A Comment on the Need to Move from Darwinism to Zahavism

Published at P2P-Foundation here.

I just came to think about that we can name this new IGD (In-Group Democrazy) as Zahavism, after Amotz Zahavi. Darwinism is not what I’ll call evolutionary biology, as it was too linked with ideology:

“In this context it is important to notice that a political economist, Thomas Robert Malthus, delivered the crucial cornerstone for the modern concept of biology as evolution. Malthus was obsessed by the idea of scarcity as explanation for social change – there would never be enough resources to feed a population which steadily multiplies. Charles Darwin, the biologist, adapted that piece of theory which had clearly derived from the observation of Victorian industrial society and applied it to a comprehensive theory of natural change and development. In its wake such concepts as “struggle for existence,” “competition,” “growth” and “optimization” tacitly became centerpieces of our self-understanding: biological, technological, and social progress is brought forth by the sum of individual egoisms. In perennial competition, fit species (powerful corporations) exploit niches (markets) and multiply their survival rate (return margins), whereas weaker (less efficient) ones go extinct (bankrupt). The resulting metaphysics of economy and nature, however, are less an objective picture of the world than society’s opinion about its own premises.” – Dr. Andreas Weber: wealthofthecommons.org/essay/economy-wastefulness-biology-commons

See more on the subject in Weber’s essay Enlivenment: www.boell.de/publications/publications-enlivenment-publication-series-ecology-17364.html

The point is that today’s societies and economical thinking are built upon individualism and competition, ie. Darwinism. Only in the 70ies sexual selection and the two sides of the handicap principle were understood, after Zahavi’s study of the Arabian Babbler. So the Negev Desert and the Arabian Babbler have been just as important for understanding evolutionary biology as the Darwin Finches on the Galapagos Islands. Not many people have realized this.

Another point is that humans, unlike other animals, can choose which side of the handicap principle we prefer to utilize depending on the zetting. Modernism and capitalism have together designed a society which give us no choice, to grow only the “dark”, individualistic and egoistic sides of the handicap principle. An in-group society will become the exact opposite.