Some people argue that our violent human history is actually the outworking of evolution and natural selection, with the “apex predator” perched atop the less-successful predators and prey, each in its place in the ladder of power, the bullies above and their victims down below. This, they claim, is “survival of the fittest,” being played out before our eyes and is the natural hierarchy we should acknowledge and accept.
The claim is utter nonsense.
In a lifeboat large enough for everyone, throwing others overboard and hoarding provisions does not prove your worthiness to be captain. It shows you should be in restraints.
Those who strive to ensure that care is provided beneficially to all, from the work of all, regardless of anything else—these people are more truly “fit” to survive than the predatory bullies.
The fittest ones are the neighbors who care for others just as they themselves desire to be cared for: in food, clothing, housing, healthcare, education and safety, and in the thriving community that results from that mutual care. Common needs outrank any imagined right to the diversion and hoarding of wealth.
Bullies may rise to power, but they are never safe. Sooner or later, a stronger or more ruthless bully comes along to challenge and replace them. That isn’t strength, and it isn’t lasting survival—it’s a brutal cycle of domination and collapse.
Instead, we finally and fully realize that those who strive to ensure mutual care for all thereby ensure care for themselves and their descendants. This is what evolution should become: a cooperative future we build together. It is imperative that we do this, and we can. Charles Darwin himself hinted at this when he wrote:
If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin. (Voyage of the Beagle, Chapter XXI)
We must resolve to no longer let bullies lead our institutions or countries. We must stop submitting to, tolerating, honoring and celebrating them in history—and in our own society now, today. And we must not let ourselves be fooled again by their self-promotion, name-calling, threats, or the self-serving narrative of “apex predator” and evolution.
Even Darwin saw this. They are not the pinnacle of evolution.
Today, after countless millennia of bullies and their destructions, we finally can grasp that those who take cooperative action, who strive for mutual care, are the fittest. We must choose to be those who strive, and who nurture others to this goal.
We can do this by the doing of unbridled care for each other, and for our children: We will teach it by doing it.
Those who care for each other will create the future. It is the most intelligent way forward. It exceeds and surpasses the predator.
The imperative of mutual care will ensure human survival, with abundance and thriving for all. It is the wisest way forward. It is right. And it must begin with us.