Hierarchical Instinct and Human Evolution. Socio-biological approach. by Valery Chalidze, 1989
Summary: In this book Valery Chalidze presents an iconoclastic concept of social conflicts from an evolutionary perspective. The author also discusses the role of hierarchical instinct in human behavior and the anthropology of law and religion, as well as the evolutionary significance of homosexuality in human society.
CONTENTS
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
INTRODUCTION
BASIC CONCEPTS
Total Will
Automatisms Of Will
Interaction With Other Wills
Automatism Of Total Will Augmentation
THE VICTORY OF THE WEAK
Models Of the Victory Of the Weak
The Victory Of the Weak And Homosexuality
The Level Of Culture And Civilization
Women And the Victory Of the Weak
The Cultural Suppression Of Passions
On the Genocide Of Violent Criminals
Civilization And
THE REVENGE OF THE STRONG
Youth
ON HUMAN BEHAVIOR
The Collective Will
Will Exchange
Conscious Will
The Automatism Of Evaluation
Outlets Of Will Manifestion
Happiness
Hierarchies
Examples Of Fulfillment Of Individual Automatisms
THE COGNITIVE AUTOMATISM AND HUMAN HIERARCHIES
ON CONSCIOUSNESS AND THINKING
A MODEL, AND THE ROLE, OF PRIMITIVE CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGION
Development of consciousness and religion.
Development of consciousness and cognition.
Overcoming knowledge accumulated by the brain.
ON THE DIVERSITY OF CHARACTER
EVOLUTION'S LEGACY TO THE LAW
Legal And Ethical Imperatives
Natural Law
Equivalence Of Exchange
Reinforcement Of Automatisms
Securing Automatisms
Automatism Restraint
Compensation For Will Damage
Destruction Of Evil Will
Procedure For Enforcing the Equivalence Principle
Stabilization Of Hierarchies
Authority Of Leaders
THE INDIVIDUALIZATION OF THE PERSON
Democracy
Myths About Progress
Overcoming Non-Freedoms
CONCLUSION
GLOSSARY
Notes
Other works of Valery Chalidze
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The forerunner of the present book was my manuscript entitled "Reflections on Man," written in 1971. It set forth my ideas on the biological basis of human motivation and social interrelations. The manuscript itself was never published, but a number of the ideas expressed in it, particularly my concept of hierarchical struggle in society, found their way into my books Victor Over Communism and The Future of Russia.
Twenty years of reflection on the gregarious nature of society and the animalistic quintessence of humans, plus discussions with friends on this subject, have revealed the influence of traditional idealization of humans; neglect of the biological roots -- sometimes obvious -- of the motivation underlying individual and social behavior; and the belief in the exclusive role of culture in social phenomena. This subject matter is very pertinent to the present day. Still, I was pleasantly surprised by the revival of the natural-philosophical approach to the cultural evolution of humanity reflected in socio-biological research, particularly in the works of Edward Wilson from Harvard University, whom I have read with great pleasure.
In general, though, the socio-biological trend is out of favor in academic circles. I therefore owe all the more gratitude to those who supported me, took my ideas seriously and extended their constructive criticism. First of all, I want to thank my sister Francheska, who shares my views on human nature to a large degree, and my friend Aron Katsenelinboigen, a distinguished analyst, whose interest in my philosophical fantasies is always inspiring. Discussions with my wife Lisa Chalidzewere very valuable, often restraining my emotional zeal and channeling my thoughts along a more traditional logical course. I am very grateful to my friend Alexander Volpin who read the original manuscript and made numerous valuable suggestions. Discussions with Gregory Freidin, Victor Yakhot and Pavel Litvinov were most beneficial.
My friends have pointed out two major flaws of this book, which have not been rectified and about which the reader should be warned. First of all, the constituent elements of my model of human behavior lack rigorous definitions, especially the notion of will which plays an important role in my constructs. In responding to this criticism, I have become convinced that more precise definitions would narrow the scope of the concept. I believe that while certain aspects of behavior yield to formal description, this does not negate the value of an informal global overview of the problems of psychology and sociology. In principle, an analytical investigation should not preclude a holistic inquiry even if the former turns out to be a success.
This leads me to the second drawback of the work pointed out by my friends, namely that I have neglected the discoveries of mathematical psychology of the last few decades. I confess that the present book belongs to the nineteenth century as far as the outlook of the author is concerned. Also, acquainting myself with the tens of thousands of works of our century dealing with the subject matter of the present book seemed too formidable a task, so I may inadvertently have repeated much that has been said elsewhere. I ask for the grace of all those concerned. I want to note in this connection that the current information boom must sooner or later force our civilization to give up its tradition of citing all of one's predecessors. We will have to distinguish knowledge from the history of knowledge. The twentieth century has seen strides in this direction, but to this day literary references by the hundreds are considered an indispensable adornment of a scholarly work.
