OK, let me try to do this briefly, and still try to make some sense of it.
First, two innate drives, in fundamental competition with one another: the drive to associate and the drive to compete. My belief is that the whole of human morality rises from the effort to resolve these two impulses, equally essential but often contradictory.
We have to realize, first off, that what we call "civilization" is a very recent phenomenon. For the vast majority of our time on this planet, we have lived in small groups, families, clans, groups of a few clans. These groups inevitably had systems of rules governing points which could cause contention within the clan. The rules generally covered the use of violence, the disposition of property, power structures, sexual partnerships, etc. The rules that governed various groups varied a great deal, but almost always covered the same general areas.
My belief is that these rules are learned behaviour, growing out of the need to govern competition and maintain the cohesion of the group. Others postulate that they came from Elsewhere, or from an effort to ennoble the race, or from religion, but we've dealt with that elsewhere.
The kicker here is that the rules rarely, if ever, applied outside the group. Property, life, sexual partnership of another group member were inviolable, but anyone outside the group was fair game. That explains the Mongols and the Old Testament. Within the group, follow the code (Genghis Khan developed and enforced a stern code of civil law, and boasted that a lone woman could ride the length of his empire unmolested); outside the group, smite and slay at will, with full approval from the group's chosen deity.
Our history for the last few thousand years shows a gradual and discontinuous, but nonetheless clear, trend toward expansion of the concept of "we" and "they". We've gone from families to clans, clans to groups of clans, groups of clans to city-states, and on to kingdoms, nations, empires, etc. The motivations here are many and interlacing; there is no single "reason", but the phenomenon is clear. Our current attempts to develop rules that will be binding among nations is a logical extension of this trend, though it still has a long way to go.
Another thing we see is that the mechanisms through which basic drives operate are increasingly governed by learned behaviour. The basic drives are still there; we still associate and compete. But the structures within which these drives operate have become far more complex.
One thing I want to make clear: I have never maintained that each human action or institution is based on a conscious evaluation of survival value. This would of course be absurd. My contention was that the basic drives are rooted in survival. The mechanisms within which these drives operate have numerous permutations, many of which may be distinctly inimical to survival. Smart groups, the ones that successfully channel instinctive drives into productive and progressive activities, will survive and prosper. Others will not. Of course, now that we have the capacity for self-annihilation, it is possible for a few who cannot or will not manage these drives to wipe out others who do. In other words, we have reached a point in our evolution where we can no longer assume that smart groups will survive and dumb ones will not. We either sink or swim together.
That is brief, excessively simple, and probably garbled, but I won't try to fix it any further. Be aware, also, that it is simply what I believe; I do not proclaim it to be "truth". I will simply continue to believe it until I encounter a more plausible explanation.
If somebody insists, I will describe my view of the origins of religion, but I don't relish the prospect of the discussion that will inevitably follow.... |
