In response to Cycle
Hype or Genotype: The History Wars
JOYCE QUAYTMAN
A PALE HORSE
Dr.
J. A. Quaytman is a licensed clinical psychologist who teaches
at California State University. She has worked in the field
for over 30 years and has a private practice in northern California.
Her specialities include psychological trauma, substance abuse/dependence
and family dysfunction. Her last piece,
Michael Jackson: Another Seduction, appeared in 2005,
Vol. 4, No. 5.
_____________________
Once
again I am hooked by your latest in fascinating, if messy, fishing
expeditions, that of your latest editorial, “Cycle Hype
or Genotype”. Of course it is the ultimate hubris to claim
that anyone can predict with great specificity the rise and
fall of a given civilization, nation or species. And it’s
true that the complexity of human communities would make such
exact “prognostications” nigh impossible. But I
must say that your discussion’s internal blueprint for
understanding the behavioral connection between any civilization
and the genotype of that society’s individual members
is a bit fuzzy. As a consequence, you seem to be asking the
reader to dismiss a theoretical construct that has considerable
merit. One of the current hypotheses discussed in Evolutionary
Psychology, Systems Theory, and Sociology, to name but a few
fields, is how the individual’s genetically encoded reactions
to threat, satiation, curiosity, etc. are played out at the
community or group level. Why wouldn’t a group of the
same living creatures reflect the same need, concerns or, in
this case, life cycle, as their individual members? Individuals
are, indeed, born through a process of fertilization and in
utero development, and they then grow up, hopefully, only to
reproduce, mature, age and die in that same relatively predictable
cycle. In a parallel fashion, the individual’s society
also begins as a fertilized ‘egg’, if you will,
inseminated by the shared beliefs, behaviors, art and music
of its early founders. And that civilization will either die
prematurely, much as an individual may be spontaneously aborted
(miscarriage) due to any one of a multitude of teratogens, or
will continue despite the regular death rate of its individual
members. Heraclitus, his numerous and obvious errors aside,
did have a sense that this natural cycle of birth, growth, reproduction
and death is played out in both the microsystemic (individual
animals, plants, the human) as well as the macrosystemic arena
(cities, nations and biomes). The later historians you mention
(Fukuyama, Schlesinger) had the benefit of the more recent concepts
spelled out in General Systems Theory (von Bertalanffy; Gray
et al) who demonstrated clearly the isomorphic nature of all
life forms or configurations …that is, all living systems
function similarly despite their differences in physical structure.
Thus, the idea of applying a variety of principles which govern
individual reactions to those of a group has a fairly long standing
tradition. These civilizations that remain viable for protracted
time periods, continuously reproduce as well as evolve in order
to adapt to changing environmental conditions. And we see the
varied permutations of this macrosystemic life cycle in the
past and present. Some are lost for eons only to be discovered
during some paleontologist’s dig (e.g. Troy, the Etruscans),
while others continue across the millennia (eg. Egypt or China).
This vast difference between the relative longevity of various
civilizations indicate the unique ‘genotype’ of
each, if you will, and its ability to adapt to a variety of
environmental pressures.
However,
your initial annoyance-driven nattering at those arrogant historians
appears to be a very thinly veiled ruse, no more than a convenient
vehicle drawing your audience into deeper questions: Is the
human truly governed by a ‘genotype’ that inevitably
directs him to war, aggression? And, if so, does this evolutionarily
successful species actually have a choice in how it responds
to such genetic pressure? And how are the threads of power and
greed interwoven in the historical tapestry of the bellicose
human? These are issues truly worthy of our attention at this
point in our species’ evolution.
General Systems Theory speaks eloquently to the instinctual
reactions of all living systems – from single-cell animals
to complex life forms – in response to a perceived threat.
And neurobiological research has actually located the physiological
structures responsible for those survival responses. The three
reactions most often noted and discussed in regard to survival
are the ‘fight’, ‘flight’ and ‘freeze’
behaviors, and these potential actions seem to be ‘hard
wired’ into an identifiable area of the human brain, the
limbic system. However, this limbic system is tied, via a complex
set of connective tissues, to the frontal lobes of the human…and
those frontal lobes are responsible for what we describe as
‘executive functioning’. Executive functions include
decision making based on the ability to anticipate future events
and external responses to our current behaviors. Thus, the modern
human does have a ‘set of brakes’, if you will,
on this behavioral equivalent of a runaway train. If this set
of brakes is present in the individual human, it is also available
to our species as a collective, given the principle of isomorphism.
Another of the slippery slopes you walk in this discussion is
your rather vague description of the human genotype, including
an absence of those pesky factoids which might actually help
support some of your basic underlying assertions. Thus, you
create an opaque, confusing quality about the issue at hand.
