Let’s stop blaming Adam and Darwin, shall we?
It’s hopeless, they tell us. Humanity is doomed to failure. No matter how much we try, we will never get anywhere, because we are sinful or selfish, broken or breaking, the destroyed or the destroyer, the hateful or the hating.
And it doesn’t seem to matter whether you grew up hearing the Christian narrative or a scientific one. Adam condemned us to original sin the preacher tells us, while Darwin’s ideas are often cited as nature’s rules of the game: survival of the fittest, kill or be killed. Either way leads to a dystopian future. We will never become more than we are because it’s not in our nature.
… Or so they say. The good news is, such a vision of the world is narrow and short-sighted — myopic, in fact. A variety of fresh sources suggest there may be more to the story. New findings in archaeology and anthropology show that some large stone-age civilizations thrived through cooperation and mutual support. Recent scientific research has uncovered evidence for the survival of the friendliest. Mathematical evolutionary game theory demonstrates super cooperation as a winning strategy. And recent Biblical interpretation sheds new light on the role Adam may play in our lives.
None of these new discoveries and ways of thinking deny humanity’s dark side. But each of them suggests that it’s not the whole story, and it’s not inevitable.
Archaeology and Anthropology
Traditional wisdom says civilization has evolved from small groups of egalitarian hunter-gatherers to large city-states where an oppressive elite forced peasants or slaves to grow food, do menial tasks, and build monuments. Development depends, we’ve been told, on the strong dominating the weak.
But there could be more to the story. In their recent book, The Dawn of Everything, authors David Graeber and David Wengrow share findings from very new archaeological discoveries that challenge these assumptions. There is now ample evidence of large agricultural city-states, with populations numbering in the thousands, that were not organized in dictatorial hierarchies. Everyone seemed to live in similar houses, eat similar foods, do similar kinds of work, and enjoy similar kinds of leisure activities. Located in various parts of the Americas, Europe and Asia, some of these communities thrived for centuries.
Of course, there is also plenty of evidence of hierarchical regimes, centered around a king, chief, or other dominant figure who ruled with absolute power. Some of these were hunter-gatherer groups, some predominantly agricultural, while others were a blend of the two. Sometimes community organization would change from one style to the other, such as with a sudden overthrow of a tyrant ushering in an era of democracy, or a despot arising in the midst of an egalitarian group. There were instances where a dictatorial system would coexist alongside a democratic one, the two societies interacting through trade.
The point that Graeber and Wengrow make again and again is that oppressive systems are not the inevitable product of social development. That is not our history and it does not have to be our future.
Evolutionary Biology
A two-fold cooperative/competitive aspect of human nature was recently brought to light by Duke University researchers Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods, and discussed in their book Survival of the Friendliest. From the start, they point out Darwin himself observed the value of cooperation over competition, such as in this quote: “…those communities, which included the greatest number of the most sympathetic members, would flourish best and rear the greatest number of offspring.” [1]
This kind of sympathetic behavior can be seen in various animal species, and in humanity — mainly among circles of friends. People tend to join together and survive best in friendly, cooperative groups. These can be family groups, as well as abstract groups like fans of a sports team or members of a club. But like a mother bear protecting her cubs, the friendly group can become defensive against threats — real or perceived — from outside. In the extreme, this can lead to racism, religious intolerance, and the dehumanizing tactics and propaganda that convince a nation to go to war.
Still, we have a choice. The potential is there for friendliness or fearfulness.We can expand our circle of friends to include people of different backgrounds, cultures, and ideas. In today’s rapidly shrinking, interconnected society we could, in theory, expand our circle to include the whole world, to survive and thrive together.
Game Theory
Mathematician and evolutionary biologist Martin A. Nowak shared his discoveries on whether and how the human race might succeed through cooperation in a popular book SuperCooperators. He used the prisoner’s dilemma game to design a series of experiments and computer simulations.
