Survival of the fittest! The simple explanation is that evolution’s mutations are a function of happenstance and which of evolutions random experiments survive is a question of fitness.
The populist interpretation of fitness; based mostly on the spectacular displays of male hormonal overdose; seems to be something like this: Mine’s bigger than yours, I win!! On closer inspection however this charming illusion doesn’t hold up. It falls flat on two counts:
a) Most (if not all) such displays seem to be entirely contained or dependent on a context of other species members (often females) operating in a very sophisticated dynamic of COLLABORATION to make species survival in general in a given ecosphere possible. i.e.; male size issues are entirely a sandbox problem.
b) All species survival (hormones notwithstanding) is completely and absolutely dependent on one law – the ecosphere or ecological niche within which the species must survive CANNOT be harmed. A bit like the Hippocratic Oath “First, do no harm.” all winning, is subject to the laws of the ecosphere. Winning that violates this is by definition suicidal.
In other words; Survival of the Bloody Fittest says absolutely nothing about what characteristic defines fitness for survival. Nothing!!
So, all the dramatic visuals of National Geographic notwithstanding, all that the winning tough guy walking off with the carcass that the females made available anyway proves, is that Mr. Tough Guy is the biggest puppet on the string as that is how the females collaborate to make sure that the best of the species survive.
And, whenever a species destroys (or is made to destroy) the ecosphere it is born in – it commits suicide. Inevitably, the species dies. (Strangely enough no non-human species have been known to deliberately destroy its own ecosphere – but several have directly or indirectly had their ecospheres destroyed by Mans Quest for the Survival of the Fittest).
In other words; fitness has everything to do with not harming the ecosphere and thus being ignored rather than trying to subdue and dominate the ecosphere and botching it.
More on that shortly, but let us talk for a moment about Ayn Rand. Rand’s universe is the universe of pure meritocracy. In this universe people trade the best for the best. The subjects of her world do not look for ‘cheaper or cheapest’. They do not look to get away or make do with the least required. People are rewarded for what they are worth, not the least they can be made to accept. Yes, a lot of her world is fictional, exaggerated and implausible. But the thought of an economy based on such a principle is an interesting one. It is a principle based on the absolute exchange of the highest value for value. It is strangely non-exploitative. One can only imagine what Ms. Rand would have made of the kind of globalization being perpetrated to day – but it is my suspicion that she would not have been an uncritical advocate. Just like her absolute stands on two other issues that would have put her at loggerheads with today’s administration. Absolute atheism and her view that any kind of offensive, preemptive violence was unconscionable. But putting the three together suddenly gives us another kind of fitness. A secular, non-belligerent civilization that worships quality in the broadest and richest sense of the word as its highest value. That sounds like the ambitions of a EU than the United States at present. (This, I am sure, would have deeply surprised Ms. Rand. Strangely enough some of her greatest fans – The Libertarians, interpret her quite the other way round and are vehemently opposed to this collaborative organizing principle. They find the idea of making nature the central organizing principle of our society and economy completely abhorrent)
Anyway, what on earth does all this have to do with Darwin and the Survival of the Fittest?
It would appear to me that such a civilization would find it necessary to be in a collaborative relationship with its ecosphere rather than an adversarial one. And the simple reason for that would be that the absolute exchange of the highest value for value, between individuals or societies, is only possible in a collaborative relationship. As soon as that is violated we have an unequal or exploitative relationship.
So, the current driving force behind globalization – the search for cheaper labor – is at it’s very foundation bound to destroy the human ecology of societies. Not because it perpetrates the devastation of nature (which it does) but because it perpetrates the devastation of humanity. Globalization as currently practiced forces people into unequal relationships (no matter how well paid the relationship!) as a result the system pours less back into the ecosphere than it gets from it. And we all know how a system like that ends.
So, to finally end this little rant – we do need to globalize and we need it desperately in every form possible but not in the quest of cheaper. A task whether done Delhi or Dallas should command the same value for the same quality and hence the same compensation. If a good computer program is worth $100,000 then it should be worth that no matter where it was made. This kind of globalization would force us to exchange the highest value for value. It would be a globalization of peers. It would be the only kind that respected individual liberty and value. It would be the only kind that would not be destroying its own ecosphere. It would be the only kind that does not simply replicate the ‘living standards’ of the west as the role model carrot. (Which by itself is suicidal anyway – Ask any American whether he would like to live in the following scenario: take the entire material assets of the US – cars, refrigerators, dogs, and all and squeeze it all into a land area about a third of the current size of America and then quadruple the size of the population with the same ratio of material assets. That, for example, is what an Americanized India would be)
It would be a globalization that would not be based on the commoditization of the human being but on the final acknowledgement of his supremely creative role in the sustenance of his ecosphere.
