Chapter Two - The Way We Were

A common principle of intelligence meets us in the savage, in the barbarian, and in the civilized man -- Lewis Henry Morgan

The idea of cultural evolution has been shunned by scholastics for the most part because it is a handy tool for racists of all sorts, and has often been used to justify one culture's subjugation or even extermination of another. However, in studying the world's remaining hunter/gatherer (savage) societies, it becomes clear that it is not any genetic trait that separates them from us -- they are not a 'living fossil', but their culture is.

The Bare Minimum

The Shoshone indians of the Central Basin, near Nevada, have been viewed by many (including Mark Twain) as one of the most primitive cultures on earth. Large portions of their time are spent as isolated family groups, scavenging with a digging stick for roots. Even the Kung San of the Kalahari Desert in Africa had a more organized structure. One explanation for this can be found in the environment of these two groups. The Kung San hunted giraffes, which not only required a larger group to hunt, but also provided more meat than one family could eat. Therefore, they had more reason to act in larger, more organized groups -- and also to practice 'reciprocal altruism', in the giving of meat to another group under the assumption that the favor would be returned at a future date. The proof that the Shoshone's environment, and not the Shoshone themselves were responsible for their lack of an integrated society, can be seen in the fact that when rabbits were especially plentiful, upwards of a dozen families would work together to use a 'rabbit net' to herd the rabbits and club them to death. They even worked under a 'rabbit boss' who organized the effort. A successful rabbit hunt ended in a 'fandango', where the rabbit meat was divided, everyone celebrated, and the opportunity could be used to exchange information and make friends.

In The Genes

The push towards non-zero-sumness through reciprocal altruism, generosity, etc. are not something that humans have come up with in an intellectual way. The benefit of these 'feelings' was noticed by natural selection before it was understood by humans, hence our 'emotional' feelings towards generosity and benevolence, which promote non-zero-sum interactions, and our anger at being cheated or betrayed, which keeps others from taking a parasitic role in a society.

The Trouble with Non-Zero-Sumness

There are two major pitfalls to non-zero-sum interactions. One is parasitism, where someone benefits from the work (and generosity) of others without reciprocating. Our genetic protection from this can be seen whenever we get angry with someone for not 'pulling their weight', but as societies get more complex, simple indignation is no longer sufficient, and societies have had to come up with non-genetic ways of preventing freeloading. The other problem is the zero-sum dynamic in all non-zero-sum interactions. In any capitalistic exchange, there is a range of reasonable prices a buyer is willing to pay and a seller is willing to take. The overall interaction is decidedly non-zero-sum, as both parties benefit from the interaction. However, the haggling over the price is a zero-sum game. Paying more benefits the seller, paying less benefits the buyer. We have some genetic armor against this problem, too, in the form of self-interest. The buyer and seller are both trying to get the best deal, and in the end a reasonable comprimise is generally reached. This self interest is one of the major forces driving increased complexity, as humans look to exploit non-zero-sum interactions to gain an upper hand against others. Also, the fact that there is a surplus to haggle over to begin with is generally the result of the non-zero-sum interaction to begin with.

Social Status

Humans innately try to improve their social status, and this helps non-zero-sum interactions in at least two ways. One is by creating a hierarchy that can be used to organize efforts under a common purpose (a leader of some sort was even necessary for the Shoshone rabbit hunts), and as a driving force behind the work done to create non-zero-sum interactions that will elevate the creator's status. This also ensures that the best ideas are the ones that thrive -- a person must come up with an idea and a large number of people must accept it in order for his social status to raise due to it. Therefore people not only want to come up with ideas, or even good ideas, but they ultimately want to come up with popular ideas.

Nature's Secret Plan

The driving forces of cooperation and competition which have worked so well to increase social complexity have been evident to humans for a very long time. Immanuel Kant, in the eighteenth century, noted man's 'unsociable sociability' and proposed that without it we may live in perfect harmony, but human progress would never have made it off the ground.