What he found is mutual cooperation between the players gives some benefit to everyone, while mutual distrust leads to significant losses for all. It is true the unscrupulous can betray the honest and benefit in the short term, but soon trust breaks down and then everyone loses. The groups that come out on top are those that build trust between members and discourage cheating.
Nowak points out that while natural systems and groups of animals generally tend to benefit from cooperation, people are uniquely gifted with strong communication skills and an inborn need to cooperate. Our social structures like marriage, family, business, team, school, and government are built upon and encourage cooperation. The alternative? His chapter titled “Punish and Perish” makes it pretty clear. It seems we are hard-wired to work together.
Original Sin
But what is the use of all this when deep down is the dreaded “original sin,” an idea hammered into many of us in church or mass? Or if not us, into our parents, grandparents, or farther back, inflicting whole chunks of society? After all, the Bible says, “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” [2]
That’s the original sin, according to many Christian leaders, from well-intentioned Sunday schoolmarms to fire-and-brimstone preachers. They use that verse to shame us into thinking we are fallen creatures. With such a miserable self-image, how can we ever hope to rescue ourselves from impending doom?
Reinterpreted
And yet, original sin is not the only possible meaning of that verse. We can have another look, take a rational approach, such as I’ve mentioned in a previous article, Rational Theism. To start with, reason and recent science make it clear that Adam was not the first human being on earth. Many people were born before his time, which literalists purport to be just 6000 years ago. So how could any sin of his be original?
Looking deeper, in Hebrew the word “Adam” can mean “man” or even “humanity” in the collective sense. As the story goes, Adam was created from dust. So we might think of him as representing our material reality. If so, if Adam represents our physical nature in that verse, what does Christ represent? Could the writer have been inspired by the life and teachings of Christ to suggest we, too, might have a spiritual nature? Could the verse mean that although our physical body (in Adam) will die, our spiritual reality (in Christ) will live?
It has been interpreted that way. From that point of view, we are no longer born as fallen creatures. We have a choice. We can choose to focus on physical reality, and pursue material goals to the exclusion of all else, including other people. Or we can find in ourselves Christ-like qualities such as truthfulness, kindness, compassion, and generosity, and live in accord with our higher nature.
Where does all this take us?
At this stage of humanity’s history, our future hangs in the balance. On the one hand, we are riding a wave of the greatest advances in technology and material progress the world has ever seen. On the other, we are facing existential threats of resource depletion, climate change, and nuclear war that could wipe out all of these gains, and more. Dystopia is on the horizon, but far from inevitable. To steer another course depends on our collective will.
In his book Eleven, environmentalist Paul Hanley points out that we have the ability to sustain the eleven billion people estimated by the United Nations to inhabit this planet by the year 2100.[3] The technology and know-how required to provide adequate food, clothing, shelter, and other material needs for that population is already in use in various parts of the world. But we have to stop squandering our resources on destructive, useless, and frivolous things and turn our attention to the necessary, constructive, and even transcendent aspects of life. We need to reach a better understanding of who we are and the kind of person each one of us can be.
Sure, human nature does have a greedy, selfish side, and if enough of us give it free rein, it could well lead to dystopia. But that does not have to happen. If we care to look, you and I can find in ourselves a higher nature. We do best when we cooperate. Ancient history shows what’s possible. With phone, internet, and jet planes we can now expand our circle of friends beyond family, class, and race to embrace all the peoples of the world. We can stop blaming Adam for our fallen state, and Darwin for our killer instincts, and start taking responsibility for our future. And what a future we can build if we begin to see each other as the noble human beings we truly are.
Notes
1. Survival of the Friendliest, xvii, quoting Charles Darwin in Descent of Man
2. Holy Bible, King James Version, 1 Corinthians 15:22
3. Based on data at the time the book was written (2014). Current UN estimates show a peak of 10.4 billion in 2086, followed by a slow decline.
Originally published in Brain Labs on Medium.