This is the same error made by some of those smug historians
you cite (also frequently found in the rhetoric of the man we
know as “W”), and this almost always results in
a furrow etched between my eyebrows. First of all, it appears
that the majority of human genotypes are heterozygous in nature,
meaning there is more than one possible expression or response
to any given genotype. And it should be noted that, in addition
to the genotype, an individual (or society’s) phenotype
is equally salient to this topic. Just as a genotype refers
to the actual genetic material underlying any given characteristic
(e.g. eye color), a phenotype refers to how the genetic material
is observably expressed. If we look at eye color as a characteristic,
it is well known that an individual can have a genotype consisting
of genes for both brown and blue eye color. This is known as
heterozygosity . . . the presence of varied genetic material
underlying any given characteristic. In this case, an individual
with both blue and brown genes most often presents with brown
eyes, as brown is the dominant gene; the actual observable eye
color is the phenotype. Therefore, the phenotype for any characteristic
is not necessarily the same as the genotype. However, in the
case of a blue eyed individual, it is likely that the phenotype
is the same as the genotype, as the gene for blue eye color
is recessive, and an individual must have both blue eye color
genes for that outward appearance.
Human behaviors may operate similarly, with both a ‘genotype’
and ‘phenotype’ to be considered. And we can use
the example of human sexual behavior to illustrate this possibility.
From Kinsey to Masters and Johnson, and through the more recent
researchers, it appears that humans can meet their sexual needs
through a number of orientations – bisexuality, heterosexuality
and homosexuality. However, it appears that the vast majority
of our species is actually bisexual in nature, meaning that
we are capable of experiencing sexual gratification with a variety
of partners. Nevertheless, it is likely (given current studies)
that a minority of humans are either exclusively homosexual
or exclusively heterosexual. Thus, many of us, if not all, have
a choice in our method of sexual expression, and this is ultimately
pragmatic. This ensures that we will not be deprived of that
strong reinforcing type of satisfaction, should our group of
companions change radically. The sexual attitudes of a society’s
majority are likely a simple reflection of what may be necessary
or helpful to ensure the species’ overall viability.
And
now, back to this most recent of your fishing trips, and that
attractive fly you attached to the hook at the end of your line.
Bait consisting of those easily digested historical ‘worms’
is much more palatable than the deadly fare found in a hook
full of warmongers. And who could blame you for the initial
disguise, given the current global polarization about the so-called
‘war on terrorism’. I must assume you wished to
lure a portion of your audience into the deeper debate…
those with a murky understanding of genetics causing them to
err, just as those historians erred in over-generalizing basic,
but complex constructs. Such individuals may mistakenly believe
that aggression is the inevitable result of some homozygous
genotype…a unidirectional, one-way-only response to threat.
I suspect this was your motive, as you do prod the reader with
a hope that we have the capacity to “learn”, to
refuse the pursuit of power through the venue of war. And you
quote Ortega y Gasset’s statement “… that
every life is a reaction to the basic insecurity of life”,
poetically echoing the current scientific research. Yes, humans
want to control their lives, to predict the future in pursuit
of such control, and that drive is part of our species’
viability. The better our predictions, both in terms of what
is satisfying as well as what is dangerous, the more likely
we can avoid early death, extinction.
But with this knowledge, we can also see the paradox of a response
such as the decision to go to war. Over the course of what we
know of human history, war has certainly been one human behavior
that walks the razor’s edge in terms of our species’
survival. On the one hand, it can threaten us with annihilation.
The threat of global human eradication posed by the nuclear
arms race in the last century terrified both the east and the
west during the Cold War, perhaps even to the point of causing
the collapse of the former Soviet Union. On the other hand,
war has been, in evolutionary terms, both a form of self-defense
and group preservation as well as population control. And, in
more recent times, it has served that latter function all too
well. Is war an evil necessary for our species to continue .
. . is it needed to cull out the excess population and its demand
on a finite set of resources? Perhaps not, as other more effective
behaviors have evolved during the lifespan of the human. But
a clearer understanding of the powerful, genetically driven
need to survive must really be gained in order to “refuse”
to opt for war. For example, is the world prepared to control
population through effective contraception methods? There are
no such laws in the United States, and the relatively recent
population explosion of the East – China and India in
particular, as well as some areas of South America – seem
to be laboring under such a question. Although China has actually
codified a policy on reproduction for several decades now –
the ‘one child only’ rule – it is clear that
this is often circumvented in a number of ways, although it
has helped to stabilize their population growth rate. Another
question of equal importance, especially in the industrialized
nations, is: Are we willing to surrender our luxurious, comfort
and gadget driven life styles for that of a simpler, more planet
friendly type? Is an easy, no-effort, no-pain existence equated
with safety and power over our environment in the shared psyche
of these nations? Do these societies suffer some collective
‘disconnect’, and ignore the threat of deforestation,
global warming, and famine resulting from this massive denial.
Evolutionary theory states unequivocally that humans are genetically
driven to reproduce, however, an equally important construct
in that theory is that we, as well as all species, must adapt
to our environment. Can our genetic codes sniff out the current
clues of impending disaster? Does humankind need to shift its
priorities from the seduction offered by consumerism and raw
power, to that of global cooperation and a more sophisticated
definition of true control? Can we counter the urge to reproduce
without constraint, so that, paradoxically, we will survive?
And if we do, will such a decision provide the necessary pressure
to prevent war? Excuse the mixed metaphor, but your fishing
expedition was not devised to catch some scaly but benign, water
bound creature, but, in truth, to lasso the unbridled warhorses
of St. John’s apocalyptic vision“. . . and behold
a pale horse, and his name . . . was death.”