Building Ideological Bridges

A handful of fringe disciplines relate to the ancestral/evolutionary paradigm in some interesting ways, and I'd like to discuss them a bit here. By no mean is what I have to offer conclusive; rather, I simply find the ideas fascinating and want to explore these complex topics with you. So please share your thoughts in the comment section below about any or all of these.

Feminism. Uncomfortable word for some, I know. And I thought so too, until I took Feminist Theory and Literature (honors-level) at university. I'll say this: Once you read the foundational scholarship yourself and get to know the actual philosophy behind it's early leaders, you'll realize pretty easily that true feminism is unlike the popular notion of man-hating bra burners. It's an intellectual movement at it's core, and is what eventually evolved into Gender Studies, which intersects with race, class, queer, and other

minority studies to be the foundational scholarship for social justice today. 'Gender equality' is the more common, acceptable word used today, but it's just a different brand for the same product.

It's relevant to the ancestral paradigm because feminism is about personal freedom and inherent rights. It's a sociocultural dissection and critique that looks at women AND men. Most notably, it took the idea of gender and defined it against sex (man vs. male). The distinction: I was born a male, but acculturated a man. So gender covers the cultural impact on learned behaviors, not instinctual ones.

And that's why it's important. Today still, we are taught cultural values, norms, and ideals that vie with our nature and limit our freedoms. Acknowledging how culture forms gender might shed light on how your own life can be improved. I think immediately of the He-men out there that don't dance or hug because it's girly, or the anemic standard of female beauty, and the list goes on. Looking at gender from a paleo perspective can make things much more clear.

Urbanization. A good friend of mine introduced me to the concept of 'urban sprawl' and the 'rise of surburbia'. In Europe, urbanization worked out: walkable towns and cities, tight communities. In America, during the age of oil, we constructed our communities around extensive suburbs. Nice to live out by the countryside right? Yeah, 'cept it's not actually the countryside and the 'burbs are anti-social and isolationist by design. Most urban public space serves only to fragment communities.

What can evolution tell us about urban design? We are social creatures that require positive social interaction. Big concrete cities induce psychoses on the cultural level and pollution on the environmental level, which is certainly not the ideal. But small or moderately-sized, tightly-knit, well-designed communities might be a step in the right direction for social well-being.

Gay rights. Whether or not homosexuality occurs in nature is an non-issue from the scientific perspective. Ask any naturalist and the answer is clear. A nearly unanimous: gay happens. (I'm reminded of Stephen Colbert's gay bearorist, ha!) Moreover, this is an issue about freedom. And what is more natural than freedom?

Veganism. Ultimately, everyone wants social justice and environmental restoration. But getting there is gonna take a long look at the facts and the acknowledgement of some admittedly dark truths about reality. We already agree about factory farming and corn subsidies. The detriments of agribusiness are not a far cry. Vegans can totally get on board with respecting nature's harmony and striving to keep balance in the world's ecosystems.

Politics. I'm not gonna take a position here, but this is fascinating. When you think about politics in terms of a vast political spectrum, you get anarchy on one end and socialism on the other. Zero government all the way to pure government. Libertarians would be right next to anarchy (minimal government). This is interesting to me because some paleo leaders are outwardly libertarian, but that seems at first to vie with an evolutionary perspective. If tribes share resources and America is just one big tribe, then socialism would be the paleo model for the modern world.

So why the difference? Perhaps because America is not one big tribe, but millions of little ones. Contemporary culture defines the tribe as the nuclear family (rather than the extended family in the Paleolithic). So in a political sense, we only share resources with our own 'nuclear tribe'. And perhaps libertarianism is a way to make sure government doesn't interrupt that model.

What do you think?

Hunted-Gatherer? Lucy, Compassion, and Cooperation

You might be as fascinated as I am by the recent finding of stone tool butchering 3.4 million years ago, pushing back the earliest meat-eating of our pre-human ancestors by about a million years. Well, in my preliminary research on the topic, I came across this gem about a 2006 book by anthrolopolist Robert Sussman. But instead of touting the 'Man as Hunter' paradigm, he went about demonstrating why we are not simply killers, but agents of compassion, cooperation, and caring. Turns out our ancestors help to highlight why. This great quote concerns Australopithecus afarensis (you may know her as 'Lucy'), the pre-human ancestor of (first human) Homo habilis:

"Australopithecus afarensis was an edge species," adds Sussman. They could live in the trees and on the ground and could take advantage of both. "Primates that are edge species, even today, are basically prey species, not predators," Sussman argues.

The predators living at the same time as Australopithecus afarensis were huge and there were 10 times as many as today. There were hyenas as big as bears, as well as saber-toothed cats and many other mega-sized carnivores, reptiles and raptors. Australopithecus afarensis didn't have tools, didn't have big teeth and was three feet tall. He was using his brain, his agility and his social skills to get away from these predators. "He wasn't hunting them," says Sussman. "He was avoiding them at all costs."

Approximately 6 percent to 10 percent of early humans were preyed upon according to evidence that includes teeth marks on bones, talon marks on skulls and holes in a fossil cranium into which sabertooth cat fangs fit, says Sussman. The predation rate on savannah antelope and certain ground-living monkeys today is around 6 percent to 10 percent as well.

Sussman and Hart provide evidence that many of our modern human traits, including those of cooperation and socialization, developed as a result of being a prey species and the early human's ability to out-smart the predators. These traits did not result from trying to hunt for prey or kill our competitors, says Sussman.

"One of the main defenses against predators by animals without physical defenses is living in groups," says Sussman. "In fact, all diurnal primates (those active during the day) live in permanent social groups. Most ecologists agree that predation pressure is one of the major adaptive reasons for this group-living. In this way there are more eyes and ears to locate the predators and more individuals to mob them if attacked or to confuse them by scattering. There are a number of reasons that living in groups is beneficial for animals that otherwise would be very prone to being preyed upon."

By all means, it's important to note the timeline of scavenging and hunting to the evolution of our species and the implications for modern day health. But I think that the 'Man as Hunter' idea is well understood in most cases, and taken to extremes in some cases. We are not simply the selfish, solitary man-sharks that modern culture teaches us to be.

Especially for men, I've noticed a degree of machismo that seeps into the evolutionary interpretation -- an unnatural alpha-male complex. Man as unemotional. Man as tough. Man as killer. Believe me, Clint Eastwood and John Wayne are lone wolf archetypes that wouldn't have lasted long in the Paleolithic. This is worth reiterating: Don't be subject to unnatural Neolithic social isolation or a dramatic misrepresentation of your true nature. We are compassionate, expressive, social beings in addition to the selfish, competitive ideal you know so well. The effort to heal our fragmented communities and work cooperatively to solve big problems requires this simple recognition.