The False Narrative of Conflict

Evolving Into One

3.5 billion years ago life began to emerge on Earth. A single, lonely cell, the ancestor which we share with every other life form on the planet, began to diverge into unique individual species. At first, only a handful of fragile life forms existed, barely distinguishable from each other. Fast forward a few million years, and an incredible diversity of life emerged, enough to provide material for countless hours of David Attenborough documentaries. Many of the natural world’s wonders remain undiscovered today, at an age when we arrogantly think that we have seen it all and catalogued it all in our documentaries, encyclopedias, museums and genetic banks.

We think that we have understood Earth’s infinite diversity and complexity simply by merely recording, cataloguing and capturing everything in pixels, bytes and megabytes.  But we still have very little understanding of what an ecosystem is, and how it has come into existence.  Examining the individual parts of the system does very little in helping us understand how the sum of it all functions.

This is because as species diversified further, they began to form incredibly complex relationships with each other, and here is where the beautiful paradox emerged: the more they evolved away from each other, becoming birds, fish, terrestrial mammals and insects, the more they became one superorganism, consisting of intricate relationships between the species, vital to each other’s survival. The more they evolved, the more they became one. In a way they had remained functioning as that one, initial organism, even as they split into more and more individual, differentiated species.

Our traditional textbook representation of a phylogenetic tree of branches that lead nowhere misses out on this important concept of oneness, and unity. It fails to capture the interrelationship of species belonging to different branches of the tree, both within the physical environments they co-inhabit, as well as the gene sequences they share.  Evidence is increasingly mounting about the existence of lateral transfer of genes i.e. the exchange of genetic information between species located in distant, unrelated branches of the tree, something which until relatively recently was thought impossible. In other words, the branches do not always end up nowhere, as they do in a real tree. They sometimes reconnect to the roots of the genetic tree, and they can also link to each other, in strange and unexpected ways which we are only just beginning to uncover. 

This means that, aside from sharing distant ancestors, there is even more unity between organisms in Earth’s family tree than we had initially assumed.  All species are “different and same” at the same time, and undoubtedly connected and dependent on each other for their survival. 

But in our obsession to focus on the differences between species as we catalogued them through the ages, we had literally missed the forest for the trees: we had failed to pay attention to how these species are connected and related, and we began to study them as independent organisms living in isolation, as opposed to components within a much bigger, much more complex superorganism. It was like taking apart a car and studying a specific component, e.g. the wheel, without having any concept of where this wheel goes on the car, what its function is, and how it works together with the other car parts. The wheel by itself means absolutely nothing, has very little worth or significance, if it is not understood within the context of the ecosystem of other car parts it belongs to.

The superorganism is therefore not just a sum of the branches on the genetic tree, but also of all the interconnections and cooperations between the species, which include the important context of each organism: the specific role it is expected to play within the superorganism. This complex web of connections is the superorganism itself, a descenant of that one, monocellular life form which started it all. In a way, our common monocellular ancestor never really split into independent species. It simply became more complex. Yet this superorganism, which is by far the most important, the most complex of them all, is invisible to humans. We have yet to acknowledge and appreciate its existence, even though we, humans, are a part of it.

Unity Within The Chaos

The ecosystem can appear chaotic on the surface, but is at the same time incredibly simple and balanced in its operating principles. When studying either the ecosystem or the climate system, humans tend to focus on chaos and conflict, either between species or between weather elements.  This is because they are again making the mistake of thinking of species as independent and isolated. They see them as competitors, and overlook the overall harmony which keeps the superorganism alive.  They try to explain their observations of the ecosystem based on the principle of interspecies competition and conflict, rather than appreciating that these competing species also need each other. There is an overarching harmony and flat structure which presides over the entire ecosystem, yet humans have always been on a mission to understand nature through narratives of conflict: “who is on top” and “who is at the bottom” of the food chain.  We seem to only want to understand the ecosystem through a series of power struggles and bitter conflicts, as opposed to balanced relationships between natural rivals who share the various resources of the planet.  It is no wonder then that we have destroyed much of Earth’s ecosystem already, viewing our role as that of a warrior in a conflict where the only two options are to kill, or be killed.  We consider ourselves predators, when in fact every species within Earth’s ecosystem is both a predator and prey. The ultimate predator is Earth: it decides whether a species still has what it takes to remain on the planet.

