Chapter 18           The Genetic Evolution – Cultural Evolution Analogy

 

 

                      

 

                                      Earth seen from space (Wikimedia Commons)

 

What makes Earth’s biosphere – its living ecosystem – so different from any other entity we have found in the universe (so far) is the way it tends, overall, to keep becoming more – more in mass, in space, and in internal complexity – as it moves forward in time. All other entities we know of shred apart over time. But life on this planet has formed complex entities that keep weaving more matter and energy into themselves. Living things take bits of dead matter, plus (sometimes) already existing living fabric, then, following directions coded into their own parts, they weave these together to make more of themselves. Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Nitrogen woven on sunlight-powered looms, following directions coded into DNA, form one giant garment: earth’s biosphere.  

This weaving metaphor is an inadequate one, but then so are all models of matter. All models used in Science prove limited. Electrons are not tiny balls, even though that’s how they’re portrayed in high school Science texts.

 

All the metaphor is meant to help make clear is that as this entity expands, there are patterns visible in that expanding. Those patterns can be seen repeating and also subtly evolving, ceaselessly. It is just logical for us to assume that they must be guided by some programming embedded somewhere in the fabric.

 

We have shown in the life sciences that all living things in the system embed their programming in microscopic bits of matter we call “DNA” that they carry around inside themselves. The code in these bits regulates how that living thing maintains its body, how it reproduces, and how the species as a whole adapts to changes in its surroundings. But then humans add their own extra codes.

 

Other species teach some of their behaviors to their offspring. But humans get nearly all of the programming they use for their maintenance, reproduction, and adaptation from memes programmed by both behavior and language into the brains of the young by their adult role models.   

 

Living by their cultural codes – that is, mostly by learned behaviors rather than genetically coded ones – humans outmanoeuvre all other species on this planet. But, in the end, societies have to survive in the same universe run by the same laws as all other living things do. Cultural programs must guide us to deal with gravity, light, entropy, uncertainty, pH ranges, moisture levels, and so on, just as genetic programs do. Cultures augment and support genetic codes. They do not replace genetic codes. And both aim to achieve the same end: survival in this harsh, scary universe.

 

Thus, it is logical for us to digress on the analogy that can be drawn between the genetic mode of evolution and the cultural one. This analogy will help to deepen our understanding of cultural codes, and so of moral realism.

 

Parallels between biological evolution and cultural evolution have been noted before, by the Social Darwinists in particular. But most people today find the Social Darwinists’ conclusions unacceptable. And rightly so. Social Darwinism argues that rich people are rich because they deserve to be; they are superior. They deserve to be rich because they know how to run society. They have both the intelligence and the discipline to keep society stable and to get work done. In contrast, Social Darwinism claims the workers, who in many places in the world are still indigent and living in squalor, deserve to live in misery because they don’t have the intelligence or discipline to run anything.

 

 

           

                                               "The storming of the Bastille"

                            (credit: Jean-Pierre Houël, via Wikimedia Commons

A few generations ago, some rich Frenchmen lived by this code and found to their sorrow that it contained the seeds of its own destruction. To persuade any who still want to live by that oligarchic code, I offer the harsher lessons of the Russian Revolution. Then come the ones in China, Cuba, Vietnam, etc. And the very near miss in the US in the 1930s. This evidence contains a hard lesson for the nineteenth century-style Social Darwinists all over the world: if you want to live, be nice. Share. Workers have to be paid enough to be able to care for their families. Otherwise, they will revolt. Living in misery, with daily starvation for themselves and their kids, they have nothing left to lose. Social Darwinism, left to its own ways, driven only by markets, tends toward this exact picture of the workers’ lives. Richer and richer elites. Poorer and poorer workers. In such societies, bloody, violent revolution becomes more and more likely. And that description is not overly florid or dramatic. It’s just what the evidence shows.

                        

 

                       Victorious North Vietnamese troops capture Saigon, 1975

                                                        (credit: Wikipedia) 

Experience in countries all over the world has shown that societies containing more compassion and social justice – unionization of workers, state-funded education and health care, etc. – can work, and do work, and ordinary folk all over the world today know this. They will not accept exploitation, bare subsistence living, and misery as their necessary parts in society anymore.

 

The values code that guides society to its highest levels of efficiency is one that balances courage with wisdom and freedom with compassion. Leaving love out of our picture of human society is not just cruel; it’s stupid. As unrestrained capitalism keeps doing its “thing”, maneuvering only for greater and greater profits, the exploitation gets worse and worse until, eventually, it costs its adherents their heads. Literally. This is becoming clearer and clearer as we have more and more historical records to study and find patterns in.  

