Friday, 31 January 2025
Humans: The species built on interdependence among its members
For we humans, the most important part of the ecosystem that we live in is definitely the other human beings who live in it. We have thus developed a strong interdependence by discovering, at a very early age, our need to cooperate with one another and the benefits that this cooperation brings. If you need any proof how much human children are naturally inclined to help one another, all you need do is watch the videos shot by psychologist Michael Tomasello .
Other primate species do not demonstrate this propensity to help one another so regularly and in such elaborate ways as humans do. Placed in similar situations, they do show some ability to work together, but very often, they choose not to. That’s why it seems far more likely than not that we humans were loving, cooperative beings to begin with, but gradually came to embrace a culture that places more value on aggression and competition.
This directly contradicts traditional economists’ contention that humans fundamentally prey on one another, that every economic agent is always trying to maximize their personal wealth, and that competition is the only way to survive. Because from an evolutionary standpoint, it simply makes no sense for beings to exist whose fundamental biological imperative is to compete at one another’s expense, even though they are sometimes of love. It simply would not have been conducive to the emergence of the human social fabric as we know it, with its extensive interdependence among individuals who cooperate in various ways all day long.
And that’s why Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela said that everything that undermines people’s acceptance of one another, from competition to the conviction that they have a monopoly on the truth, weakens the social process because it undermines the very biological process that gives rise to it. What does that tell us about the polarization of public discourse, amplified by the echo chamber of the social media? I leave it to you to assess this rather obvious problem in light of the points just raised.
Emotions and the Brain, From Thought to Language | Comments Closed
