
That last one was mine.
I think there is clearly a third alternative. Hobbes, in his war of man against man, is describing an environment devoid of civil society. Invasion, destruction, etc, are all anti-social behaviors. He supposes that every man single-mindedly pursues his own ends and when such ends “overlap” with those other men, the only resolution is through force.
Kropotkin, however, takes it to the other extreme. He suggests that when men put the “needs of society” before their own, then that society will achieve greatness. However, the individuals in such a society hardly “act” in that all their decisions are made for them. Thier “superior intellect” is a waste because the queen (read: central committee) makes all the decisions for them. Besides, such an arrangement is arguably impossible in human society.
However, there is a third alternative and it is the one borne out in human societal evolution. Men and women join societies because they believe that the benefits of doing so (benefits from the increased production through the division of labor) will outweigh the costs (having to obey laws against murder, theft, etc). In a civil society, men and women are free to pursue whatever ends they please (their own self interests), and where such ends overlap, i.e. two individuals wish to possess the same loaf of bread or piece of land, these “conflicts” are resolved through the market and the societal laws that uphold it. Adam Smith’s description of how individuals pursuing their own self interest also benefit society describes this scenario very well. I’m no biologist, but it would appear to me that such an arrangement is uniquely human.
Evolution does not happen through breeding unless genelines and subspecies and so forth are bred out of existence. Are some of us thinking in Lamarckian terms? What natural selection is making us evolve?
If anything, modern medicine, public health, and technology are keeping cripples, the weak, and the like alive when they might otherwise not reproduce. But our genetics are not appreciably different than 50,000 years ago, so I fail to see how we are individually or collectively “evolving” other than in some colloquial sense.
roach,
Hear, hear!
Matthew Peck:
1) Me: “Survival being the source of happiness is hard-wired into life.”
You summarizing me: “[S]urvival is the fundamental driving force behind every human action.”
But those are different!
2) I’m not sure how I’m incorrect in claiming children are born thinking the world revolves around themselves. Besides, Ms. Dani claimed the same thing: “We are hard wired selfish and then learn (maturity) that the world does not revolve around us.” From what I could tell, “world [revolving] around us” and “selfish” were meant to be synonymous.
3) I didn’t claim a distinction between selfishness and self-centeredness. I said there was a distinction between selfishness and the perspective of the world revolving around oneself. Selfishness can be (roughly) summarized as looking out for numero uno â not just in safety but in ambitions and values, too. The “world revolving around me” perspective differs from this, because in in the WRAM perspective, Joe Blow only views people as they relate to Joe Blow.
She did make that value judgment. She said that when we mature, we are no longer selfish. If a mature person is no longer selfish, then selfishness must be immature. I’m saying that’s not true.
I think a better definition of maturity is longer time horizons. As we get more mature, we can think about our long term interest, which depends in part upon our reputation. So we treat people better, not typically out of a grand moral purpose, but out of an enlightened self-itnerest for ourselves and the foundations of our happiness in a given social/political milieu.
Bernard, Chad S: I agree with your interpretation on this. And after reading everyone’s comments, I feel like I’ve evolved a little.
Yep. Just a little.
Hobbes is correct in this:
Therefore, if two men desire the same thing which they cannot both enjoy they become enemies, and seek each the destruction of the other, each mistrusting the other.
Men who compete for the same thing (such as land), they will no doubt wish each other’s downfall in that specific endeavour, sure. The use of the words ‘enemy’ and ‘war’ when describing this situation, is melodramatic. Mini-battles like these happen in nature at all times. I want to get a better deal on a new car, and the salesman won’t budge. He is my enemy. Should I destroy him? Obviously that would get me nowhere, as other factors play in that decision. Give ‘Hobbes War’ a chance.
However, he seems to falter here:
Hence, while men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in a state of war, every man against every man.
How will a common power keep them from warring with each other, unless that power is in continual battle with the lesser powers of the men? That is simply enslavement. Do as your told or suffer.
Men will always decide the most beneficial path for their goals. Sometimes the most beneficial thing is mutually beneficial to two or more people, thus creating societies.
