THE SURVIVAL OF THE MOST LOVING
Why we fight for the living world: it's about love, and it's time we said so.
George Monbiot
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/16/pope-encyclical-value-of-living-world
[The line in the Monbiot article that 'the Pope can see what many atheist greens will not' doesn't do this article any favours, and invites divisions and controversies we don't need. And I don't think George Monbiot actually said that. I'd appeal to people to identify the positive message here, because it is pertinent. It is a time for those of us who do value and love each other and the planet to make common cause, and it's a time to be getting on with the business in front of us. I like the word "collaboration". Its Latin derivation is a combination of co- com- or col-, meaning "with" or "together", and and laborare, meaning "to labour." To collaborate, then, is to work together with others. We are attempting to reclaim out natural, ethical and political commons by constituting the common good. Not all are interested in this collaborative endeavour. These are the free riders, the emitters, exploiters and polluters who are holding the planet to ransom and closing the door on future generations. I think with the Pope's intervention, we are seeing a convergence of the worlds of fact and value which gives the free riders less room for manoeuvre. It will still come down to politics, neither the appeal to scientific facts nor moral values will suffice to persuade those whose material interests are served very well indeed within prevailing social arrangements. There are workarounds, I know, in new technologies and energy infrastructures etc. But the institutional changes are not enough, which is Monbiot's point. Why, really, are we so concerned? I like Monbiot's answer.]
“I see the encyclical by Pope Francis, which will be published on Thursday, as a potential turning point. He will argue that not only the physical survival of the poor, but also our spiritual welfare depends on the protection of the natural world; and in both respects he is right.”
“What I mean is that Pope Francis, a man with whom I disagree profoundly on matters such as equal marriage and contraception, reminds us that the living world provides not only material goods and tangible services, but is also essential to other aspects of our wellbeing. And you don’t have to believe in God to endorse that view.”
“Acknowledging our love for the living world does something that a library full of papers on sustainable development and ecosystem services cannot: it engages the imagination as well as the intellect. It inspires belief; and this is essential to the lasting success of any movement.”
George Monbiot writing about the burst of joy that nature inspires in us. Of course, big questions remain. Environmentalists may well be inspired by love, but we live in a world divided by material interests. “If the acknowledgement of love becomes the means by which we inspire environmentalism in others, how do we translate it into political change? But I believe it’s a better grounding for action than pretending that what really matters to us is the state of the economy. By being honest about our motivation we can inspire in others the passions that inspire us.”
I think we are looking at foundations here. The world is not objectively valueless, even if our reason struggles to prove value. There’s a faith here. Bruce Lipton has written on “the survival of the most loving” (The Biology of Belief). Biologist E.O. Wilson has written of biophilia, which he describes as 'the connections that human beings subconsciously seek with the rest of life'. Wilson argues that 'we all possess an innate tendency to focus upon life and lifelike forms and in some instances to affiliate with them emotionally'. (Wilson 1984). The term can be found in the work of social psychologist Erich Fromm. In his book, The Heart of Man, Fromm wrote: “I believe that the man choosing progress can find a new unity through the development of all his human forces, which are produced in three orientations. These can be presented separately or together: biophilia, love for humanity and nature, and independence and freedom.”
As for arguments over God, science and religion, I shall declare myself an apatheist. I am bored with non-questions. I think we are all living in an endlessly creative universe, I think we are co-creators in a participatory universe, and we live forwards into mystery. And there’ll be no proof one way or another forthcoming on abstract points, arguments which see the world as some objective external datum which we can know only post festum.
My point is this, that world transformations arise from the synergy of economic/material interests and moral/spiritual motivations. Either of these two alone will not suffice to bring about the transformations we need. We are living through a crisis which possesses transformatory potential. To realise that potential and deliver the age of ecology we require the combined interaction of the material and the moral. Citing Max Weber on this, Joaquim Radkau argues that “the strongest force driving world history stems from a synergy of metaphysical and material motives.” (Radkau 2014: 430). We need the worlds of fact and value to be brought together so that the knowledge we have been accumulating becomes affective at the level of motivations.
