Words&Dirt

Throughout his distinguished career, Edward O. Wilson has brought a vast wealth of interdisciplinary knowledge to bear on some of humanity’s most complex and pressing questions.  The Meaning of Human Existence is his most philosophical work, and contains many worthwhile insights about humanity’s origins and possible futures.  Wilson’s method, best characterized as a kind of “biohistory,” integrates findings from the natural sciences with humanitarian wisdom to achieve a long view of the human story.

Wilson, who was falsely accused of bigotry in the 1970s for his Pulitzer Prize-winning book On Human Nature, has always been ahead of the curve in understanding evolution.  Reminding a “blank slate” culture about the considerable influence of evolution and genetics on human behavior was his 20th century achievement, but Wilson’s grand project since the turn of the millennium has been promoting yet another paradigm shift: the transition away from kin selection and the inclusive fitness model in favor of multilevel selection.  Wilson and his collaborators claim that multilevel selection explains the tension between competitive instincts that cause conflict within human communities and cooperative instincts that bind them together.  Genes (or groups of genes) are selected not only for their ability to support the survival of oneself and one’s kin, but also for their ability to generate collaborative behaviors that cause certain human groups to triumph over or outlast others.  Individual and group selection take place concurrently as people compete for resources and status while simultaneously banding together to defend their common interests against hostile groups.  This perennial conflict, Wilson suggests, is the humus that makes fertile the garden of human joy and suffering.

Multilevel selection theory has come under fire from many big names in biology, but as a non-scientist who is unfamiliar with the mathematical models that supposedly prove or disprove its veracity, I’ll confess to accepting Wilson’s view as an appeal to authority.  He has been right in the past and may very well be so now.  I won’t be making any bets, but if I did my money would be on multilevel selection’s eventual vindication.  

Although multilevel selection helps explain humanity’s vacillation between selfish impulses and altruistic ones, not all of the ideas put forth in this book are equally useful.  Wilson exudes a tender humility in his best moments, but also occasionally falls back on Enlightenment notions of human dominance over nature.  For example: “The evolutionary innovations that made us dominant over the rest of life also left us sensory cripples” (90).  Even in light of our vast influence on Earth’s biosphere, most insidiously embodied in anthropogenic climate change, it is absurd to characterize us as “dominant over the rest of life.”  “We have become the mind of the planet and perhaps our entire corner of the galaxy as well,” Wilson writes in another section.  “We can do with Earth what we please” (176).  I suppose that’s technically true in the short run, but if we don’t learn how to better live within certain consumptive limits, our ability to do “what we please” will rapidly evaporate.

These sentiments resonate with Wilson’s willingness to gloss over the exploitative/extractivist aspects of scientific progress:  “The circumnavigation of Africa and the discovery of the New World led to new, global trade routes and expanded military conquest.  The new, global reach was a turning point in history that placed a premium on knowledge and invention.  Now we are launched into a new cycle of exploration––infinitely richer, correspondingly more challenging, and not by coincidence increasingly humanitarian” (52).  Wilson’s not spinning untruths here, but he’s also not acknowledging some inconvenient parts of the story, namely the West’s unprecedented exploitation of other humans and the natural environment in the name of “progress.”  This includes the less savory elements of modern globalization, which can only be characterized as “increasingly humanitarian” with blinders on.  I agree with those who think human life is genuinely better today for most people than in past epochs, but I also think this reality was shaped by many brave people over generations who heartily decried the very horrors and hardships Wilson seems content to ignore.

I take issue with the above sentiments not because I think they justify dismissing Wilson’s outlook, but because I find them strangely antithetical to his prevailing tone, which champions biodiversity and implores human civilizations to be more thoughtful about how we treat one another and other species: “Even in purely economic terms, the opportunity costs of extinction are going to prove enormous.  Research on just small numbers of wild species has yielded major advances in the quality of human life…Without nature, finally, no people” (127).  This more balanced, relational attitude is where Wilson’s true import shines through.

