As we face an age of severe environmental destruction, it is now more urgent than ever to understand ourselves in order to save our reality. As renowned scientist E.O. Wilson has said:

Humanity today is like a waking dreamer, caught between the fantasies of sleep and the chaos of the real world. We thrash about. We are terribly confused by the mere fact of our existence, and we are a danger to ourselves and to the rest of life. (Of Ants and Men 01:40)

Considering how fragile and intimately connected our ecosystem is, the danger of biodiversity loss and environmental degradation threatens all life on Earth. Whether all humans acknowledge it or not, we are bound to Earth’s fauna and flora by our history, physiology, and emotion (01:04).

In the prehistoric struggle for survival, individual striving and group success are linked. Tribes that were able to cooperate most effectively for defense, food, and shelter would survive, and reproduce. Although within groups selfish individuals survive, a group of selfish individuals may perish (01:23). Natural selection operates on the group as a whole, not just individuals and their genes—such a process is called multilevel evolution (01:26). The fact of group selection has evolved our instincts to extend beyond the urge to protect our immediate kin (01:19). Vietnam war veteran Brian Delate’s memories of comradeship illustrate our instinctive self-sacrifice for members of our own group. At his station in Duc Pho, there was a listening post about 150 feet away outside the perimeter (01:15). Brian watched as rocket mortar hurt one of the men at the listening post. The second man at the post charged through the dangerous terrain to save his comrade. Brian reflects on the memory: “I was so moved by that behavior. Like a primitive kind of… behavior… it’s kind of built in. Your survival is equal to the person next to you. I think that maybe it’s like you have a collective survival instinct, along with an individual survival instinct.” (01:16) The instinct Brian has tapped into is altruism. Altruism, in contrast with egoism, emphasizes a concern for other members of your group.

Our evolutionary history suggests that human nature, including our instincts and our emotions, is deeply rooted in biology. E.O. Wilson is credited with forming the field of sociobiology, which emphasizes the role of evolution and genetics in our psychology and behavior. Sociobiology proposes that the human mind has evolved under natural conditions to the same extent as our physical features.

A pronounced difference between our social behavior in comparison to other social primates like apes is our distinctive mode of intense cooperation which allows us to create complex societies (01:06). Cooperation as a matter of instinct is the fruit of eusociality: the most advanced form of social behavior. Humans were the last of 19 lines to develop social behavior (16 of which are insects) and are the only eusocial primate (00:46). Somewhere in our evolutionary line, natural selection gave rise to certain adapted traits that set the stage for socialization. Wilson considers the trigger for socialization to be more than one generation living together, usually with intimate care for the young (00:47). Eusociality gave us an evolutionary advantage that created complex societies which dominate our world—similarly ants, termites, and bees have conquered their environment (00:50).

About 150 million years ago, ants were one of the first species to become eusocial organisms (01:07). Eusocial species have a reproductive division of labor in which some of the individuals in the society must give up part of their longevity or reproductive capacity to serve the others (00:47). In an ant colony the queen ant holds the utmost importance because only she reproduces, while the other worker ants support her. Every individual ant works only for the good of the colony in a high degree of social integration and complex division of labor. Specialization in a colony resembles the function of individual cells in a human body; just as individual human cells are genetically programmed to perform a specific function, so are individual ants (00:49). Instinctively, ants form appendages to create a whole superorganism.

We can observe just such a “superorganism” in action in the way that Sub-Saharan African Matabele ants raid a termite nest. Matabele ants are one of the largest and strongest type of ants, with a diet exclusively of termites (00:50). In the colony, worker ants fulfill the role of provider and protector to support the queen, who comfortably reproduces in the safety of her nest. Everyday worker Matabele ants march alone as much as 100 meters away from the colony to find a termite nest (00:51). The individual scout ant puts itself in jeopardy for the collective hunt for food. Once a termite nest is found, the scout will run back to the nest. The scout will release pheromones1 which have the power to mobilize the entire colony within minutes (00:51). The worker ants follow the scout until they are met with a battalion of termite soldiers that have massed to fight back (00:52). Typical of a eusocial species, the termites instinctively sacrifice their livelihood to protect their queen. The Matabele ants eat and slaughter the termite soldiers by the hundreds (01:18). The termites are gathered in bunches, clenched tightly between the ant’s jaws, and brought back to feed the colony (00:53). Communication allows ants to cooperate in order to gather food, and survive.