Although species are indeed often engaged in brutal conflict as they antagonize each other, consume each other, or compete for the same habitat, they are all at the same time still part of the superorganism, which has remained in perfect health for countless millennia. Everyone has enough to eat in the end.  The truth is, there are no winners or losers, predator or prey, sentient or non-sentient life forms in the ecosystem. There is only balance and unity. We, the life forms of this planet, are all connected.  All we are is matter which travels from one being to the next.  Rather than celebrating the chemical links which connect humanity to other beings, humans have been poisoning the very circle which ultimately links back to them: by viewing our ecosystem through the “human supremacy lens” of conflict and competition, we have predisposed our own very toxic and aggressive relationship with the planet.  Our track record is one of destruction and extinction, because this is the natural role that we see for ourselves. Yet many still like to claim that we are benevolent custodians of this planet.

A Civilisation Built from Violence

In the name of humanity, and our belief in the narrative of conflict, we have committed unfathomable crimes. Extinction is not something you can repair or ever apologize for.   Extinction is a one-way permanent exile from a genetic pool which took 3.8 billion years to build.  The minute we make another organism extinct, we are forever cursed until the end of time. We have chased far too many precious species down this shameful path to oblivion, for far too long. They have done nothing to us to deserve this.  Rather than seeing other life forms as family members we depended upon, we treated them as either food or obstacles for elimination.  This conflict with the natural world is, and has always been, a manufactured narrative.  It is a figment of our imagination – yet one that has been vital in sustaining the expansion of our ecocidal civilisation through colonialism, capitalism and the patriarchical preachings of religion.

Our focus on conflict, rather than balance, was key to civilizational expansion, which needed narratives of conflict, violence and supremacy over other species in order to justify its growth. There is always more profit to be made from the weak, rather than those less desperate. Our psychomy is largely based on cannibalism towards the weaker humans, as well as life forms who are unable to defend themselves.  What we call civilization would collapse without its dark side: the exploitation, monetization, and weaponization of the misfortune of those with less mental and physical capital.

Throughout their history, empires relied on narratives of racial or species differences, supremacy and competition in order to grow and sustain themselves. Our political, social and religious institutions were founded upon these concepts, which they have used for the subjugation of other species and human races. Our popular culture today focuses on conflict and superiority of one species over another, as this is the narrative which serves the human supremacy dogma, and maintains humanity’s delusional ambitions on this planet.

The Corruption of Science

Our economic system has pushed this narrative of conflict and undoubtedly influenced how science works, reducing most scientists to butterfly collectors who study individual species in complete isolation – leaving the study of the most important aspect, the relationships between these species, to outsiders such as humanists, cosmologists, philosophers and off-beat ecologists.  Our academic obsession with cataloguing and recording other life forms is a very capitalistic and objectified view of Earth and its species, aiming ultimately at human ownership and domination, whatever the specific science angle may be.  Because of the commercial and human-centered angle of much of scientific research, the emphasis of our academic system has been not on understanding how we relate to all other beings on Earth, that is, where we actually fit within the superorganism, but how we can study these other species in order to exploit them. 

For humans, Earth is nothing but a huge supermarket. We are more interested in owning nature than understanding it. The beings, now converted into products and placed on the supermarket shelves, have no say on how much they are worth, and when they will expire. They have lost any sovereignty and any right to their own life.

In fact, scientists are not allowed to get too close to their subject matter.  There has to be zero emotion and zero connection.  This disconnection of the researcher is dressed up as “scientific objectivity”. We detach oursleves from the subject matter not because we want to be objective, but because we do not want to give it any rights of its own within the framework of the scientific study. The subject matter needs to become a passive, helpless “object”, so that we can do to it whatever we please.

This pretentious objectivity is of course, a disguised human supremacy narrative: the superior, intelligent human, is the only one who can objectively study the inferior, much less intelligent organism: not as a sovereign being with flesh, blood, emotions and sovereignty over its own body and soul, but as an object for personal use and abuse. This human supremacy narrative objectifies all organisms and does not even permit them to be “living”, let alone exist as biological entities. But they, just like us, are living beings, and they are extremely fragile. They need the right temperature, food, and water, at regular intervals.  They need comfort and affection, however low in the “pecking order” of intelligence we place them.

