Darwin's legacy
Many evolutionary biologists claiming to be the
true inheritor's of Darwin's legacy are intent on seeking
biological explanations of human behaviour - the thesis being that
there is a biological influence on human behaviour (especially
conflict) - and consequently on development of human societies. The
attempt, therefore, is to refute the Marxist view that productive
forces and relations of productions are the primary motive force in
the development of human society. This school of "sociobiology",
has been attacked by Marxists for being prey to "biological
determinism", i.e. prey to the belief that inherited
characteristics (through genes) determine societal behaviour.
The argument that there is a biological basis to
human conflict behaviour comes from a number of sources. The one
perhaps most widely believed view derives from a simplistic
interpretation of Darwinian theory. It is posited that in the
distant past when man was involved in a desperate competitive
struggle for survival, the chances of survival were better insofar
as a man was stronger and more aggressive. The more aggressive he
was, the better the chances of his mating, feeding, and defending
his offspring. Thus in evolutionary terms, the selection of the
fittest meant the selection of the more aggressive. Hence, it is
argued, over the millennia of human existence and before the
development of settled agrarian communities, aggression had been
genetically bred into man.
Aggression, it is further argued, was related to
the ability to mate and to gain access to scarce resources. Between
groups, however, population pressure and access to hunting grounds
was also a selective pressure. Thus, it is posited, that those
groups of a more pacific nature would lose out to the more
aggressive social units with the result, again, that a selective
pressure existed for the breeding of aggression.
Hence a link is sought to be made with 'cultural
evolution' in that a selective pressure existed for the survival of
the most aggressive cultures within which the most pressure towards
the selective breeding for aggression had taken place. The argument
is taken further into proposing that pressure of numbers on the
resources available led again to competition and the elimination of
some groups. Echoes of this line of reasoning are to be found among
Malthusians who have hypothesised that population increases always
lead to pressure upon resources with the result of 'famine, vice,
and misery' at least part of which is caused by the occurrence war
in the struggle for resources.
Territorial behaviour
Another strand of the argument comes from a field
of study that specialises in the extrapolation from the animal
kingdom to the world of mankind. Thus it has been argued that man
will fight to gain and to defend territory just as stray dogs do,
or birds seeking to mate. According to Konrad Lorenz , not only is
aggression an innate drive that needs a periodic release of
pressure but the animal world can be divided up into two kinds of
animal -- those with inhibitions to killing members of their own
species, and those without. The former group are animals with
powerful killing weapons, but these are tempered by "submission
gestures", the use of which prevents the stronger animal of the
same species from killing the weaker. Animals without such weapons
typically rely on flight to escape a stronger opponent. Lorenz
argued that humans, being physically weak belong to the latter
category, have no such inhibitions to killing their own species,
and yet through the power of their brains have developed weapons of
frightening efficiency. While the Lorenzian theory has been
rejected on empirical grounds - intra-species aggression and
killing are common to many animals other than man - its resonance
lingers on supported by the prestige of the Nobel Prize-winning
biologist.
Edward O.Wilson, one of the principal adherents
of the sociobiology theory has attempted to link the main tenets of
the theory to the evolution of different cultures in the following
manner : "...social behaviours are shaped by natural selection..and
hence ultimately influence the statistical distribution of culture
on a world-wide basis". Wilson's belief in the salutary effect that
aggression has had in development of human society pushes him into
taking a sexist view of evolution. He says, for example, that there
exist "modest" genetic differences between men and women. It would
thus follow that, if aggression is a necessary trait for human
survival, the genetically "submissive" women are consigned to
perpetual serfdom under men! Wilson has further argued that
different cultures have a set of characteristics which are
genetically determined, and cross-cultural differences can be
explained on the basis of differences in these sets of
characteristics. Thus, for example, cultures (he believes) could be
inherently "enterprising", aggressive", etc.
Thus there are a number of approaches that argue
that there is a biological and innate predisposition to aggression.
All of them would suggest, though, that the basis of conflict is
inherent in that it will always happen. A common thread in this
line of reasoning is of course the denial of the existence of
classes as well as a denial of the role of class oppression and
exploitation as the principal source of conflict in human
society.
Political forum
These approaches have been criticised by many
radical groups including the Science for the People Sociobiology
Study Group (the Boston Group) consisting of radical-left
scientists in the Boston area like Richard Lewontin, Richard Levins
and Stephen Jay Gould. The Boston Group in a statement says, "These
theories (biological determinism/sociobiology) provided an
important basis for the enactment of sterilisation laws and
restrictive immigration laws for the United States between 1910 and
1930 and also for the eugenics policies which led to the
establishment of gas chambers in Nazi Germany. We think that this
information has little relevance to human behaviour, and this
supposedly objective, scientific approach in reality conceals
political assumptions".
This aspect of the current debate is summed up by
Richard Lowentin in the following words,
"Any investigation into the genetic control of
human behaviours is bound to produce a pseudo-science that will
inevitably be misused...the process has social impact because the
announcement that research is being done is a political
act..."