                      

         

                         Teamsters’ union members vs. police, Minnesota, 1934

                                             (credit: Wikimedia Commons) 

 

Now let’s consider an example that shows how values can come to equilibrium in a democracy. This example is relevant and useful here because it can be seen as a paradigm of how sub-cultures of democracies, at their best, are guided by their values as they interact in all areas of their lives, professional and personal. (In Modern English, we say our actions are informed by our values.)

 

Workers and management in Western economies can be thought of as “social species”. A captain of industry in the West today has times when he despises unions, but he accepts that if workers are not paid a fair percentage of the company’s earnings, they will work less and less efficiently. His best workers will leave his firm to find other jobs. Other workers, fed up, will willfully sabotage the company. He may find ways of retaliating, but he knows those will simply cause the cycle to deepen and worsen. If the obstinacy on both sides becomes hardened enough, violence is inevitable. If those who own the means of production – farms, mines, factories, etc. – become more incorrigible in their attitudes, society eventually breaks down into revolution. To prevent such chaos and preserve his way of life, the smart CEO has ambition/drive/diligence (courage), but also wisdom. A smart CEO works with, not against, his workers.

 

Thus, we have learned, by trial and painful error, to aim for balance. For example, workers in democracies have rights to safe working conditions and free collective bargaining via their unions. Smart businesspeople negotiate with unions, and contracts are arrived at by debate and compromise. In fact, some of the smartest businesspersons in the West today are those specifically trained in labor-management negotiations.

 

                          

                                               union leaders with Ford executives

                          (contract signing 2007) (credit: Wikimedia Commons)

 

 

For their part, most union leaders today know they have to respect a company’s ability to pay. They ask for reasonable wages and benefits for their members, but smart union bosses don’t push the employers to the brink of insolvency. To do so would simply be irrational. Union leaders need courage and wisdom in balance as well.

 

Furthermore, most business leaders in the West have accepted that as long as prices go up, workers will expect wages to go up accordingly. Ethical business leaders make businesses more efficient by funding research and by efficient management, not by union-busting. Attempts at strike breaking are viewed today as signs of management incompetence. Overall, finding balance between all the parties trying to get the work done is the key to making the whole economic system of the nation vigorous.  

 

And clearly, the system is not random. It does not find a working balance by lucky chance, nor by one individual's choice. Many parties, guided by their concepts and values, interact, give a bit, demand a bit in return, and reach agreements that are viable in the real world. Values drive behavior, and, in turn, behavior must interface with reality. Values that mirror the forces of the physical world are the ones that produce working compromises. Companies whose workers and management strive to balance enthusiasm with judgement (courage and wisdom) and innovation with respect (freedom and love) produce quality, sensibly priced goods and their firms thrive. Those that don't – don't.

 

Thus, in the view of cultural evolution, two social species – management and labor – stay in balance by following their cultural programming.    

 

There are also some even more nuanced ways of seeing balance in this labor-management subsystem within our society. One truth is that while most smart business leaders hope they can achieve a modest settlement with their workers, they also hold values that make them secretly hope the rest of their society’s workers will get generous new contracts. That will mean more disposable income in the economy, money that workers – who, during their time off, are just consumers – can spend on the smarter company’s goods and services.

 

The corollary is that while workers in any company want generous rates of pay in their new contracts, they don’t want to see too generous pay packets being handed out in all the contracts signed in all sectors of their society. If settlements in general are modest, workers know that goods will soon be cheaper relative to their wages than those goods were just a few months ago.

 

If they are honest, most workers will also admit that they want their company to succeed. Their jobs depend on it. Some of the leaders of their company may seem unsympathetic and unyielding, but smart workers know that managers who scrutinize every line in their books, as long as they also know how to adapt to industry innovations and to market their goods in creative ways, are the ones the company needs if it is to stay in business and keep workers employed.

 

In short, in the modern business world, smart businesspeople don’t live by Social Darwinism and smart workers don’t live by Marxism. Democracy in all its sectors runs by extremely complex interactions, tensions, and balances of all parties with all their concepts and values functioning vigorously. In short, the social ecosystem is closely analogous to the biological one.

 

 

                               A natural balance: wolves closing in to kill bison

                                (credit: Doug Smith, via Wikimedia Commons)

Over time, the wolf pack keeps the bison herd strong. Over time, management and union leaders keep each other and their whole country economically and socially strong. The negotiating costs emotion, but it’s effect over the long term is to prevent violence. The uplifting thing to notice here is that in healthy democracies, we have learned to find balances almost always by non-violent means. Firms go bankrupt sometimes. Unions cease to exist if some kinds of work are made obsolete by new technology. But social species like managers and workers do not have to wipe one another out for cultural evolution to occur.