Big Question Explained: Why are we social animals?

Written by Grace Sheng | 5min read

Forewords

Who am I?

What makes me unique?

Where do I belong?

...

Searching for self is a lifelong proposition, and its answer is constantly refreshed in the process of growth. We may experience confusion and stagnation on the road to self-understanding, and we may overturn our previous judgments and opinions many times. This journey may not be smooth, but it doesn't matter at all. Lycuem Academy's "Knowing Yourself" blog series want to discuss the proposition of self-construction with everyone, discover the uniqueness of each person's personality and experience, and embrace every precious life experience.

"Man is by nature a social animal."

— Aristotle

Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle believed that man is essentially a social animal. Looking back on human history, we have indeed lived and reproduced in a group mode. This is a constant in historical changes and an indelible mark engraved on each of us. As the first issue of this series of blogs, we will look back from a historical perspective and decode the presentation of human beings' innate social attributes at different stages.

This article will refer to the content of the book "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" to present different aspects of human social life.

Cognitive Revolution

Before the cognitive revolution, humans were no different from other creatures on Earth. Homo sapiens was just a creature with a middle status in the food chain of the Sahara Desert. However, since our ancestors, Australopithecus, were social animals, this collective living mode was also adopted by the evolved Homo sapiens.

The cognitive revolution occurred about 70,000 years ago. It was from this time that humans became different from other creatures on Earth, and human history began. Language emerged. Many creatures on Earth have language, but the difference between Homo sapiens language and theirs is not only that our symbol system is more complete and can convey more meanings, but also that Homo sapiens can use language to gossip and describe imagination. The language of other creatures is intended to convey information about the external living environment, such as information about other hunters. But the language of Homo sapiens can judge other members of the group, or in modern language, gossip about other Homo sapiens. This ability is a very important part of collective life. The thinking mode of Homo sapiens also enables us to accept the existence of some invisible and intangible things in reality, such as gods and other religions and totems. These beliefs and concepts further strengthened the social attributes of human beings in spirit. It is precisely these consensuses about imaginary things that allow two Homo sapiens who had never met to cooperate with each other.

Agricultural Revolution

The Agricultural Revolution occurred about 12,000 years ago. Human beings ended their hunting and gathering lifestyle and turned to the development of planting and animal husbandry.

The three main impacts of the Agricultural Revolution were planting crops, domesticating animals, and starting to live in a settled mode. Central Americans domesticated corn and beans, Middle Easterners domesticated wheat and peas, South Americans domesticated potatoes and llamas, North Americans domesticated pumpkins, West Africans domesticated millet and sorghum, and so on. In order to engage in planting and animal husbandry, humans began to live in settlements and bid farewell to the freedom of the previous lifestyle of constantly moving to new places. Tribes gradually settled down and engaged in repetitive production activities. The division of labor within the collective was more detailed and fixed than the hunting life during the cognitive revolution. As humans settled, different collectives began to distinguish between regions, and members within the collective also increasingly held more similar and unified behavior patterns and religious beliefs. Trade between different groups also began to take shape, in the form of exchanging goods.

Integration and Unification

The large-scale integration and unification of mankind refers to the formation of culture. With culture, people think in a specific way, act according to specific standards, want specific things, and abide by specific norms. Such a system is followed by many people and becomes a man-made intuition. The formation of culture comes from the emergence of regional concepts, which is largely driven by the concept of the country. The earliest country is actually a large tribe formed by the alliance of many tribes, but in order to better rule so many tribes, a complex organizational form has evolved within the alliance. This organizational form is built by human imagination, such as the selection of leadership, the promulgation of legal provisions, the establishment of religious beliefs, etc.

At this stage, the communication between different cultures has become closer than ever before, and the scope of communication has become wider. The emergence of merchants, conquerors, and prophets of various religions has caused this change. Merchants hope that their goods can be traded freely in all corners of the world; conquerors hope that everyone in the world can belong to them; prophets of various religions hope that there is only one truth in the world. They greatly promoted the integration of human beings, and we can see this tendency from the diet. Mexican peppers spread to India, Central American potatoes spread to Poland, Spanish cattle spread to Argentina, and so on.

Scientific Revolution

The Scientific Revolution occurred about 500 years ago, marking a leap in human understanding of the objective world and bringing a new social model through technological progress. The knowledge system before the Scientific Revolution always had a strong connection with religion. For example, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, etc. all assumed that all important knowledge in the world was mastered by one person or one god, and they passed this knowledge to future generations through scriptures or oral transmission. After the Scientific Revolution, people began to admit that there were some things that the entire knowledge system was ignorant of. The recognition of matter promoted the development of science.

One result was the rise of economics. As a social science that studies resource allocation, economics studies the relationship between people. The rise of this discipline made consumption and trade more objective, and further promoted the development of business, giving rise to the group of consumer masses. This is also a new model of collective construction. In addition to the consumer masses, another emerging imaginary community is the nation. The concept of the state has become more profound after the large-scale integration and unification of mankind, and the concept of the nation has come into being.

In the Future

How will humans live in the future? What kind of order will our imagination help us build?

The answers to these questions are difficult to predict, but what can be confirmed is that the Homo sapiens who began to rule the earth 70,000 years ago will continue to live in a collective form. Collective life is human instinct and the only choice.