While I agree that cooperation is rad AF, I think it’s willfully ignorant to ignore the historical context of cooperation in the face of competition against the other.
Trying to make a naturalistic argument without acknowledging that is only telling half of the story, and the other half is pretty wart-y.
It’s not about ignoring crazy people and prisons, aberrant behavior will always exist. It’s about instilling a culture of collectivism versus individualism, which incentivizes competition and exclusion.
Not only do the objective conditions change in the act of reproduction, e.g. the village becomes a town, the wilderness a cleared field etc., but the producers change, too, in that they bring out new qualities in themselves, develop themselves in production, transform themselves, develop new powers and ideas, new modes of intercourse, new needs and new language. Source.
Collective organization has almost exclusively been in the context of there being “barbarians” on the doorstep.
We need to cooperate because if we don’t the (Sumarians, Babylonians,Persians, Macedonians, Mongols, Visigoths, Blackfoot, English, Soviets, Terrorists) will destroy our way of life.
I’m not saying it’s necessarily and universally TRUE (although in many cases it was) but human cooperation has historically been bound to human competition.
“Let’s all work together in harmony” is the first, rosy half of the fuller “so that those other people don’t fuck us. Even better, so we can destroy them first”
I’m saying that claiming human cooperation as a natural state without acknowledging the other side of the coin as being human competition is intentionally cherry picking.
If an intelligent person were to be listening to history, they might instead conclude that cooperation w/ competition could exist without necessarily a violent competition. Humans vs space, humans vs COVID. I think it’s possible to frame non-human agents as “the competition”, it’s happened before.
It’s not an either/or. It’s how we organize society. If you prescribe to historical materialism, which I do, you understand that it’s a choice of how we prioritize resources in society.
I guess the difference is that you’re viewing history through a philosophical lens, whereas I’m viewing it through an anthropological/archaeological lens.
I admit, I am biased to the belief that for the purposes of understanding history, these are more appropriate academic tools.
I can’t stress this enough: you are continually attributing to me positions that I probably don’t hold (at least in the way that you’re keen to attribute).
My only position is that it is disengenuous to represent human nature as being a certain way by refusing to acknowledge historical context. All (and I mean that, all) I am asking you to do is augment your position by including the reality of history, rather than rejecting the parts of it that you don’t want to deal with. I don’t even believe they’re incompatible, it just demands of you an expansion of your ideas.
My only position is that it is disengenuous to represent human nature as being a certain way by refusing to acknowledge historical context.
That’s what Marx’s historical materialism does.
All (and I mean that, all) I am asking you to do is augment your position by including the reality of history, rather than rejecting the parts of it that you don’t want to deal with.
I have acknowledged the violent past of humanity, but I understand they were shaped by socio-economic conditions.
I don’t even believe they’re incompatible, it just demands of you an expansion of your ideas.
Our genetic speciality is that we are not specialised, not constrained by a range of instinctive behaviour. One result is that human beings can display very different forms of behaviour – ranging from great care for one another to selfishness and violence. The behaviour that predominates is not genetically determined.
While I agree that cooperation is rad AF, I think it’s willfully ignorant to ignore the historical context of cooperation in the face of competition against the other.
Trying to make a naturalistic argument without acknowledging that is only telling half of the story, and the other half is pretty wart-y.
It’s not about ignoring crazy people and prisons, aberrant behavior will always exist. It’s about instilling a culture of collectivism versus individualism, which incentivizes competition and exclusion.
It’s historical materialism.
That’s not at all what I’m referring to.
Collective organization has almost exclusively been in the context of there being “barbarians” on the doorstep.
We need to cooperate because if we don’t the (Sumarians, Babylonians,Persians, Macedonians, Mongols, Visigoths, Blackfoot, English, Soviets, Terrorists) will destroy our way of life.
I’m not saying it’s necessarily and universally TRUE (although in many cases it was) but human cooperation has historically been bound to human competition.
“Let’s all work together in harmony” is the first, rosy half of the fuller “so that those other people don’t fuck us. Even better, so we can destroy them first”
A peaceful society (in your estimation) has never existed, so it’s not worth it to try.
Again, that’s not at all what I’m saying.
I’m saying that claiming human cooperation as a natural state without acknowledging the other side of the coin as being human competition is intentionally cherry picking.
If an intelligent person were to be listening to history, they might instead conclude that cooperation w/ competition could exist without necessarily a violent competition. Humans vs space, humans vs COVID. I think it’s possible to frame non-human agents as “the competition”, it’s happened before.
It’s not an either/or. It’s how we organize society. If you prescribe to historical materialism, which I do, you understand that it’s a choice of how we prioritize resources in society.
This is is the age old battle of idealism versus materialism.
I guess the difference is that you’re viewing history through a philosophical lens, whereas I’m viewing it through an anthropological/archaeological lens.
I admit, I am biased to the belief that for the purposes of understanding history, these are more appropriate academic tools.
I can’t stress this enough: you are continually attributing to me positions that I probably don’t hold (at least in the way that you’re keen to attribute).
My only position is that it is disengenuous to represent human nature as being a certain way by refusing to acknowledge historical context. All (and I mean that, all) I am asking you to do is augment your position by including the reality of history, rather than rejecting the parts of it that you don’t want to deal with. I don’t even believe they’re incompatible, it just demands of you an expansion of your ideas.
That’s what Marx’s historical materialism does.
I have acknowledged the violent past of humanity, but I understand they were shaped by socio-economic conditions.
My ideas are expanded by reading and understanding, not by demands. I’ll leave you with an article on Human Nature and the Alternative to Capitalism. It states:
I envy your courage.