There is something special about the human animal. Of all the earth's creatures, we are the creators of change. After ten thousand years of steadily accelerating transformations, virtually all the life on this planet is now caught up in the destiny of the creature with the unique ability to invent his way of life.
That mankind has the power to transform the conditions of life for ourselves and other creatures does not mean we understand the powers we exercise. Just as a human hearts beat for aeons before the circulation of the blood was understood, so the forces that drive the stream of change in human social life could come from us yet escape our comprehension.
People often do not recognize, much less grasp, the effects of their actions. Four thousand years ago (as Geoffrey Bibby describes in a book of that title, 1961) change in civilized societies was so gradual that people thought that life had always been as it was then. The question of explaining change hardly arose in their minds. Yet they were actively (if inadvertently) effecting one of the great revolutions in the history of life - the evolution of civilization. Change that was cataclysmic by the standards of life's previous development was nonetheless too slow to be visible in the perspective of a single lifetime.
Now, change has so quickened that one cannot help but witness dramatic metamorphoses in civilized societies. Before our eyes, ancient tribal groups are being welded into nations. Whole societies adopt new forms of social and economic organization. Intellectual revolutions and technological innovations constantly alter people's methods of production, transportation, housing. Traditional values and ideologies all over the world are altered or overthrown as they encounter new and unexpected conditions.
History's acceleration has made manifest what has been true from the beginning of civilization: the structure of life for civilized peoples has been constantly subject to profound changes as new cultural ways are developed and replace the old. We can see now that civilization is an evolving system.
The question is: what determines the direction in which civilization evolves? It is a vital question, for if we are shaping our destiny without comprehension, how likely is it we will shape it well? For our power to exceed our understanding is dangerous. What is remarkable about this question besides its fundamental importance is the paucity of attention it receives. There seem to be two principal reasons for this neglect: (1) some do not search for an answer because they believe none can exist; and (2) some do not search for an answer because they assume they already know it.
(1) In an age of specialized analysis, there is a prejudice against general questions and general answers: the study of forests is considered best pursued as the study of particular trees. Even as pictures from satellites open our eyes to sweeping vistas, our world view tends to be myopically mired in the magnifying-glass stage. The parts are delineated in excruciating detail, whereas the whole is left for some invisible hand to assemble or is regarded as no more than the sum of its parts.
Admittedly, it may be that no general explanation can illuminate the transformations of human life over the ten thousand years of civilization. The reasons for change might be wholly different from one time and place to another. Perhaps history must remain the museum of the unique that most present historians claim it to be.
If we nonetheless persist in seeking to explain the overall thrust of history, it may profit us to ask: what kind of idea might conceivably be able to encompass so vast and diverse a panorama as the history of the development of civilization? An admirable precedent lies before us: the Darwinian theory of biological evolution. In an era growing newly aware that living systems are changing and not fixed, Charles Darwin created a most satisfying theory for explaining an evolutionary process. His idea is elegant and comprehensive. All it requires are two things: a diversity of alternative forms and a systematic process of selection among those alternatives according to some consistent criteria. Once genetic theory could account for the generation of alternative forms, Darwin's concept of natural selection could, in a single brilliant stroke, illuminate one of the deepest mysteries of the universe. By constant operation over innumerable generations, natural selection could mold the indescribable complexity of the phenomena of life; the generality of its application did not violate the uniqueness of the particular living structure.
The concept of selection - combining great simplicity and extraordinary explanatory power - is doubtless one of the magnificent intellectual creations of the human mind. Moreover, such a concept offers the best hope of giving us an elegant and parsimonious explanation of far-reaching changes in complex systems. Although the past one and a half centuries have produced various theories of what has been called 'social evolution,' very few have been evolutionary theories in that most essential Darwinian sense of postulating a process of selection among alternatives to account for the overall trends in the evolution of civilized societies. The goal of this work is to find such a clarifying evolutionary theory for the development of civilization.
