Darwinism, Dominance, and Democracy: a Reaffirmation

Abstract

So that the reader can better adjudge possible disagreements, we would like to begin by stating, at the very outset, the thesis argued in our book, Darwinism, Dominance, and Democracy (Somit and Peterson, 1997). As Peter Corning correctly reports in his commentary (2000), we contend that “the most important reason for the rarity of democracy is that evolution has endowed our species, as it has other primates, with a predisposition for hierarchically structured social and political systems” (1997: 1). In short, we argue that Homo sapiens has a “genetic bias” toward authoritarian political societies characterized by hierarchy, dominance, and submission.

Accepting Authoritative Decisions: Humans as Wary Cooperators

“…5 5 A small sampling of the research utilizing this approach includes Axelrod (1984); Bowles and Gintis (2002); Cosmides and Tooby (1992); Dawkins (1976, 1982); Frank (1988); Massey (2002); Masters (1993); Nowak, Page, and Sigmund (2000); Ridley (1996); Somit and Peterson (1997, 1999); and Wiegele (1979); and Wright (1994). …”

What is biopolitics?

“…This includes social behavior -and human political behavior is one specific element in social behavior. Applying Darwinian theory through the specific theoretical perspective of sociobiology, many in biopolitics have explored the impact of inclusive fitness on human political behavior (for example, see Somit and Peterson, 1997).…”

“…Finally, Somit and Peterson (1997) offered a neo-Darwinian explanation for the rarity of democratic polities both historically and even today, during the so-called "Age of Democracy." The explanation is to be found in our species' evolutionary history.…”

Aristotle, Hobbes and Chimpanzees

“…Competition for resources is mitigated by the presence of a variety of submissive gestures consequent upon the recognition of dominance, where dominance can be defined (carefully) as the relationship between two members of the same species when there is a high probability that the dominant animal will have preferential access to a desired good (Kitcher, 1985, pp. 197–200; Somit and Peterson, 1997, ch. 5).…”