I take this combined interaction of material and metaphysical motivations to mean that notions of human independence and freedom need to be set in the context of our dependence upon natural resources and our dependence on others. We have a certain self-interest of our own to serve in the here and now, but we are set within a social and ecological matrix that is much more than our immediate selves. Here, we can refer to the partnership ethic developed by the likes of Carolyn Merchant, conceiving the human community and the natural community in terms of an interdependence in which humanity and nature are co-creators, both are active agents. Biophilia, love for humanity and nature, and independence and interdependence are innate, but achieving a new unity through the convergence of these three orientations requires morality, culture, virtues, capabilities, an environmental ethic. But behind the rational calculations, the hard institutional questions, the system dynamics and transformations in the social metabolic order there is a deeper question and a deeper motivation, one that gets neglected. We need to love life as a whole as well as each other. Love is the very model of a just society. ‘Love means creating for another the kind of space in which he can flourish, at the same time as he does this for you. It is to find one's happiness in being the reason for the happiness of another’. (Moss 2000 I). Love is key to flourishing well. Love and justice.
This is not some idealistic, utopian ethic. It is firmly based in biological understanding. Human beings, with all manner of private priorities, responsibilities and expenses, hand over their hard-earned money, money that could be spent on themselves, to complete strangers, either through taxes or philanthropy. From the point of view of self-interest, this giving is not a rational thing to do. Such self-sacrifice on the part of selfish human beings puzzled Charles Darwin. Whilst Darwin is best known for a phrase he did not write - the “survival of the fittest” - he himself posited the idea of the “survival of the kindest.” Whilst the Social Darwinism that followed in Darwin's wake emphasised competition and the survival of the strong, Darwin himself considered sympathy to be the strongest human instinct.
This idea is backed by a wealth of scientific research, findings in biology and psychology indicating that human beings are wired to be selfless rather than selfish. Dacher Keltner, a UC Berkeley psychologist and author of “Born to be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life,” and his fellow social scientists, attribute the success of the human species to our nurturing, altruistic and compassionate traits. The problems we face are not the result of a greedy and selfish human nature, but of the way that our cooperative instincts have been hijacked by free-riders and exploiters and diverted to private ends. The moral is clear: if we don’t love and take care of one another, we will cease to thrive and survive. And this means identifying the social forms and relations within community that serve to bring us together as co-operators rather than separate us against each other - and our world - as competitors.
Survival Of The Kindest – Empathy In Our Genes
https://huehueteotl.wordpress.com/2009/12/10/survival-of-the-kindest-empathy-in-our-genes/
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, are challenging long-held beliefs that human beings are wired to be selfish. In a wide range of studies, social scientists are amassing a growing body of evidence to show we are evolving to become more compassionate and collaborative in our quest to survive and thrive.
In contrast to “every man for himself” interpretations of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, Dacher Keltner, a UC Berkeley psychologist and author of “Born to be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life,” and his fellow social scientists are building the case that humans are successful as a species precisely because of our nurturing, altruistic and compassionate traits.
They call it “survival of the kindest.”
“Because of our very vulnerable offspring, the fundamental task for human survival and gene replication is to take care of others,” said Keltner, co-director of UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center. “Human beings have survived as a species because we have evolved the capacities to care for those in need and to cooperate. As Darwin long ago surmised, sympathy is our strongest instinct.”
Empathy in our genes
Keltner’s team is looking into how the human capacity to care and cooperate is wired into particular regions of the brain and nervous system. One recent study found compelling evidence that many of us are genetically predisposed to be empathetic.
Fromm, E., 1965. The Heart of Man: Its Genius for Good and Evil, Harper & Row, San Francisco
Merchant, Carolyn. 1992. Radical Ecology: The Search for a Livable World. New York: Routledge
Carolyn, Merchant. 1995. Earthcare, Routledge
Moss, Norman., 2000. Managing the Planet: The Politics of the New Millenium, Earthscan
Radkau, Joaquim, 2014, The Age of Ecology, Polity
Wilson, E.O., 1984. Biophilia: The Human Bond with Other Species