Like ants, “evolution has hardwired us for cooperation” (01:09). Humans crossed the eusocial frontier when we evolved emotions that bound us together (01:10). Because our eusociality predisposes us to group sentiments, we instinctually care about what others think of us—exclusion makes us suffer, and inclusion makes us thrive (01:29). When we follow the line of eusociality and evolution, tribalism naturally follows. Humans create tribes and cultures to feel belonging and security.

Sports are evidence that we are group selected beings who desire belonging and identification (01:32). Wilson describes the Iron bowl football game between old college rivals Alabama Crimson Tide and Auburn Tigers as “the wildest spectacle I know of humanity’s primordial group instincts.” (01:34) Although the rivalry between university students may have no basis in difference, tribal instinct propels us to a kind of collective ecstasy when we compete as a group against another group. Craig Worley, a 1990 graduate from the University of Alabama and a lifelong Crimson Tide fan, concludes that in Alabama football is treated with the same reverence that religion is, in which traditions and pageantry is honored from generation to generation (01:30). Another lifelong Crimson Tide fan, Penny Jo Lambert, agrees: “Being an Alabama fan means pride, passion, respect, tradition. It’s a way of life.” (01:25) The deep and powerful sentiments we take from being involved in an exciting battle directs the human psyche (01:35). As a Crimson tide fan himself, Wilson compares the football game to a ritualization of war: football players that represent power, prestige, and rank are received by cheerleaders and ecstatic fans like gladiators ready for combat (01:37). Fans in the crowd passionately chant and yell to encourage the players to greater violence and victory. Like Craig Worley, Wilson agrees there is an elation that is almost religious; Wilson says, “Religion has its roots right here, in this sense of profound communion we can feel in these situations of collective euphoria, of being lifted our of ourselves. That sense of collective belief, of bonding in the service of a greater cause.” (01:38) Religion is the expression of our tribal longings to transcend ourselves and be part of a collective.

Evolution has equipped us with the sublime and constructive capacity for cooperation, but also a terrible capacity for destruction (01:41). Altruism as the extension of our evolutionary psychology has created some of our strongest bonds, but has also encouraged some of our most violent genocides and wars. Religion has been a product of biological and cultural processes which mediate our powerful instinct for group belonging. In terms of evolutionary history, religion unites individuals to perform as a superorganism, allowing the group to survive (01:39). Often, the powerful communion of religion inspires individuals that sacrifice their individual self for a higher purpose or being; similar to how the Matabele ant will sacrifice itself for the queen. If we understand religion as a natural product of tribalism, it becomes clear why religious warfare has amassed millions upon millions of deaths. The religiously motivated Taiping Rebellion in China, for example, was one of the bloodiest civil wars in human history with an estimated death toll upward of 20 million lives in just 13 years (Wright 1).

The human condition, as Wilson says, is dysfunctional because we have God-like intelligence and technology but are driven by Paleolithic instinct and emotion (Of Ants and Men 07:12). Our instinct to be obsessed only with our own society has driven us to slaughter one another in masses and mindlessly dismantle our biosphere. Our prospects for continuing existence of life on Earth demand radical change quickly—but Wilson is optimistic. Although genetics influence our biology and psychology, it only grants us predispositions for behavior. Human intelligence, rationality, and imagination allows us the agency to redesign our condition. If we become more mindful of our nature, we may be able to save ourselves and our planet.

Works Cited

Notes

1. Pheromones are chemical signals released by the Dufour’s gland in ants. E.O. Wilson discovered ant’s communicate through an advanced pheromonal language. (01:28)