(2) An evolutionary theory of sorts is already present in the minds of many. Therein lies the second reason why the pursuit of a general theory of civilization's evolution is not more energetic: why search for what one already has? To many people, change seems explicable by a commonsense theory, one so obvious in fact that it generally remains implicit rather than stated outright. I now present briefly this commonsense explanation. Understanding the drama of our social evolution is too important a matter to be left in the dim light of unstated assumptions.
The Common Sense: Selection by Human Choice
This commonsense theory of social evolution offers a benign and reasonable view of human affairs. According to this image, people are continually hunting for ways to better their condition. (One immediately recognizes the Economic Man of capitalist theory). The alternatives are readily generated by this pursuit of improvement. The longer the hunt goes on, the more alternatives are discovered. And, since man is an inventive as well as exploratory creature, what is discovered in the world is increasingly supplemented by what people have created. With the passage of time, therefore, more and more cultural alternatives become available for all aspects of our cultural business - how and what to produce, how to govern ourselves, what to think, how to travel, play, make music, and so on. The process of selection is done by people. The criterion for selection? People choose what they believe will best meet their needs, replacing old cultural forms when new and better ones become available. Again, the resonance with economic theory is striking: social evolution is the product of choices made in the marketplace of cultural possibilities.
This theory can be aptly illustrated by the development of a cuisine. In the beginning, people are surrounded by plants and animals, of unknown nutritive value and taste. Over the course of time, everything gets tried. People learn from their experience. They remember what tasted good, what was poisonous, even what diet made them feel healthy. They experiment with new combinations, new ways of preparing, storing, and curing foods. Constantly, they select for the most satisfying cuisine. As people from one region contact people from another, they exchange ideas and ingredients. Each group now benefits from the other's recipes, and altogether new recipes come into being as new combinations of foods become possible - one group's nuts are traded for another's herbs, citrus comes to the New World as the tomato is taken to the Old. Selection continually generates improvement.
Despite all the buffeting the modern Western notion of progress has received since 1914, the assumption remains strongly embedded in our world view that history is about progress. This commonsense evolutionary theory is part of that assumption. Each generation has more options to choose among, and more collective experience upon which to base its choices. Each can improve upon the heritage it receives. The story of civilization can be seen as The Great Ascent.
The reader no doubt suspects that I have set up this theory of social evolution by human choice only as a straw man to be struck down. Of course this is true but only in part. Like most commonsense ideas it captures an important truth.
That mankind has the power to transform the conditions of life for ourselves and other creatures does not mean we understand the powers we exercise. Just as a human hearts beat for aeons before the circulation of the blood was understood, so the forces that drive the stream of change in human social life could come from us yet escape our comprehension.
People often do not recognize, much less grasp, the effects of their actions. Four thousand years ago (as Geoffrey Bibby describes in a book of that title, 1961) change in civilized societies was so gradual that people thought that life had always been as it was then. The question of explaining change hardly arose in their minds. Yet they were actively (if inadvertently) effecting one of the great revolutions in the history of life - the evolution of civilization. Change that was cataclysmic by the standards of life's previous development was nonetheless too slow to be visible in the perspective of a single lifetime.
Now, change has so quickened that one cannot help but witness dramatic metamorphoses in civilized societies. Before our eyes, ancient tribal groups are being welded into nations. Whole societies adopt new forms of social and economic organization. Intellectual revolutions and technological innovations constantly alter people's methods of production, transportation, housing. Traditional values and ideologies all over the world are altered or overthrown as they encounter new and unexpected conditions.
The question is: what determines the direction in which civilization evolves? It is a vital question, for if we are shaping our destiny without comprehension, how likely is it we will shape it well? For our power to exceed our understanding is dangerous. What is remarkable about this question besides its fundamental importance is the paucity of attention it receives. There seem to be two principal reasons for this neglect: (1) some do not search for an answer because they believe none can exist; and (2) some do not search for an answer because they assume they already know it.
(1) In an age of specialized analysis, there is a prejudice against general questions and general answers: the study of forests is considered best pursued as the study of particular trees. Even as pictures from satellites open our eyes to sweeping vistas, our world view tends to be myopically mired in the magnifying-glass stage. The parts are delineated in excruciating detail, whereas the whole is left for some invisible hand to assemble or is regarded as no more than the sum of its parts.
