The Evolutionary Paradigm
Evolution involves not only survival, but also innovation. Nature has provided an extraordinary example of this in the Wollemi Pine, recently discovered in Australia, appears to be a true “living fossil.” It is most closely related to extinct species of Araucariaceae in the fossil record in southern Australia about 50 million years ago, and as a species it had worldwide distribution in the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods 200 to 65 million years ago. Since that time, trees have evolved through many variations before arriving at their current forms. These trees, in their isolated niche, have survived with little innovation for millions of years. In comparison, humans have been around a mere 100,000 years; a mere “second” in Earth time. Over that period biological evolution has been minimal. However, culturally, we have evolved from sophisticated primates who lived in small bands of hunters and gatherers to a global society.
In today’s world, four-year old children communicate on the worldwide web, people regularly fly beyond the Earth’s atmosphere, athletes compete internationally, and there are five major religious traditions along with numerous others. We in the West especially, have a tremendous array of choices in all the varied contexts of our lives, most of which weren’t even dreamt of a mere hundred (or less) years ago. Possibly never before have the choices we make had such impact on our future and the course of history.
Questions that are vital to consider include our response to nature: do we seek alternatives to fossil fuels or do we take our chances with global warming? Do we continue to generate nuclear waste, which we have no way of recycling? Do we, in the developed nations, continue to exploit people in less developed nations? Do I drive my car to the store, do I order my groceries over the internet or do I ride my bicycle to the store? Do I choose to think of people I don’t understand as enemies or do I build better relationships with them in which greater mutual understanding and cooperation may be possible? Do we take our spouses for granted or refuse to learn better ways of relating until our marriages fall apart and our children are forced to live in two separate homes? Do we pursue material success at the expense of raising our children? There are so many choices we must make day-to-day, month-to-month and year-to-year that will shape the course of our individual and collective evolution. The quality of ours lives depends on the quality of the choices we make.
Albert Einstein said, “You can’t solve a problem using the type of thinking that caused the problem in the first place.” When merely focused on our short-term survival in crisis situations we tend to make fight or flight responses. Fight or flight, along with basic feeding and sexual behavior, are primarily regulated by the basal ganglia or “reptilian brain.” When our choices are primarily determined by these reactions we are operating in survival mode.
Of course, survival is important, but operating out of our reptilian brain is not what has promoted human beings to the top of the food chain. When we are merely reacting to maintain our survival or sense of security we are not using our greatest evolutionary assets, the cerebral cortex and the complex organization of our cognitive capabilities.
In our modern world, workers unable to adapt to the evolving workplace find themselves without a job. Spouses unable to embrace the evolving nature of marriage find themselves divorced. Companies unable to adapt to the changing marketplace find themselves filing for bankruptcy. Since the beginnings of life of our planet, between 99 and 99.95 percent of all species that ever existed are now extinct. The Earth now has between 10 and 100 million species, which means 10 to 100 billion species have come and gone since life first emerged. In other words, it is easy to fail to learn how to adapt to a changing world. Human beings, if we are unable to evolve how we relate to one another and the ecosystems of which we are a part, may very well find ourselves in nature’s museum of extinct species.
Although humans have become the most proficient species at fighting and fleeing, that is not what has been the main thrust of what has propelled us to dominate the landscape. Human evolution has been driven by our ability to respond creatively and cooperatively to challenges, as well as our ability to envision a better future and devising the means to achieve it. If we evaluate our reptilian predecessors who dominated our planet, we find that they were very good at the four Fs — fighting, fleeing, feeding and procreating, but had little ability to learn how to creatively and cooperatively relate to their world. Tyrannosaurus Rex — the creature at the top of the food chain — was the pinnacle of brutish reptilian power.
Forward-looking author and designer, William McDonough, commenting on society said if the Industrial Age we are emerging from had a motto it would be: “If brute force doesn’t work, you’re not using enough of it.” For example, we use pesticides and chemical fertilizers to force soil to yield more bountiful crops. As the soil becomes degraded we add more fertilizer. As insects become resistant to our chemicals we use stronger poisons and in the process destroy the ecosystems that naturally replenish soil and keep various insects in a healthy balance with other living things in the environment.
What are the effects of this brutal approach? Most dramatically, is the mass extinction of our planet’s species at an unprecedented pace –– even compared to the disappearance of the dinosaurs –– and it’s accelerating. What sort of mentality brutishly destroys the community of life, upon which it depends?
Control or Cooperation?