When men are continually working knowing their work is not the most beneficial toward their goals, you can be assured a type of coercion is involved.
Brian, IMO, selfishness and one’s perception of self as the center of the world ARE synonymous. A child who is selfish is so due to ignorance. An adult who is selfish is so due to stupidity, and well… selfishness. They lack the desire or ability to think outside of themselves. I don’t know how you can see the two as separate.
Human (more precisely, homonid) evolution over the past million years or so has probably been driven more by sexual selection than natural selection. Think less hair and bigger brains.
Not to mention language, art, music, and the tendency to ask philisophical questions such as the one Mr. Wilde has brought up. And the ability to enjoy Shiner Bock (though I’m partial to Stone IPA, myself).
None of which have much to do with survival.
As to the original question, I don’t really think that there is such a thing as an “essential nature” among nature’s creatures, beyond a tendency to survive and reproduce (the creatures failing in those endeavors don’t tend to stick around for very long). As already pointed out, the particular strategies that different species (and indeed, different human societies) have employed to that end are as diverse as nature itself, with some being altruistic and “hive-minded”, some being fiercely competetive and violent, and most probably somewhere in between.
…if two men desire the same thing which they cannot both enjoy they… work together to quadruple the quantity of said thing, allowing each to enjoy one thing whilst having an extra thing to sell or trade. — Cooperative Capitalism 101
Evolution has nothing to do with improvement of a species, it’s adaptation.
You dodo birds.
I can appreciate that a libertarian blog might trend toward absolutism, but geez!
There are no absolutes in the animal kingdom — success is measured by achieving the best balance of cooperation and competition. Even male lions cooperate; brothers, for example, will co-lead a pride and share the lionesses. Among the primates, the most competitive males will (AFAIK) likely have less reproductive success. So things trend toward a mean, a balance between cooperation and competition.
Now, apply this lesson to our modern economy. pure cooperation, i.e., communism, fails due to lack of incentives and free-rider problems. pure capitalism fails because too many members of the community are unwilling to subject their fellow humans to the worst rigors of a pure capitalistic society. (see Dickens.)
so we struggle, trying to find the best balance between cooperation and competition.
cheers
Francis
fdl, excellent
FDl your point reminds me of Ronald Coase’s study regarding the “Theory of the Firm” His basic thesis was triggered by the following thoughts: Firms are efficient, so why aren’t businesses consolidated until the world is one huge firm. Likewise, competition is efficinet, so why don’t these things break down until each of us is an independent contractor. He theorized that because of economies and diseconomies of scale capitalism will provide for an efficient amount of cooperation and competition, and reward optimal allocations. Seems elementary, but it was an important contribution in his age (1930s I think) of corporatist/socialist fashions.
Here is a link: http://people.bu.edu/vaguirre/courses/bu332/nature_firm.pdf
fdl,
1) Please don’t invent “-ism”s. Doing so is hackneyed and unclever.
2) Your definition of how “success is measured” has nothing to do with any model of nature seriously discussed in biology. The “success” of a species, if such a thing can be identified, is its ability to continue to exist. The “success” of an individual animal, if such a thing can be identified, is its ability to stay alive and reproduce.
3) Even male lions cooperate; brothers, for example, will co-lead a pride and share the lionesses. Among the primates, the most competitive males will (AFAIK) likely have less reproductive success. No, brother lions don’t co-lead. They live together until they find a pride to take over, and then the stronger brother becomes the dominant male. After your mistake, you then announce to us (ie “AFAIK”) that, in effect, you don’t have the damnedest idea what you’re talking about and are simply making things up to support your specious argument.
4) “[P]ure capitalism” has never “fail”ed. Capitalism is an economic model, and is wildly successful in accomplishing precisely what it intends to accomplish: the creation of wealth. Capitalism has never had the remotest goal of promoting economic equality or supporting the economically unviable. Your Marxist intentions are egregious.
5) Despite the pretendings of highschool English teachers around the country, Dickens is a pedantic, boring hack. Regardless, holding him up in support of your economic theory makes you look ridiculous.