Admittedly, it may be that no general explanation can illuminate the transformations of human life over the ten thousand years of civilization. The reasons for change might be wholly different from one time and place to another. Perhaps history must remain the museum of the unique that most present historians claim it to be.
If we nonetheless persist in seeking to explain the overall thrust of history, it may profit us to ask: what kind of idea might conceivably be able to encompass so vast and diverse a panorama as the history of the development of civilization? An admirable precedent lies before us: the Darwinian theory of biological evolution. In an era growing newly aware that living systems are changing and not fixed, Charles Darwin created a most satisfying theory for explaining an evolutionary process. His idea is elegant and comprehensive. All it requires are two things: a diversity of alternative forms and a systematic process of selection among those alternatives according to some consistent criteria. Once genetic theory could account for the generation of alternative forms, Darwin's concept of natural selection could, in a single brilliant stroke, illuminate one of the deepest mysteries of the universe. By constant operation over innumerable generations, natural selection could mold the indescribable complexity of the phenomena of life; the generality of its application did not violate the uniqueness of the particular living structure.
The concept of selection - combining great simplicity and extraordinary explanatory power - is doubtless one of the magnificent intellectual creations of the human mind. Moreover, such a concept offers the best hope of giving us an elegant and parsimonious explanation of far-reaching changes in complex systems. Although the past one and a half centuries have produced various theories of what has been called 'social evolution,' very few have been evolutionary theories in that most essential Darwinian sense of postulating a process of selection among alternatives to account for the overall trends in the evolution of civilized societies. The goal of this work is to find such a clarifying evolutionary theory for the development of civilization.
(2) An evolutionary theory of sorts is already present in the minds of many. Therein lies the second reason why the pursuit of a general theory of civilization's evolution is not more energetic: why search for what one already has? To many people, change seems explicable by a commonsense theory, one so obvious in fact that it generally remains implicit rather than stated outright. I now present briefly this commonsense explanation. Understanding the drama of our social evolution is too important a matter to be left in the dim light of unstated assumptions.
The Common Sense: Selection by Human Choice
This commonsense theory of social evolution offers a benign and reasonable view of human affairs. According to this image, people are continually hunting for ways to better their condition. (One immediately recognizes the Economic Man of capitalist theory). The alternatives are readily generated by this pursuit of improvement. The longer the hunt goes on, the more alternatives are discovered. And, since man is an inventive as well as exploratory creature, what is discovered in the world is increasingly supplemented by what people have created. With the passage of time, therefore, more and more cultural alternatives become available for all aspects of our cultural business - how and what to produce, how to govern ourselves, what to think, how to travel, play, make music, and so on. The process of selection is done by people. The criterion for selection? People choose what they believe will best meet their needs, replacing old cultural forms when new and better ones become available. Again, the resonance with economic theory is striking: social evolution is the product of choices made in the marketplace of cultural possibilities.
This theory can be aptly illustrated by the development of a cuisine. In the beginning, people are surrounded by plants and animals, of unknown nutritive value and taste. Over the course of time, everything gets tried. People learn from their experience. They remember what tasted good, what was poisonous, even what diet made them feel healthy. They experiment with new combinations, new ways of preparing, storing, and curing foods. Constantly, they select for the most satisfying cuisine. As people from one region contact people from another, they exchange ideas and ingredients. Each group now benefits from the other's recipes, and altogether new recipes come into being as new combinations of foods become possible - one group's nuts are traded for another's herbs, citrus comes to the New World as the tomato is taken to the Old. Selection continually generates improvement.
Despite all the buffeting the modern Western notion of progress has received since 1914, the assumption remains strongly embedded in our world view that history is about progress. This commonsense evolutionary theory is part of that assumption. Each generation has more options to choose among, and more collective experience upon which to base its choices. Each can improve upon the heritage it receives. The story of civilization can be seen as The Great Ascent.
The reader no doubt suspects that I have set up this theory of social evolution by human choice only as a straw man to be struck down. Of course this is true but only in part. Like most commonsense ideas it captures an important truth.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
