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Many scientists don’t acknowledge the extent to which their disciplinary paradigms are influenced by the cultural frames of the colonial era. The so-called mental health crisis is a symptom of a terminally diseased institutional landscape. Neurodiversity and disability activists have been collaborating on coherent theories of human ways of being. Collaborative niche construction is the evolutionary process of reducing cognitive dissonance.

Completely normal ways of feeling unwell and distressed

The many ways in which atomised nuclear families depend on abstract institutions is considered normal, and all those who depend on assistance from others in unusual ways are pathologised.

The following interview with Eva Henje conducted by our friends at Local Futures outlines the alienating and dehumanising social experiences created by the global mono-cult that defines the institutional landscape that surrounds us:

Social power can be understood as the privilege of not needing to learn.

As we live through the current human predicament we are well advised to understand capitalism as a collective learning disability that actively contributes to human and non-human suffering. Michael Guilding offers a coherent and comprehensive explanation of how modern society and all earlier powered-up empires are based on the systematic hijacking of the evolved human fear response.

Michael Guilding’s explanation also reminds me of what a capitalist/investor once explained to me as “normal” or “human nature”, i.e. that people are driven exclusively by two forces: fear and greed. I suspect that this sad attitude is quite common amongst those who have navigated themselves into positions of social power within the mono-cult.

Traumatised populations driven by fear and greed are the culmination of the industrial factory model of society. This is a world of programmable “human biological machines” – the ultimate negation of the wonder of life.

Internalised ableism in the science of biology

The normalisation of internalised ableism runs deep.

Even well known biologists perpetuate the unhelpful industrialised metaphor of “human biological machines”, confusing first-order effects (the innate human inclination towards mutual aid and collaborative niche construction) with second-order effects (culturally transmitted “normalisation” of social power gradients), which are only present in dehumanising societies that are deeply troubled and sick.

In species with complex cultures, including whales, elephants, and humans, the naive distinction between two evolutionary survival strategies summarised below highlights the limitations of the paradigm used by some biologists and ecologists:

r-selection: On one extreme are the species that are highly r-selected. r is for reproduction. Such a species puts only a small investment of resources into each offspring, but produces many such low effort babies. Such species are also generally not very invested in protecting or rearing these young. Often, the eggs are fertilized and then dispersed. The benefit of this strategy is that if resources are limited or unpredictable, you can still produce some young. However, each of these young has a high probability of mortality, and does not benefit from the protection or nurturing of a caring parent or parents. r-selected babies grow rapidly, and tend to be found in less competitive, low quality environments. Although not always the case, r-selection is more common among smaller animals with shorter lifespans and, frequently, non-overlapping generations, such as fish or insects. The young tend to be precocial (rapidly maturing) and develop early independence.

K-selection: On the other extreme are species that are highly K-selected. K refers to the carrying capacity, and means that the babies are entering a competitive world, in a population at or near its carrying capacity. K-selected reproductive strategies tend towards heavy investment in each offspring, are more common in long-lived organisms, with a longer period of maturation to adulthood, heavy parental care and nurturing, often a period of teaching the young, and with fierce protection of the babies by the parents. K-selected species produce offspring that each have a higher probability of survival to maturity. Although not always the case, K-selection is more common in larger animals, like whales or elephants, with longer lifespans and overlapping generations. The young tend to be altricial (immature, requiring extensive care).

It is fascinating that the above definition refers to whales and elephants as examples of ‘K-selection’ without mentioning that these two species, not unlike humans, have an advanced capacity for culture, including the capacity for transmitting cultural norms across generations. The assertion that in such species “babies are entering a competitive world” is a projection of Western Educated Industrialised Rich Democratic (WEIRD) cultural bias onto other species. To date no one has been able to ask whales or elephants about whether they experience the world as competitive or collaborative, and even much less so to receive an answer to this question!

Only culturally well adjusted people in hierarchically structured empires understand the entire living world as inherently and primarily competitive.

Around the margins of empires, we find no shortage of examples of egalitarian collaborative cultural environments, even though in our current time, the majority of humans do find themselves trapped in a social landscape of powered-up institutions.

Many scientists don’t acknowledge the extent to which their disciplinary paradigms are influenced by the cultural frames of the colonial era. The so-called mental health crisis is a symptom of a terminally diseased institutional landscape. Vandana Shiva correctly identifies capitalist patriarchy as the cultural disease that is framing the entire living world as inherently and primarily competitive.

Reframing life in terms of collaborative niche construction

In order to appreciate the significant role that culture can play as part of evolutionary processes of gene-culture co-evolution, and to arrive at a deeper understanding of evolutionary processes, we must replace the misguided notion of K-selection.

