EVOLUTION
by Stephen Jay Gould
Nothing much happens for most of the time when evidence abounds; everything
happens in largely unrecorded geological moments. We could attribute this
pattern to either a devious or humorous God, out to confuse us or merely to
chuckle at our frustration. But I choose to look upon this phenomenon in a
positive light, for it is trying to tell us something important. There is a
lesson, not merely frustration, in the message that change is concentrated in
infrequent bursts and that stability is the usual nature of species and systems
at any moment.
Evolution has constructed the tree of life; yet, at almost any moment for any
species, change is not occurring and stasis prevails. If we then ask, What is
the normal nature of a species, the only possible reply is, stability. Yet
exquisitely rare change has built the tree of life and made history on a broad
scale. The defining property of a species, its normal state, its nature, its
appearance at almost any time, is thus contrary to the process that makes
history (and new species). If we tried to infer the nature of species from the
process that constructs the history of life, we would get everything precisely
backward! -- for events of great rarity (but with extensive consequence) make
history.
This same tension and contrast exist between human nature and the events that
construct our history. We have committed an enormous error in assuming that the
behavioral traits involved in history-making events must define the ordinary
properties of human nature. Must we not link the causes of our history, or so
the false argument goes, to the nature of our being?
But if my analogy holds, precisely the opposite may be true. If rare behaviors
make history, then our usual nature must be defined by our ordinary actions in
an everyday world that engulfs us nearly all the time, but does not set the
fate of nations. The causes of history may be opposed to the ordinary forces
that prevail at almost any moment -- just as the processes that construct the
tree of life are invisible and inactive nearly all the time within stable
species.
History is made by warfare, greed, lust for power, hatred, and xenophobia (with
some other, more admirable motives thrown in here and there). We therefore
often assume that these obviously human traits define our essential nature. How
often have we been told that "man" is, by nature, aggressive and
selfishly acquisitive?
What do we see on any ordinary day on the streets or in the homes of any
American city -- even in the subways of New York? Thousands of tiny and
insignificant acts of kindness and consideration. We step aside to let someone
pass, smile at a child, chat aimlessly with an acquaintance or even with a
stranger.......Many of us have the impression that daily life is an unending
series of unpleasantness ......but think about it seriously for a moment. Such
levels of nastiness cannot possibly be sustained. Society would devolve to
anarchy in an instant if half our overtures to another human being were met
with a pinch in the nose
Why then do most of us have the impression that people are so aggressive, and
intrinsically so? The answer, I think, lies in the asymmetry of effects -- the
truly tragic side of human existence. Unfortunately, one incident of violence
can undo ten thousand acts of kindness, and we easily forget the predominance
of kindness over aggression by confusing effect with frequency. One racially
motivated beating can wipe out years of patient education for respect and
toleration in a school or community. One murder can convert a friendly town,
replete with trust, into a nexus of fear with people behind barred doors,
suspicious of everyone and afraid to go out at night. Kindness is so fragile,
so easy to efface; violence is so powerful.
This crushing and tragic asymmetry of kindness and violence is infinitely
magnified when we consider the causes of history in the large. One book burning
in the library of Alexandria can wipe out the accumulated wisdom of antiquity.
One supposed insult, one crazed act of assassination, can undo decades of
patient diplomacy, cultural exchanges, peace corps, pen pals -- small acts of
kindness involving millions of citizens -- and bring two nations to a war that
no one wants, but that kills millions and irrevocably changes the paths of
history.
The alternative view might grant that stability must rule at nearly all moments
and that much rarer events make history. But perhaps this stability arises by
predominant behaviors of geniality only in relatively free and democratic
societies. Perhaps the stability of most cultures has been achieved by the same
`dark' forces that make history when they break out of balance -- fear,
aggression, terror, domination of rich over poor, men over women, adults over
children, and armed over defenseless. I allow that these forces have often kept
balances, but still strongly assert that we fail to count the ten thousand
ordinary acts of non-aggression -- done if only because people know their
places and do not usually challenge the sources of order -- that overwhelm each
overt show of strength even in societies structured by domination. To base
daily stability on anything other than our natural geniality requires a
perverted social structure explicitly dedicated to breaking the human soul --
the Auschwitz model, if you will.........Obviously, both kindness and violence
lie within the bounds of our nature because we perpetuate both, in spades. I
only advance a structural claim that social stability rules nearly all the time
and must be based on an overwhelmingly predominant (but tragically ignored) frequency
of genial acts, and that geniality is therefore our usual and preferred
response nearly all the time.
This is not an essay about optimism; it is an essay about tragedy. If I felt
that humans were nasty by nature, I would just say, the hell with it. We get
what we deserve, or what evolution left us as a legacy. But the center of human
nature is rooted in ten thousand ordinary acts of kindness that define our
days. Nothing can be more tragic than that this Everest of geniality stands
upside down on its pointed summit and can be toppled so easily by rare events
contrary to our everyday nature -- and that these rare events make our history.
In some sense, we do not get what we deserve.
The solution to our woes lies not in overcoming our `nature' but in fracturing
the `great asymmetry', and allowing our ordinary propensities to direct our
lives. But how can we put the commonplace into the driver's seat of history?
Stephen Jay Gould who wrote this article teaches biology, geology, and the
history of science at Harvard University.