American Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Research (AJHSSR)
2018
American Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Research (AJHSSR) e-ISSN : 2378-703X Volume-02, Issue-07, pp-25-38 www.ajhssr.com
Research Paper
Open Access
Greed as the Motor and the Momentum of Human Civilization Viewing the Development of Human Civilization through the Desire of Commodious Living
LOULOU MALAEB, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Humanities ABSTRACT: Ever since Darwin, different theories of evolution pursuant upon each other, have tried to interpret the complexity of human history from a Darwinian viewpoint. The main concern was to prove that human history can be considered part of nature‟s history and that it may follow nature‟s evolutionary laws. All those theories have put a tremendous effort in explaining “How” human culture and civilization could follow an evolutionary process and in some cases have provided a detailed scrutiny for this account, but have failed to answer “Why” it occurred. This research puts the emphasis on the question “Why?” While searching for an answer to why human civilization occurred, the research ensues in finding the roots of human civilization in an aspect of human life that was and has been marginalized by scientific research: this is the human desire of commodious living. Thus, while relying on Dawkins‟ selfish gene as a methodological guideline, the aim here is to suggest the possibility of a natural genetic development of this desire of commodious living, standing at the base of human civilization development. The conclusion reached suggests that, by giving this commodious desire a biological dimension, human civilization and cultural development might be endowed with a biological interpretation that can be construed as following a Darwinian evolutionary process, and consequently mend and bridge the existing gap between an account of human history and one of nature‟s history while eschewing the shortcomings of group selection theories.
KEYWORDS: Desire of commodious living; natural desire of well-being; Dawkins; Selfish gene; Human history; Nature’s history; Human civilization.
I. INTRODUCTION In his Politics and the Evolutionary Process, P.A. Corning (1974) talked of a clear obvious schism between Man‟s polity and the natural history of the world. Darwinian natural selection, to Corning, is by no means apt to contain the evolution of human intellect and the subsequent evolution of its social and political institutions. The Darwinian struggle of “survival of the fittest” among the diverse array of species, according to many theorists after Darwin, fails to complement the idea of Aristotle‟s man as a “political animal” and to explain the evolution of human culture and civilization to its prevailing status quo. We see that all post-Darwinian interpretations of human civilization and culture have committed the same error; namely, putting much effort in ascribing different schemes and systems in an attempt to provide a clear sketch of how human civilization and history has arrived at where it has. More often than not, their sketches came as either too narrow to fit with the grandeur of this process, or, lacking sufficient concrete specificity. I propose in this paper to argue that in order to know how human civilization evolved, first, we need to target the motive that has propelled this same civilization to evolve; that is, to target (and answer) the question “why” did civilization develop before asking how it occurred. Previous theories have considered the human rational faculty and its concomitant survival instinct to be satisfactory reasons for the development of civilization. This paper counters that, had reason and the survival instinct been the only two factors driving the human machine in the midst of all external nature, human culture and civilization would have stopped at a very basic level: i.e. where this human being could procure a secured dwelling and a decent source of food. However, human civilization continued far beyond that. In attempting to answer the “why” question one cannot but notice that the only obvious reason for human civilization to sprout beyond the basic human‟s survival needs would be a form of natural human search not only for survival but also for well-being. One would say that this search of well-being is a natural search since if they contemplate the development of human civilization they would fairly notice a sense of urgency and necessity in the human‟s quest for well-being or commodious living that might be natural and not otherwise. That fact that human beings constantly search for well-being and commodious living is a form of an a priori knowledge in that no one would be asked of the reasons behind which they are searching for their well-being in the same way that they would not be asked why they search to live.
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