Differences Build Power Structures

By adhering to these false narratives of conflict and supremacy, we have been focusing on the differences between species, rather than the attributes they share, as we desperately tried to create artificial hierarchies within the ecosystem.  The butterfly collector pays more attention to how butterfly species differ, as opposed to the attributes they share. The more sizes and colors of butterflies there are, the more exciting the chase is. The butterfly collector however, learns very little about butterflies in this process, even as his collection of victims grows. During this “knowledge” chase, the butterfly collector ends up dumber and dumber, disconnected from the collective intelligence that he shares with his specimens, and which he will never quite grasp. He doesn’t understand that him and the butterfly are both pieces of the superorgranism. Every time he is stabbing the butterfly on his clipboard, he is stabbing himself.

Our economic system wants to turn us into blind, mindless butterfly collectors who simply want to own and consume, focusing on what makes species or humans different from each other, rather than on what brings them together.  Only if we start focusing away from differences and observing the commonalities between species and human races, can the false narrative of conflict upon which today’s civilization was built begin to collapse.

Our toxic system needs these artificial narratives to survive. Differences between people and beings help our system create power structures. Once these power structures are in place, they can be exploited. Morphological differences between species and between humans races help our system justify the creation of the biases and power structures it needs in order to spread its web of exploitation and destruction. These same differences have over millennia been the ideological powerhouses behind religious and political structures which, were nothing but the marketing departments of a capitalist system.  Racism is a prime example of how supremacy and conflict narratives were created and exploited, for purely economic reasons.

Conflict-Based Definitions of Intelligence

We tend to seek differences, hierarchies and narratives of conflict all the time, so that we can find ways to dominate either over other species, or within our own.  In our desperate quest for differences we can exploit, we have spent thousands of years asking ourselves whether the dolphin is smarter than the octopus, or if white people are smarter than black people.  An intelligent species to us is one that is “problem-solving” in human terms, like a chimp able to ask for more bananas by pressing a button, or an octopus able to get itself out of a trap. It is a definition of intelligence that again is based on conflict and competition, and judged on purely human criteria important to our species and our species alone. We tend to consider a species “intelligent” based on whether it can get itself out of a mess, or how effective it is in killing all the other species in order to dominate, but these are human criteria of intelligence, based on our false narrative of conflict and competition. We judge intelligence by human colonialist and supremacist standards, although, ironically, we ourselves are clearly failing to tick the box “getting out of a mess” in the way by which we have failed to deal with the climate emergency. 

The War That Never Was

Our current existential crisis is nothing but the false narrative of conflict coming back to haunt us.  We viewed Earth and its species as our enemy for thousands of years, and we have managed to turn it into one.  We have started a war where there never was one, ultimately a war with ourselves.  What lies at the origin of the climate crisis and ecological overshoot is the false core belief that anything natural outside of the artificial human civilisation is raw, inferior and inherently hostile to us. Perhaps the most shameful of all of our manufactured narratives was the idea that nature was the one who started the war. Nature was the “unruly” one, who needed to be tamed.  Whether it was a thousand year-old tree cut down or an indigenous tribe exterminated, it was all done under the same principle: they deserved it, because they are “lesser” and “different” life forms. They were not high enough in the hierarchy.
But the false narrative of “advanced civilization vs wilderness” has collapsed. Man was all along the wilderness to be tamed, and nature was the only balanced, sustainable and civilized system that ever existed, uniting all species in harmony and allowing none to dominate over others.  Nature was never “out to get us”.

Biochauvinism, racism, slavery and colonialism may have set the foundations for today’s global economic system, but arguably nothing much has really changed since then.  People of color still struggle more than whites for opportunities and economic prosperity. Ball and chain have been replaced by debt slavery across the population, regardless of race. We are all slaves, pinned down like butterflies and compared to each other in an increasingly scrutinizing manner.  The system is creating ever more narratives of conflict which it desperately needs to feed upon, if it is to continue. 

Yet in principle we are all equal, vital components of the superorganism.  All of Earth’s 8 million life forms came into existence in the same exact way: out of the dark murk, the silent mud, the restless, nourishing molecular soup that made us all. The soup is now being poisoned by the one species who has forgotten what it is, and where it came from.  Only if we demolish the toxic narratives of supremacy, conflict, growth and progress on which we have built this flimsy house of cards, can we develop new narratives upon which a completely new, multi-species social organization can arise.  If we ever manage to accept and live by the principle that we are only a fragment of the living ecosystem, it would be the humblest yet greatest discovery of mankind. And a game changer in turning around the extinctional spiral we are in.

George is an author, researcher, chemist, molecular biologist and food scientist. You can follow him on Twitter @99blackbaloons or enjoy his books