Lessons for a new paradigm - the dual drivers of evolution

The most famous critique of Darwin on this front was provided by Peter Kropotkin with his 1902 book, Mutual Aid, in which he claims that co-operation is in fact far more important than competition in the processes of natural selection. Building on this claim, he then goes on to suggest that the desire to co-operate is the principle motivation of the human organism, and that we should therefore immediately reestablish our society as an anarchist paradise.

So what is the answer? I suggest that we can look for it as part of a new paradigm that can be seen emerging within our current society.

This new paradigm can be understood to be emerging from between the extremes of the separatism described above and the “collectivism”, espoused by theorists such as Marx, Engels and Kropotkin, which rose up to oppose it.

The new “balanced” paradigm has been steadily growing over the last couple of hundred years until now it has arguably come to dominate our way of thinking. This new paradigm finds its roots in the increasing influence that Eastern philosophy, which recognises paradox and polarity as central to nature, is having on the West.

We can also look to Rousseau, who asserted that humans are paradoxically motivated by both self interest and moral virtue, and that our social institutions should reflect this, with both high levels of social organisation and high levels of freedom. We can understand the increasing levels of democracy within our systems of government over the last few centuries in this context.

Hegel gave us the dialectic, with progressions in nature swinging between the polar extremes of the “thesis” and the “anti-thesis”, as well as tending to find balance with the “synthesis”. We have seen the emergence of modern physics, which tells us that the stuff of the universe is paradoxically composed of both matter and energy at the same time.

We can also see the growing influence of Karl Jung’s theories of psychology, which have polarity built into their structure: anima/animus, extrovert/introvert etc. We can look at systems theorists, with their concept of nature being composed of holons; distinct entities which can be both broken down into smaller holons and which simultaneously form a part of larger holons.

We can also understand the emergence of the human and civil rights movements, feminism, environmentalism etc, as having grown up within the cradle of this emerging new paradigm.

In short, the new paradigm tells us that we are both matter and energy, feminine and masculine, separate individuals and a connected community, self-interested and benevolent, competitive and co-operative.

Applying this new mind-set to evolution theory, we can look at dual drivers behind the processes of natural selection; parallel streams, each of which is equally important.

On the one hand we can view evolution from the perspective of the individual as was Darwin’s focus, with the individual organism competing with it’s surrounds and passing on (what came to be understood as) its genetic heritage. At the same time, we can look from the perspective of the collective, with the evolution of eco-systems and communities, interdependent and co-operative relationships and the passing on of cultural heritage.

In 1976, Richard Dawkins gave us the concept of memes, units of cultural heritage (such as music or language), passed on within the larger brained organisms from generation to generation, but Dawkins is still focused on the individual. Simply through shifting our perspective, we can readily see that the passing on of cultural heritage has been going on throughout the entire evolutionary process.