January, 1991 Valery Chalidze Benson, Vermont
INTRODUCTION
Sociologists do not merely present facts that quench our curiosity. They supply statistics, stipulate the margins of error of their conclusions and, on occasion, advance hypotheses explaining the observed phenomena.
Sociology is a serious and valuable science, but reading the works of sociologists sometimes tends to make me smile. The reason for my skepticism is the solemnity of the author, or, more precisely, scholarly earnestness prevailing over common sense. Accuracy in statistical surveys is not going to make those surveyed more sincere, or promote greater self-understanding or improve the formulation of the question. In short, the misfortune of sociology is due to its unwillingness to recognize its own helplessness. Billions of people inhabiting this planet are moved by perhaps millions of different motives. How can one assimilate all this diversity, how can one comprehend the causes of wars, conflicts, revolutions, murders, and suicides? How can all these events be predicted? By polling the people? But people are more often than not ignorant of their own motives! In fact, one of the greatest paradoxes of psychology is that people guided primarily by unconscious motives construct in their mind various masking explanations for the way they act. "I do not know" is a very uncommon response to the question of one's motives, in spite of the fact that one's consciousness may be utterly ignorant of the real motivation but is still eager to come up with some arbitrary -- or rather socially commendable -- motive, if asked for one.
Another forecasting technique is to study the statistics of the phenomena. This seemingly objective method is very limited because the most significant events occur very seldom if not once only. There are no statistics of Bolshevik revolutions in Russia; Stalin carried out collectivization but once; and stock market crashes are rather rare.
Sociology is a young science and, as is typical of teenagers, it aspires to look and act like an adult. Most sciences went through a prolonged embryonic development in the womb of philosophy. Sociology has practically bypassed this stage. Therefore, scholars should have prefaced their attempts to understand human society by creating sociosophy - a protoscience which would lay the cognitive groundwork for the future science. So sociology boldly borrowed the objectives and methodology of more mature sciences - a move which exalted the high priests of sociology but which has also, in my opinion, impeded its potential development. As a result, accomplishments of sociology are purely technical, in the area of sociometrics and in sampling public opinion through polls. Mathematical models of social phenomena that have been constructed exact too great a toll, in the form of assumptions that over-simplify complex situations. Sociology is unable to forecast major events, particularly crises. Therefore, sociology is not a science in the precise sense of the word.
The inability to forecast is clearly manifest in the stock market. Stock market research is one of the better-financed disciplines in the United States, so economic sociology is better off than other areas of sociology. Nevertheless, stock holders continue to rely upon inconsistent reports of prophets rather than scientific models. We cannot rule out the possibility that stock market fluctuations, as well as numerous other aspects of collective behavior do not, in principle, yield to prognosis. In that case, science must realize its limitations, explain them and continue to evolve within the constraints of its theoretical weakness. In other words, we must recognize that sociology is not destined to attain the same results as are usually expected of science in a positivist sense. We could then state with confidence that methods of sociology should be closer to those of sophy rather than of logi, for the ways of wisdom are different from the methodology of descriptive or exact sciences.1
One method that should not be adopted from exact sciences as long as a cognitive foundation of sociology is lacking is a "proof." Here, substitution rather than adoption of concepts takes place. This pertains to the humanities in general. In humanities, a set of facts illustrating a given supposition in the absence of direct refutation is considered a proof. These kinds of sciences often evolve the discovery by a new generation of scholars of new facts, which refute previously "proven" assumptions; these scholars then use the same illustrative method to "prove" new hypotheses. Remember that theorems once proved by Euclid are still proven theorems, unshaken by any new discoveries in geometry simply because they were proved.(Here, I ignore all the well-known and yet unknown riddles in the logical foundation of mathematics.) The same applies to reproducible experiments proving certain facts in experimental sciences provided, of course, that they were carried out correctly. Science can be helpless in certain cases, but it must be honest. To call a verisimilar result confirmed by some illustrative evidence a proof, is a misleading substitution of terms.
Therefore, I warn those seeking such "illustrative proofs" in sociology or psychology that they will not find them in the present book. I aim for conclusions that are likely to be true, reasonably derived from some general assumptions. I never claim they are proofs. Examples given in the book are mere illustrations, helpful but often unnecessary if the reader himself possesses enough imagination. Naturally, my approach leaves room for "unscientific" speculations based on one or several facts. In sociology and even in psychology, however, this lack of rigorousness is inevitable, for some events occur seldom or but once, and some phenomena we know very little about. I do not share the positivist view that it is better to avoid speculation altogether than to conjecture based on insufficient information.