At the very least, a less culturally biased and more nuanced understanding needs to distinguish between:

c-selection: On the one extreme are species with a capacity for culture that are highly c-selected. c is for compliance. Such a species puts only a small if any investment of resources into the development of new cultural knowledge and wisdom, and instead prioritises the production of adults that are well adjusted to the established culture. Such species are generally not very invested in protecting or rearing babies that do not seem to fit into the established cultural milieu. Often, the young are indoctrinated and expected to fend for themselves within a framework of abstract cultural institutions. The benefit of this strategy is that the emotional load of caregivers is significantly reduced, and everyone is encouraged to still produce some young, even if ecological conditions are deteriorating. However, each of these young has a high probability of mental unwellness and mortality, and does not benefit from the protection or nurturing of a caring parent or parents. Offspring in c-selected cultural species grow into replaceable, culturally well adjusted members of society, and tend to be found in ecologically degraded environments. Although not always the case, c-selection is more common in large scale societies, such as modern industrialised societies. The young are expected to become fully independent individual members of society.

C-selection: On the other extreme are species with a capacity for culture that are highly C-selected. C refers to Culturally adaptive, and means that the babies are entering a culturally diverse world, in a population at or near its local carrying capacity. C-selected reproductive strategies tend towards heavy investment in very few offspring, and tend welcome the discovery of new cultural knowledge and wisdom. Such species are generally invested in protecting or rearing all babies, even those that do not seem to fit into the established cultural milieu. C-selected cultural species encourage offspring to learn from the established cultural milieu, but even more so, from the ecological environment, and as a result have a higher probability of survival to maturity in times of rapid ecological changes. Although not always the case, C-selection is more common in small scale societies, like whales or human hunter gatherers. The curiosity of the young is nurtured in a diverse relational ecology of care, and the young are encouraged to engage in collaborative niche construction.

A framing of evolutionary processes that includes r-selection, c-selection, as well as C-selection strategies offers a more coherent explanation for the observed diversity within and between cultural species. The proposed ‘rcC-selection paradigm’ for evolutionary processes also encourages biological scientists to acknowledge that a purely biological and genetic categorisation of species demotes all the social sciences and all so-called non-scientific ways of relating to the world to being less “significant” for understanding the living world.

The naive ‘rK-selection paradigm’ obscures a [hypernormative] cultural bias against biological diversity, and especially against human cultural diversity. In the talk referenced above, Vandana Shiva reaches the same conclusion. She points out that the life denying ideology of capitalist patriarchy can be traced back to Francis Bacon, the father of Western science, to the British men who formed the East India Company, and to Adam Smith and Thomas Malthus, and that this shaped the cultural milieu in which Charles Darwin grew up.

In species with a capacity for complex culture, ecologically stable environments with abundant sources of food can incrementally tip the balance towards c-selection over the course of multiple generations. But this strategy only works as long as the environment remains stable. c-selection can fail rapidly and abruptly if the environment becomes less predictable. Conversely, highly dynamic and unpredictable environments are favourable to C-selection strategies.

The human capacity for language and cultural transmission over many generations, together with what we know from archaeological and anthropological research, as well as from more recent written historic accounts, tells us that human societies exist on a spectrum of C-selection and c-selection strategies.

C-selection strategies, i.e. adaptive cultures, have allowed humans to survive through ice ages, and may be the key factor that has assisted humans in displacing other primates in most bioregional ecosystems. Conversely, the ability to adopt c-selection strategies, i.e. hypernormative cultures, have enabled humans to build empires and large scale societies in which human cognitive capacity is diverted away from communal survival, and towards exploitation of abundant resources and social competition.

The rich diversity of small scale cultures, including the visual symbolic representations and cultural values that survived and thrived in the Australian continent for 65,000 years, points us towards the collective creative human potential and towards the deep ecological understanding that has been systematically obliterated and suppressed by capitalist patriarchy.

The big cycle of life

In a dynamic ecological context, enduring relationships of mutual trust are not only more stable than abstract indicators of social status, they also constitute the ingredients of a life affirming ecology of care that is integrated into the regenerative cyclical flow of life.

Mutual trust is the priceless currency of living systems.

The sacred cycle of life includes the joy of birth, the art of living well, and the process of dying and nurturing the living planet in good company.

In contrast to the global mono-cult of capitalist patriarchy, this timeless wisdom is well understood within the Hindu, Buddhist, and Daoist philosophical and spiritual traditions. Hindu cosmology for example conceptualises the entire cosmos and all of human history terms of cyclic ages, i.e. in terms of four ‘Yuga Cycles’, which is in stark contrast to the anthropocentric WEIRD conception of human history as a linear arc of progress, perhaps punctuated by a few setbacks along the way, to accentuate the framing of life as a competitive struggle.

The framing of life in terms of collaborative niche construction is much more compatible with Eastern traditions,

with Joseph Tainter’s pioneering analysis of patterns of civilisational collapse, and with indigenous cultures, which all understand the planet as a regenerative system of relationships between living entities.

All cultural species that maintain dominance hierarchies and abstract forms of social status are diverting energy from the regenerative cyclical flow of life towards head-to-head in-group competition and the suppression of diversity.

The dying process of terminally diseased institutions is only a perceived disaster from the viewpoint of elites who are addicted to social power, and from the viewpoint of the abstract institutions that represent these elites.

Omni-directional sensing and learning

“Collapse” of spurious cultural complexity is a liberating experience for most.

