Chaos and Kairos

Are we on the cusp of an evolutionary awakening?

One of my pet theories — tested by current events — is that civilization, over the long term, will transition from a system built on domination, hierarchy, alienation and exploitation to one rooted in cooperation, shared power, participation and mutual aid. This is, after all, the model we find in biological evolution. It should apply to human society as well, if our species sticks around long enough to get there.

According to biologist Lynn Margulis, the history of life on Earth reveals an innate tendency toward greater levels of cooperation, coordination and symbiosis. This may seem surprising at first. We’ve inherited a view of biology as a constant battle for life. The “dog eat dog” model of reality fits the predatory and competitive economic mode of modern capitalism. (I explored this in How Soon Is Now (2016)). In reality, dogs don’t eat other dogs: They sniff, snarl, copulate and play with them.

A deeper understanding of life sees it as an intricately networked phenomenon where organisms work together far more than they compete. Margulis writes: “The trip from greedy gluttony, from instant satisfaction to long-term mutualism, has been made many times in the microcosm. While destructive species may come and go, cooperation itself increases through time.” Ultimately, as a species, we will either learn symbiosis or we will be booted off the planet.

We find examples of cooperation and symbiosis — the inherent pattern of evolution — in our own bodies. Our bodies are made out of a hundred trillion cells and vast colonies of microorganisms that work together seamlessly. In a previous stage of the Earth’s evolution, these organisms fought against each other for scarce resources. During a planetary crisis, they figured out ways to collaborate to construct more complex structures – organs such as hearts, skin, eyes, and lungs.

In a way, all human technologies recapitulate technological feats we already find in the archaic microcosm. Long before the Internet, viruses exchanged information – genetic code – around the world at high speed. When humans cooperate to build a satellite dish, it is not that dissimilar to the communities of specialized cells and microorganisms that assemble an eye or an ear. “As tiny parts of a huge biosphere whose essence is basically bacterial, we – with other life forms – must add up to a sort of symbiotic brain which it is beyond our capacity to comprehend or truly represent,’ Margulis wrote.

Much older and far more successful organism than any goofy primate, trees are models of symbiosis. The first trees — back then, they were more like overgrown ferns — appeared nearly 385 million years ago, while humans have been around for 150,000 years. Trees can be described as life amplifiers: Organismic structures that evolved not only to fill a niche but to amplify biological complexity. A single tree supports thousands of species. It acts as carbon sink, water pump, and nutrient recycler.

Oak trees are keystone species on the East Coast, where I live. One old, gnarled oak tree in Central Park or Tomkins Square, with its roots extended down into centuries of layered soil, holds together an intricate ecosystem. In its branches it will shelter dozens of bird species (morning doves, robins, pidgeons, hawks), mammals (Eastern Grey Squirrels, raccoons, the occasional opossum or bat), as well as hundreds of species of insects: ants, aphids, gall wasps, beetles, moths, cicadas, bees, and butterflies, enjoying its bark. Its leaves provide food and refuge for caterpillars, arachnids, and mites. The crevices in its bark house bacteria, fungi, moss, lichens, worms. Underground, its roots form intricate networks with mycorrhizal fungi, connecting to other trees and exchanging nutrients via subterranean channels.

Compared to the oak tree, a human being is like a wandering ecosystem in constant flux. The average human supports around 39 trillion microbial cells and 30 trillion human ones, making us more microbe than mammal. Our skin, gut, mouth, and even eyelashes provide home for bacteria, archaea, viruses, fungi, mites.

While a tree shelters and supports life, humans — in this stage of our evolution anyway — over-consume, displace, degrade and destroy. Embedded in postmodern technological cultures, we act like parasites exploiting the Earth’s ecosystems. We disrupt food webs, damage habitats, and accelerate extinction.

Despite our drawbacks, humans have, at least, introduced something new to the Earth: A language-based, self-reflective culture. While we are in a primitive and destructive stage of our development, I believe we can recognize a pattern — an implicit teleology — in our evolution. As a vast whole, humanity united with the Earth constitutes a planetary super-organism. We are the planet becoming conscious of its own evolution, learning how to shape that evolutionary trajectory.

In this period of the Anthropocene, humans have become a geological force. Like it or not, we find ourselves in an ongoing, symbiotic relationship with the ecology of the Earth as a whole system.

We continually transform the world around us. We are doing it very badly now. But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn to do it well.

Capitalism Is an Immature, Transitional System

Capitalism is not inherently evil. Instead, it as an immature stage in the evolution of human society. It is a developmental phase — like adolescence for the individual — driven by ego-ic separation, individualism, and short-term self-interest. The dynamic power of Capitalism has meshed the world together into one global market and one global mind, enabled tremendous creativity, and accelerated technological progress.

But Capitalism runs on a logic of competition, accumulation, and domination, with little concern for long-term consequences or the health of the larger systems—ecological, social, spiritual—on which life depends. Because it is fueled by debt, it is inherently unstable, always requiring new markets to penetrate. Like a child testing the boundaries of reality without knowing anything deeper, capitalism pushes us, as a species, to the edge of collapse. Most of us sense we are now approaching burn-out.

We can, of course, look at the Fascist turn in America right now in a number of ways.