There are two additional issues where I find myself at least in partial opposition to Wilson.  The first is the question of whether humans will begin using technology to consciously manipulate our genome in hopes of improving and hastening our evolutionary development.  Wilson is hostile to this idea, and also seems to think intelligent extraterrestrials would share his views: “I believe it would be unnecessary for our species’ survival to retrofit the human brain and sensory system…We will choose to retain the uniquely messy, self-contradictory, internally conflicted, endlessly creative human mind that exists today…We will be existential conservatives…And I find it comforting to believe that smart E.T.s, wherever they are, will have reasoned the same way” (118-9).  Even before jumping into the murky question of whether humans ought to use technology to augment genetics and intelligence, stating that we are already doing so and will almost certainly keep it up in the future is more descriptive than speculative.  Although conscious evolution should be undertaken with great caution and its benefits distributed as democratically as possible, humans have never allowed risk to preclude innovation and opportunity, and I see no reason why we would start now.  And although conscious evolution may not prove necessary for humanity’s survival, who’s to say it shouldn’t be explored for experimental or recreational purposes?

Wilson conflates the manipulation of human nature with its domestication: “We must learn to behave, but let us never even think of domesticating human nature” (180).  Conscious evolution will be a nonlinear process with many missteps along the way, but I believe it will ultimately empower individuals and communities with greater autonomy, sustainability, stability, and experiential richness.  These goals will be achieved by extending human creativity rather than muzzling it, by solving conflicts of scarcity so we can better articulate conflicts of the human spirit.   Further, I believe all of this can be done without gross exploitation of the environment, and in a way that makes us more aware of our profound interdependence with the rest of life on Earth.  As Wilson seems to fear, we might wake up one day in the far future and discover that we’re not quite human anymore––but isn’t that how evolution works?

My final criticism is that Wilson’s definition of “superorganisms” is not sufficiently broad.  As a renowned entomologist, Wilson knows more than almost anyone about ants and other eusocial insects, which clearly behave in ways that constitute superorganic entities.  But he is dubious about the capability of humans, who he also classifies as eusocial, to form superorganisms of our own: “We, unlike social insects, are too selfish to behave like cells in an organism.  Almost all human beings seek their own destiny.  They want to reproduce for themselves…They will always revolt against slavery; they will not be treated like worker ants” (100-1).  This is an oversimplification.  Yes, humans do appear to seek our own destinies, but scientists such as Wilson himself have revealed just how much of that process is determined by our biology, not to mention cultural traditions and expectations.  And when faced with dire conditions or sumptuous rewards, it seems to me that many people will tolerate being treated like worker ants, or whatever their human equivalent might be.

Nation-states, corporations, religions, social networks––all of these can be classified as human superorganisms.  Given sufficient complexity, human organizations can begin to exhibit emergent properties that favor the priorities of the institution over those of individual constituents (just look at the current US Congress!).  Participation in such organizations often demands that people to give up certain freedoms or even act directly against their own self interest.  From our comparatively enlightened perspective, it’s easy to view worker ants as selfless drones with which humans––so utterly intricate and individualized––have little in common beyond mere participation in a species made successful by hyper-socialization.  But it’s much harder (probably impossible in the fullest sense) to grasp the scope of how thoroughly we are embedded in and subservient to natural and cultural systems that are massively larger, more complex, and perhaps even aware of radically different curiosities and motivations than our singular selves.  We’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of that ever elusive but endlessly fascinating question, now pursued via scientific investigation after millennia of mindless mysticism: “Who’s driving this thing, anyway?”

It’s fun to reconnoiter the chinks of Wilson’s otherwise impressive intellectual armor, but it would also be insincere not to register my hearty concurrence with this book’s final and most important message.  Wilson posits that while major scientific discoveries “will ease off and begin to decline in number,” the humanities “will continue to evolve and diversify indefinitely” (185).  Storytellers might draw from a much simpler bag of tricks than the laws of nature, but their products are nevertheless humanity’s most basic and essential obsession.  The meaning of human existence is not singular, but rather a font of self-generated declarations of significance––the best of which spring from fusions of empirical inquiry and bold imagination:  “If the heuristic and analytic power of science can be joined with the introspective creativity of the humanities, human existence will rise to an infinitely more productive and interesting meaning” (187).  Spirited cross-fertilization between the sciences and humanities could revive stagnant academic pursuits, reduce friction within and between human communities, deepen our understanding of the universe, and drive human narrative toward a more diversified and fulgent future.  Great thinkers like Edward O. Wilson will help us get there.

Rating: 7/10