Survival of the Friendliest
Homo Politicus Isn't all Bad
You are not crazy to believe in the goodness of human beings.
According to the researchers Hare and Woods (what a great pair of names for a married couple!) evolution favors cooperation, and the better angels of our nature can beat out our worst instincts. Their book Survival of the Friendliest argues that kindness is a genetic advantage.
Even Darwin noted that loners lost out, while to “enjoy society” with others was to benefit in resources and lifespan. Hare and Woods specialize in bonobos and chimpanzees and point to how different we have become.
Consider the airplane, they suggest. Hundreds of people are jammed tightly together for hours while physically restrained, but spend the trip nearly silent and unmoving. The exceptions are scandalous exactly because we expect complete strangers to cooperate for mutual advantage.
But hundreds of chimpanzees would, in the same circumstance, gouge each other’s eyes out and rip limbs off with their teeth. [Insert airplane joke here.]
Wood/Hare argue that we evolved through and for cooperation. Humans invented punishment to enforce this. We have spent the last two hundred thousand years excluding, beating, or just killing off the most violent and ruthless of our own kind, as punishment for their injustices. That strongly selected for altruism, for the “pro-social” aspects of human society.
The selfish ape is still in us—hi, Donald!—but over time, the sharing ape is winning.
CITATION
Survival of the Friendliest: Understanding Our Origins and Rediscovering Our Common Humanity