For decades most Americans have believed their children’s lives would be better than their own. However, as the conditions for life on Earth worsen, it’s hardly surprising that a recent survey revealed only 45 percent of men and 24 percent of women think their children will have a better life than them?
The Journal of the American Medical Association estimates that 14 million Americans annually suffer major depression, 23 million suffer anxiety disorders and 40 percent of Americans suffer from chronic health disorders. And the numbers are climbing.
Cognitive psychology has revealed that at the heart of most anxiety and depression there are usually self-condemning and defeating beliefs such as: “I’m useless,” “I’m worthless,” or “I’ll only make things worse.” Not only have we been brutal in our efforts to dominate and control nature, but we have also turned the same approach upon our own minds and bodies. Adding insult to injury, the most common treatments for these conditions involve bombarding ourselves with medication (prescriptive or otherwise). As former President George W. Bush said, “No one is going to make Americans change their way of life.”
Most people who are caught illegally medicating themselves are thrown into brutal prisons as an attempted solution. But has this “War on Drugs” decreased drug use? There has been an escalation of military interventions around the globe. But has the “War on Terror” led to less terrorism? Has the rampant prescribing of antidepressants (for the supposed war on depression) led to less depression?
What are the paradoxes of these “fixes” for these problems? People who use illegal drugs are often trying to escape a sense of inadequacy or frustration about living in a system of social inequality. Sending them to prison only exacerbates this. Killing tens of thousands of Iraqis (fighting) only breeds more contempt for the US and turns more young Muslims towards acts of terror. Using chemicals to override someone’s unhappiness doesn’t liberate people from the values, beliefs and social conditions that oppress them. At best, medications enable people to mechanically function better to work and shop. Could it be that unbridled consumerism and too many hours spent working lacks meaning? Doesn’t lead to fulfillment?
Maybe Americans consuming more than their fair share of the world’s natural resources breeds contempt with those whose environment and workforce are exploited? Trying to hold onto to what we make believe is best for us and avoiding what we believe is unpleasant (flight) perpetuates our suffering. Instead of brutishly trying to dominate and control (fight) those aspects of nature, society and ourselves that aren’t happy and thriving, we must listen to them and learn how to live in greater harmony.
How has Culture Evolved?
In comparison to biological evolution, the evolution of human culture, especially in the realms of technology and social organization, has been very swift within a comparatively short time. Human beings are an infant species when compared with all the species that have inhabited this planet. Yet the complexity, sophistication and expansiveness of our inhabitation is unrivaled by any species before us. This is partly due to the biological evolution of our brains, but also to the evolution of how, individually and collectively we continue to develop and utilize this biological advantage.
The evolution of language, and all forms of communication, has been instrumental in the evolution of culture. Communication is the process by which we create and maintain cooperation with one another. Cooperation and the sharing of ideas propel learning. Dialogues between theorists, researchers and mathematicians have led to many of the greatest discoveries of the last century. Deeper spiritual understandings are being realized, as people in Western religious traditions, embrace Eastern traditions (and vice versa).
Possibly even more importantly, the communication and cross-pollination of ideas between different disciplines has led to expanded understanding in each respective field –– physicists communicating with philosophers communicating with athletes communicating with psychologists communicating with doctors communicating with artists, and so on.
The internet’s web of communication makes a wide array of information only a keystroke away from anyone with access to a computer and will certainly play a major role in our emerging phase of evolution. Mass media has the capacity to feed us mind numbing entertaining flights from reality, violent fight promoting propaganda and pornographic sexualization of our minds, but it can also promote channels of communication for fostering the evolution of human consciousness and cooperation.
For other species, intergenerational knowledge is communicated genetically through instincts, whereas humans communicate through language and by example to children. The accumulation of human skills and understanding has meant a larger body of knowledge can be acquired and built upon in each generation. This accumulation of skills and knowledge is compounded by our increasing ability to study and communicate the process of learning itself. This has meant an evolution in our ability to learn new things more quickly and effortlessly.
Not only do our children learn more easily the things discovered in previous generations, they more easily make new discoveries, while synthesizing those discoveries into knowledge that can be utilized by the society as a whole. If our cultural evolution is recognized by the complexity of organization, autonomy of individuals, ability to convey information and greater awareness of the way things are, then we could also say there is an evolution in the way we learn how to evolve.
How will we come to gather in more cooperative and innovative ways to survive and thrive on our precious planet?
For more understanding about an evolutionary approach to psychotherapy and personal development order your copy of Essential Wholeness, Integral Psychotherapy, Spiritual Awakening and the Enneagram. The article above is an excerpt from the book.
