Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?

Paul Gauguin's "D'où venons-nous? / Qui sommes-nous? / Où allons-nous?", 1897

I love Chris Harman’s book, A People’s History of the World, and I want to have his socialist babies. No kidding, and I’m only on chapter 5.

Chris Harman disagrees with, “the idea that the key features of successive societies and human history have been a result of an ‘unchanging’ human nature.” I’m turned on already. He continues,

“It is a prejudice that pervades academic writing, mainstream journalism and popular culture alike. Human beings, we are told, have always been greedy, competitive and aggressive, and that explains horrors like war, exploitation, slavery and the oppression of women. This ‘caveman’ image is meant to explain the bloodletting on the Western Front in one world war and the Holocaust in the other. I argue very differently. ‘Human nature’ as we know it today is a product of our history, not its cause.”

Harman also explains his disagreement with the idea that, “although human society may have changed in the past, it will do so no more” and that, as Anthony Giddens claimed, we live in a world “where there are no alternatives to capitalism”. Harman argues,

“Capitalism as a way of organizing the whole production of a country is barely three or four centuries old. As a way or organizing the whole production of the world, it is at most 150 years old… Yet humans of one sort of another have been on earth for over a million years, and modern humans for over 100,000 years. It would be remarkable indeed if a way of running things that has existed for less than 0.5 percent of our species’ lifespan were to endure for the rest of it.”

So in short, Harman believes in the power of our environment to effect the way we think and act, and because that environment is constantly changing, so too can and will societal structures, culture and how people think and act.

This is an argument exemplifying the ideas of historical and dialectical materialism, philosophies popularized by Karl Marx. These ideas basically state that a society’s means of production determine the material conditions of society, and the material conditions of society, which are constantly changing, determine future changes to that society and to its people. Basically. What surprises people is usually the first half, so lemme ’splain.

“A society’s means of production determine the material conditions of society.” Lets take a simpler model than what we have currently. Hunter-gatherer societies were largely nomadic and subsisted on the food that they could gather or kill. Because the gathering half was fully compatible with raising children, women were largely responsible for this, and because gathering was the main source of subsistence, women’s contribution to society was considered equal to that of men. This exemplifies the means of production influencing perspectives on sex and gender.

Another example would be environmental changes necessitating a more reliable source of food, and this necessity begot agriculture. Eventually agriculture and sedentary communities led to a food surplus. Those who managed the surplus eventually became the first ruling class, because they had the power to give or withhold subsistence in times of drought or natural disaster. Eventually these people were looked to as priests or even gods. This is an example of the environment affecting the means of production which in turn affected social relations and beliefs.

In any case, these arguments say very little about our actual nature - what we’ve inherited biologically. What shocks me is that this still seems to be a gray area in terms of theory vs fact. Most people seem to be fairly solid on the idea that we have biological predispositions: we came this far because of our inherent ability to cooperate and be social, and because of our ability to adapt due to neuroplasticity. Other ideas such as heterosexual men like hairless women because they look like prepubescent girls which means they’re stronger and more fertile or something. Are these all theories at this point?

This is obviously the part of the post that I didn’t spend hours, days or weeks researching. I did read a few books. What’s confusing me right now is that I hear from one camp that we now know how very much our genes affect us, and from another camp that all we know about genes is that there are a couple for certain diseases and one for ear hair. This is a perfect example of the uninformed populace - no wonder we’re confused. If anyone has any insight into this side of things, please do comment.

The only conclusion I’ve been able to come to so far is the idea that we come with some predispositions, some different between individuals, but because we are biologically programmed to adapt, we are therefore impacted a great deal by our environment, and our predispositions can be shifted or overwritten. If this were not the case, I would not be an activist. Learn more about this in Gerald Huther’s book, The Compassionate Brain: How Empathy Creates Intelligence.

Lastly is the idea of “cultural evolution” or “cultural software” as Mark Pesce explained it in his great talk, “Hyperpolitics” from the Personal Democracy Forum 2008. Pesce describes what is called “the sapient paradox” (not worth much on Google, sadly), which explores the question that if the human genome has remained pretty much the same  since 60,000 years ago, why didn’t we build New York City or invent the internet sooner? We’ve only lived in sedentary cities for roughly 5,000 years and we’ve only just begun to develop digital technology in the past hundred years, so if we had the “toolset” then, what happened to those 55,000 years in between?

Marc Pesce and others point to advances in communication as one kind of conductor of culture (duh, perhaps). A more intense level of trade occured after cities began springing up, Roman imperialism likely spread ideas and connected divergent cultures in a new way, Gutenberg’s printing press helped to spread knowledge faster than ever, and recent capitalist globalization likely had a similar effect. To go back to the Marxist perspective, these things didn’t just happen when they happened, they happened because of material changes in the mode of production and therefore in the organization of society. That and a host of details all collaborating to create an idea or event.

What’s really interesting about change today is that technological advancements are exponential. In addition, as Pesce explains in his talk, we are all hyperconnected, which means that ideas also spread faster than they ever have before. I believe this is creating the potential for a change in social relations. Pesce says, “A hyperconnected polity… has resources at its disposal which exponentially amplify its capabilities. Hyperconnectivity begets hypermimesis begets hyperempowerment.”

If we put all of my above babble together, we must begin to ask ourselves, “so what’s next?” Technological and cultural change are happening now faster than ever in human history. Capitalism has only been around for 0.5% of that time. The requirements for humanity to subsist will impact the means of production which will in turn effect our social organization and culture. Humans succeeded up till now because of their ability to cooperate and adapt.

I think it would be pretty conceited at this point to assert that we’ve figured it all out and that the way things are now is the be all end all of human history. I think change is coming, and it’s coming fast. What it will be, I don’t know, but I have a few ideas.