Human Culture: The Evolution of a Species, 2

Culture is a collective word, a large umbrella forged to encompass all that we consider the greatest achievements of mankind: language, science, philosophy, and the arts. We use it to claim a position at the top of the evolutionary scale.

But, to be honest, culture is an abstraction. Evolution is an abstraction. They are all, in some measure, figments of our imagination. They are fictions that, not long after we create them, start framing our perceptions and driving our actions.

The contradictions become clear when we stop and pay attention. Take, for instance, one of the pillars of the evolutionary process, the so-called ‘survival of the fittest’. If we observe what is happening in the world right now, we see that natality rates are plummeting in the richest countries while, in the developing world, access to contraception and family planning is hindered by economic, religious, and moral reasons. Of course, the same division opposes the affluent and the underprivileged inside each country. But that could hardly mean anything in terms of evolution since the poor will continue to die like flies so the rich can continue to thrive.

Even with such harsh divisions, it is a unified humanity that we have been describing. From the techniques and tools we use to interact with the environment to the music we listen to and the self-portraits we create in movies, literature, and other forms of art, our cultural landscape looks increasingly and alarmingly homogeneous throughout the globe.

This tendency to standardization, to some irresistible unification under the western civilization flag, is very strong. That’s why it is so important to build resources to reverse it. We should focus on creating new ways to harbor cultural diversity, to welcome differences and dissent, to allow ourselves some space for self-doubt and reinvention. That’s how we will be able to find concrete and viable paths towards our future as humans among others, living beings among others, instead of chasing the ghost of the ultimate answer to all of our abstract questions.

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Vincent Van Gogh, Shoes, 1886
Currently at Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

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