Hobbes was mistaken in terming anarchy as "the state of nature" -- mistaken because (biological) nature is far from anarchic. As was discussed in the fourth installment -- while all in the biological order pursue survival for themselves and their kind, they can only do so within biologically evolved limits. While each follows its own law, that law has been inscribed on its nature through a selective process that ultimately will favor only what is viable for the system as a whole. ("No creature can win against its environment for long.")
But, from Hobbes' own experience of the breakdown of order in the England of his time, he was insightful about what happens in the circumstances of civilization (where humankind operates outside of such natural, biologically evolved limits): with no governing order, what ensues is inevitably a "war of all against all."
And so it was -- inevitably -- among the emerging societies following humankind's breakout from its biologically evolved niche. Among these emerging civilized societies, compelled to interact outside of any order, a Hobbsean struggle for power becomes inevitable.
That is step number one.
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THE INEVITABILITY OF THE SELECTION FOR THE WAYS OF POWER
The inevitability of a war of all against all in the intersocietal system is bad enough. But the consequences of such a ceaseless struggle for power go far beyond the traumas and destruction of unavoidable conflict.
For as bad as the struggle for power is, it is the resulting selection for the ways of power that has made the evolution of civilization as warped and nightmarish as it has been. This is the second step.
Here is how a new evolutionary dynamic arose with civilization, driving the course of civilized humankind in directions that people did not choose, but could not avoid.
Imagine a group of tribes living within reach of one another. If all choose the way of peace, then all may live in peace. But what if all but one choose peace, and that one is ambitious for expansion and conquest? What are the possibilities for the others when confronted by an ambitious and potent neighbor?
- Perhaps one tribe is attacked and defeated, its people destroyed and its lands seized for the use of the victors.
- Another is defeated, but this one is not exterminated; rather, it is subjugated and transformed to serve the conqueror.
- A third seeking to avoid such disaster flees from the area into some inaccessible (and undesirable) place, and its former homeland becomes part of the growing empire of the power-seeking tribe.
- Let us suppose that others observing these developments decide to defend themselves in order to preserve themselves and their autonomy. But the irony is that to defend successfully against a power-maximizing aggressor, a society must have sufficient power. For power can be stopped only by power. And if the threatening society has discovered ways to magnify its power through innovations in organization or technology or martial ferocity (or whatever), the defensive society will have to transform itself into something more like its foe in order to resist the external force.
I have just outlined four possible outcomes for the threatened tribes: destruction, absorption and transformation, withdrawal, and imitation. In every one of these outcomes the ways of power are spread throughout the system. This is the parable of the tribes.
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TRAPPED IN A PROCESS OF UNENDING ESCALATION
It is the description of the fourth option -- the option of self-defense, which tends to require imitation of power-enhancing innovations -- that provides the clue to the trap into which humankind inadvertently fell with the rise of civilization.
The ceaseless and unavoidable struggle for power takes place in the context of open-ended possibilities for cultural innovation. Success in the inevitable competitive process requires that a society command sufficient power, and the power of a society is ultimately a function of virtually every component of its cultural system: its political structure, its economic system, the way its members are brought up, its values and worldview, etc.
The selection for the ways of power therefore has a comprehensive impact on the nature of the evolving civilized societies.
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