Over the course of the last 25 years, as part of a concerted effort of exposing the internalised ableism that is keeping entire societies locked into suicidal paradigmatic inertia, neurodiversity and disability activists have been collaborating on coherent theories of human ways of being. Cultures in which it is a taboo to draw attention to culturally prescribed cognitive dissonance are life denying cultures. Deeply troubled cultures.

Most people in Westernised cultures are not driven by greed, but the toxic cultural environment ensures that the vast majority is driven by fear. Those who find the courage to acknowledge their fears are tortured by cognitive dissonance.

Lived experiences from our participatory research:

What is the biggest source of cognitive dissonance in your life?

I feel like I don’t deserve to be treated in the way in which I’d treat other people. I often help strangers but would feel distressed if one offered to help me (and would politely turn down the offer of help, most likely). I would be unable to fire someone due to economic reasons, but if I was fired for those same reasons, I’d accept it and would feel sad and scared, but that it’s okay for me to be treated that way. Even when I do help people, I worry that I do it for the “wrong” reasons, so I didn’t know how to answer some questions. For example, I give money to homeless people and chat with them. I “feel really good” about this because I know that the money means they might be able to afford something they need, and that being spoken to is likely at least a bit humanising in a world which dehumanises them. Despite this, when I give money and chat to homeless people, I beat myself up after and tell myself that I’m only doing it because I’m virtue signalling or want to feel good about myself, even if I know deep down I do it because I want to be helpful and want people to be safe and feel cared for. Even if I did do it to feel good about myself, then at least that person would have some money they probably need. It’s hard to remember that, though. Even writing this is uncomfortable, as my negative self talk says that I’m only writing it to parade how “good” I think I am.

Wealth inequality and class differences that have no logical justification, having to accept that poor people suffering is normal even when it’s entirely avoidable.

Society expects that I should be able to ask for help whenever things get a little difficult but asking for help leaves me feeling very very unsafe and likely to be betrayed and have my request used against me as a weakness.

In healthy cultures our capacity to detect cognitive dissonance catalyses collaborative niche construction, and contributes to the co-creation of ecologies of care.

Collaborative niche construction is the evolutionary process of reducing cognitive dissonance, a process of omni-directional sensing and learning, which can only emerge in an adequately de-powered, non-overwhelming, and life affirming, i.e. holotropic and syntropic environment.

In recent years I have become increasingly intrigued by ai (shorthand for ant intelligence) as opposed to the hype of AI. ai is an awesome form of externalised collective intelligence beyond human comprehension. Some ant species can leave pheromone trails that can last for days – which I can confirm from personal experience, while others produce a pheromone trail that only lasts 10 minutes. Unintentional experiments from my kitchen reveal that once an ant has located a food source, that it only takes a few hours for a fully functional ai food logistics system to become established. On this planet ai goes a long way to ensuring that no food goes to waste. We could learn from that.

It is worthwhile listening to Bayo Akomolafe. I think he seriously underestimates ai, but he does a wonderful job of making Autistic ways of being and relating accessible to a neuronormative audience.

Taking stock

This year (2024), August 1st was Earth Overshoot Day, announced by the Global Footprint Network.

This is the date when humanity’s demand on natural resources exceeds Earth’s capacity to regenerate them in a given year. We are currently using nature 1.7 times faster than our planet’s ecosystems can regenerate. The Ecological Footprint Calculator is a useful tool for exploring our own ecological footprint and the huge disparities between the huge footprints of elites and the vastly smaller footprints of the majority of humans.

Daoist philosophers have warned humans for over 2,500 years that all forms of social power over others corrupts. Ignoring this warning has led to the current human predicament.

Rather than playing around with yet another “better” configuration of powered-up institutions, perhaps we are better served by practicing de-powered dialogue, and by learning how to de-power all our relationships – without asking any so-called authority for permission. The revolution will not be nudged!

Towards ecological wellbeing

Becoming conscious of human cognitive and emotional limits, and recognising that these limits are just as real, immutable, and relevant for our survival as the laws of physics may help us to fully appreciate the wonder of life.

Creating light, where all you could see is darkness.

– Sofía Gómez Uribe

There is no shortage of human scale initiatives that re-conceptualise human societies in comprehensible, compassionate, and life affirming ways. Collectively we can tap into a wealth of knowledge and timeless indigenous wisdom.

We need commitment, we need community. We need to create spaces of trust. But for that, there’s tremendous work that we need to be doing. But I don’t think that any of that work will be possible, should we not have that commitment–that commitment that no matter how challenging and tremendously difficult it will be to reckon with these narratives and to dismantle these narratives. Because seeing the horror in the eye of all these narratives that we live by comes with tremendous understanding. It will leave us very fragile, very vulnerable, and most, of course, are not willing to do that, because we don’t feel safe. But if we are able to stand the heat and create these spaces, if we commit to do this kind of work for the benefit of the planet, then we may be able to learn that we can fly.

– Yuria Celidwen

… and you can only do it with the help of friends who keep you safe. I don’t have a death wish, I have a depth wish.

– Stig Pryds

We are currently co-creating a comprehensive support model for Autists and otherwise neurodivergent and intersectionally marginalised people that is grounded in our collective lived experience, informed by what we are learning from the results of our ongoing participatory research.