My attitude toward the role and the merit of "proofs" in humanities impels me to resort to models. Rather than asserting "so and so" I propose a model -- a possible explanation. If the model seems well-founded, those who wish to do so can find supporting evidence. This approach leaves more leeway for the author, and at the same time it does not insult the pride of those who seek "proofs." I find this convenient.
Because I choose to reject faith as an epistemological method and I concede the ineptness of proofs in informal sciences that defy reproducible experimentation, I must admit the equivocality of the conclusions. A proven theorem, at least in a simple formal system, represents a unique truth regarding the objects and the interrelations which it describes. Once a theorem is proved, hypotheses about it are irrelevant. On the other hand, in humanities most assertions are hypothetical, a notion which should be stressed. No statements can be fully proved; so while they may seem true or legitimate -- perhaps even attractive -- they are never uniquely true, even if some of them correspond to the observed phenomena with reasonable precision.
Although the above considerations are apparent to me, the history of science abounds with examples of illustrations being taken for proof. Perhaps the human brain encounters a major barrier when a thought is felt to be inconclusive; when something is not perceived as a final truth; when at least an illusion of a uniquely-correct solution is not attained. It's quite possible that it was only relatively recently that European civilization encountered the logic of probabilities in science, and even that was limited to specialists in certain formal disciplines. Conventional "scientific" thinking operates on dichotomous logic that ignores common sense experience in using the probabilistic approach. This logic embraces truth and falsity with nothing in between. Below, I will give an example of a legitimate train of reasoning, each explanation of which may be true in itself or in combination with others. Perhaps all of them are correct. My brain feels no discomfort over not being able to terminate its search at any one particular theory.
The example is: altruism is common among people, but how did it become fixed in the struggle for survival? One possible theory is that of kin-selection,2 which provides the following explanation: families that displayed altruism had a better chance to survive because of mutual help among the relatives, and therefore the genes responsible for altruism were passed on to the offspring.
Another hypothesis that to me seems more sound, is that all creatures who care about their offspring possess genes responsible for altruism, but the behavior that is the product of these genes is directed primarily toward the children. Under certain circumstances, especially in herd animals in which altruism can be observed to be mutually beneficial, altruism is extended to other members of the community at large, rather than only to the young.
There is a third hypothesis that would be interesting to develop: altruism manifests itself as an element of hierarchical symbiosis. Domination evolved along with altruism so that a higher position in the hierarchy brings not just advantages but also obligations, including protection of subordinate individuals. (Examples of this development can be found in the literature.)
These three theories are all socio-biological answers. Other theories, conforming to the tastes of those who tend to explain human conduct in terms of cultural norms, could be advanced. This I leave to the reader. In my opinion, the proper approach is to allow a number of answers to the same question. I will call this the multi-variant approach. The multi-variant approach would help to lay the foundation of knowledge, especially in a non-experimental field that, as a rule, defies formalization. Naturally, this is what happens in practice. Different authors advance their own theories, but often the author presents his own particular theory as the final truth. Perhaps genes of altruism have not been securely entrenched in the scientific community.
Interestingly enough, the multi-variant approach toward the study of humans and society facilitates our understanding of the diversity of these complex subjects. It seems as though the search for the one true solution leads to an over-simplification of both the problem at hand, and our notions about the subjects. Formal and experimental sciences cannot avoid this deficiency, but at least in these disciplines the simplifying assumptions are clearly stated. In humanities simplification, or rather reduction, of a subject proceeds unnoticed -- and often even unstated -- simply as a result of the author's primary conceptual framework. I cannot guarantee that my work is not suffering from the same drawback. Oftentimes, this reduction of permissible scope of research is really a concession to group, ideological, or even political interests; this is a disgrace to humanities and it should not be overlooked. Formerly, exact sciences suffered from the same predicament. Recent political accusations directed against socio-biologists at Harvard reveal that sociology is not exempt from all this turmoil, not to mention the traditional persecution of "bourgeois" sociology in the Soviet Union.
One dismal example of this oversimplification is a belief in the perfect sameness of the evolution of all races and ethnoses. This doctrine exerts great influence upon the many sciences concerned with humans and their society. Simple common sense suggests that such a belief requires more firm and reliable proofs than those at hand in these fields, in which proofs are illustrative and imprecise. Further, common sense is not the only source of authority that would demand more persuasive proof of this particular belief: even considerations of an entropeic nature cast doubt on it. That is, generally speaking, dispersion of a given characteristic over a spectrum, or range, in nature can be readily accepted without hard proof while uniformity, on the other hand, requires meticulous verification. For example, one does not need to examine a big tree to conclude that the leaves on such trees vary in size; yet even examing a thousand leaves and finding they are all the same size would not be sufficient to prove that all the remaining leaves are also of the same size.