6) I don’t know who “we” refers to, but I struggle to improve my economic and social condition. Cooperation and competition are merely a means to that end. Yes, it really is that mercenary.
“If anything, modern medicine, public health, and technology are keeping cripples, the weak, and the like alive when they might otherwise not reproduce. But our genetics are not appreciably different than 50,000 years ago, so I fail to see how we are individually or collectively “evolving” other than in some colloquial sense. ”
roach, you seem to ignore the possibility that a species can evolve in more direction than one. Speciation is exactly that phenomenon where a large group of one species evolves divergently due to breeding habits and over time becomes multiple species. The crossing of genetic lines and specialization of isolated breeding groups doesn’t produce a homogenous, averaging effect on the entire populace. Humans will never evolve to the point where there is a single face that is the average of all faces now present and is identically reproduced over all individuals. The reality is exactly the opposite phenomenon: more variety, and more exotic individuals, diverging farther and farther from each other.
Stopped evolving in the past 10,000 years? Precisely when, if you please, did the distinctions between different European peoples evolve (i.e Scandinavian vs Greek vs German vs Slavik vs British vs Spanish)? When did Native Americans split off of Asian people and begin to evolve in another direction? What about South Americans? Africans? Asians? Middle Easterners? Aboriginees?
All current evidence suggests that Native Americans split off of mainland Asia no more than 15,000 years ago. South Americans might have split off of Native Americans at some point after that. All European distinctions have evolved certainly in the past 5,000 years, some in the past 1,000 years.
My point is that evolution is NOT a uni-directional force that somehow is “driving” species to become the “ultimate super race”. Mankind’s intellect has not “intercepted” evolution and reversed it. This is a completely bogus idea.
Do you think that the fact that a person with Down’s syndrome survives rather than dying early affects my decision to seek out an intelligent, healthy, and well-suited mate and produce offspring? Certainly not. The cross of our two gene pools, which is entirely unique, will offer the world a new genetic code that has NEVER existed before. So too, does every union that produces offspring.
What exactly is YOUR problem with that?
The world of humans is getting more diverse, not less! That means there are far more opportunities for individuals of “exceptional” quality, whichever quality you measure or find important.
Just to drive the point home, consider the various breeds of dogs. Genetic studies of dogs have shown that they are in fact so genetically similar to wolves that they should be classified as the same species! Yet dogs vary in size, shape, color, hair patterns, growth rate, temperment, and numerous other factors in an enormous variety. In a sense, wolves have “evolved” in various directions. Has wolf evolution stopped? Hardly.
These hundreds of breeds of dogs that are around today….how old are they? If you do some digging, you’ll find that almost ALL breeds of dogs have emerged in the past 200 years, due to careful intervention by humans. Look at the variety that is present just in the natural variation of one “stable” species of wolf! Humans coaxed the process along a bit, but you can’t deny the results: speciation is clear.
Written history is an impossibly short blink of an eye in the overall scheme of evolution. Your assertion based on this impossibly tiny slice of time that appears almost static and a few rhetorical questions is absurd!
Humans will evolve forever, probably into many different things! We may even die out and something else will overtake us!
When was the last time humans evolved? Is Ceasar Nero any different than Saddam Hussein? Is Moses any different than Billy Graham?
“When was the last time humans evolved? Is Ceasar Nero any different than Saddam Hussein? Is Moses any different than Billy Graham?”
Is the Grand Canyon appreciably different than 1000 years ago? Is Everest much taller than a century ago?
Slow and steady does not mean stationary, Ms. Dani.
You still haven’t told me ONE thing that has changed about man from the first recorded info we know about ourselves which is about 3000 years ago. And excuse me but the Grand Canyon and I are not exactly the same things.
Bad example. First of all all men are not born of equal mind and body. Secondly, it assumes that all humans are void of reason, a sense of values, and emotions. Although it may be the wish of some people for this to be true it most certainly is not.
Ms Dani-
We’re taller…seriously, we are.
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