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The Parable of the Tribes: The Problem of Power in Social Evolution

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If I were to list the top ten books of the century, this book would be one of them. Why? Because it dares to answer a question that few others have attempted, a question that is fundamental and vital to our future. It is the question: "What determines the direction in which civilization evolves?" Or, "What explains the overall thrust of history?" Or, "Are we shaping our own destiny, and if not, what is?" Not only does Schmookler dare to address the question, but the answer he comes up with is equal to the dimensions of the task.

If you think that the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is adequate for explaining the history of civilization, this book is not for you. If you think that everything is made crystal clear by the Marxian analysis of the "material conditions" of life, this book is not for you. If you believe that spirit-beings elsewhere in the universe are guiding us toward some wonderful end, this book is not for you. But if you think big, and are ready for a magnificent, breathtaking, and sobering view of humanity's course, based on best-science research into prehistory and panoramic interdisciplinary insights, you will come to cherish this book. I, for one, am glad that it has a poetic title, The Parable of the Tribes, and not just an academic title such as its subtitle, The Problem of Power in Social Evolution, because the sweep of the book includes but encompasses more than straight intellectual analysis. It tells the human story, our story, with all the poignant, tragic, and hopeful implications.

The stroke of genius that powers this book is Schmookler's insight into the broader applicability of Darwin's categories of "diversity" and "selection." In effect, Schmookler has shown that these are categories from the discipline of logic. Darwin's genius was to take these purely logical categories and show how they could be applied to, and did apply to, the natural world, resulting in biological evolution. Schmookler's genius is to free these categories from their usual ties with biology, and to show us how they have operated in human history as the fundamental underlying forces shaping our destiny, for good or ill.

Just one of the many themes in this book is that there is a commonsense view that human creativity is what accounts for the diversity in variations of forms of civilization, and that human choice accounts for which of these variations get selected. Hence the idea of simple progress. But we live in a disenchanted era that knows better. Schmookler reminds us that "For a story of improvement, the history of civilization makes rather dismal reading, and as the culmination of ten thousand years of progress the twentieth century is deeply disappointing." (p. 7) Similarly, the "invisible hand" of the free market, where human choice is supposed to reign sovereign, has led to only pockets of prosperity in the world (granted that some are big pockets), and even that prosperity is itself rent with stress. What is it that is systematically distorting our cultures, our civilizations, in directions that we are not deliberately choosing? If we don't gain comprehension of it, how can we ever alter it toward selection of more humane, more intelligent, more loving, more fun variations?

The "parable" is that once some human tribe becomes habitually aggressive toward other tribes, all others are eventually forced to adopt the "ways of power." "Eventually" can mean a long time, but the systematic distortion is there. The ways of power seep into every aspect of human life, from relations between men and women to harsh upbringing of children to weapons development to forms of economic exchange. It is part of the wondrousness of this book to make your way through section after section, discovering how yet another broad area of human life is illuminated by the quiet or not-so-quiet struggle for power.

In the end, it is a noble vision that is offered by The Parable of the Tribes. It simultaneously engenders compassion for the human race (trapped in the struggle for power), and clears away the confusion and the obfuscation that is part of the problem. The ability to see the human race in its last ten-thousand-year development has only recently become possible, and Schmookler has made it actual. His book gives me hope that we humans can understand our own long history and begin to shape our own destiny for good.

This is tough reading, in part because the publisher's choice of paper and font are not the best. As one who has previously recommended such books as Lionel Tiger's "The Manufacture of Evil: Ethics, Evolution, and the Industrial System", Norman Cousins "The Pathology of Power", and many other books on the pathologies of treating man as a "good", of scientific objectivity as "value neutral" and therefore bad, of secrecy as counter-productive to "precautionary principle" decision-making, I immediately recognized this book as an integrative work, possibly supplanting all those other books by bringing the various arguments together in one place.

This is indeed a brilliant product by a towering intellect, and it has the bibliography and index that one would expect from a world-class endeavor. I recommend it together with Philip Alott's "The Health of Nations: Society and Law beyond the State", Stewart Brand's "Clock of the Long Now", and John Lewis Gaddis "The Landscape of History".

The author's bottom line: not only must we come to grips with how power is managed in every nation and organization, but also we must manage at the *global* level if we are to succeed in optimizing fulfillment at the *individual* level.

Imagine a group of tribes living within reach of one another. If all choose the way of peace, then all may live in peace. But what if all but one chooses peace?

So begins this paradigm-bending book, an elegant theory of social evolution, as well as a brilliant prescription for modern peacemakers. Schmookler not only accounts for the origins of the ancient cycle of human violence, he provides a path from domination, competition, and unilateral decision-making to partnership, cooperation, and multilateralism. As Schmookler guides the reader through possible answers to the parable, it becomes clear that, when faced with violence, whether one chooses to fight back, surrender, or run away, each "solution" tends to spread the power dynamics of violence through the system. Even the most peaceful culture, when forced to defend itself, must shift to that degree of militarism deemed necessary for survival.

The liberating message for peacemakers is that violence is neither a hard-wired aspect of human nature nor God the Father's indelible curse on humankind; rather, violence arose as a regrettable solution to human conflicts and has since spread from person to person and culture and culture like a social virus, or meme. By focusing on what Schmookler calls "the problem of power in social evolution," we can chart a new course through personal and political conflicts and find lasting, nonviolent answers to the parable's dilemma. A vital book in the peacemaker's library.

I will keep this very short since this is a something that truly speaks for itself. In the past two years I have read around 50 books pertaining to a variety of topics. This book, The Parable of the Tribes, was by far the most interesting book I think I may have ever read. It brings to light so many answers to questions that any normal inquisitive human being has pondered over once or twice in his or her life. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in society, civilization, evolution, economics, philosophy, phychology, and sociology. I am eagerly looking forward to reading the two other books he wrote after this one.

THE PARABLE OF THE TRIBES is an awesome achievement that will completely restore your faith in human nature. The book presents a stunning theory of social evolution every bit as revolutionary as Einsteins theory of general relativity or Darwins theory of natural selection. Like those two previous theories, the PARABLE represents a paradigm-shift in thinking. (My jaw hung open the whole time I was reading.) The book provides a path beyond guilt, shame, and hostility toward love, compassion, and wholeness within the human condition. Ranging over the subjects of psychology, anthropology, religion, and sociology, the books implications could not be more sweeping and profound. It presents a breathtaking critique of civilization that shows us how humankind is more the victim and less the instigator of historys violence and oppression. It disproves the erroneous commonsense view that civilization is merely human nature and human choice writ large. It leads us to understand fully our predicament so that we might solve our problems intelligently. For a couple million years, humanity lived within a fairly circumscribed biological niche. Culture evolved slowly and was in step with biological evolution. Suddenly with the agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago, social evolution began to outstrip biological evolution. In an unprecedented way, our genetic inheritance came to be out of joint with our environment. Schmooklers book shows that with the advent of large-scale agriculture, suddenly anarchy came to characterize the inter-societal system. Societies began to compete using the vast new possibilities offered by civilization. A process of selection began, continuing to this day, which favored the ways of power--a process that is utterly indifferent to natural human needs. Ways of being that had been inherently more humane and more sustainable were slowly but surely swept away in favor of cultures and societies wielding ever greater power. Schmookler reveals how Power is a contagion that leaves destruction, despoliation, and misery in its wake. The book also presents possible solutions to this problem of power. The PARABLE will definitely be one of the greatest, most liberating books you'll ever read.

This book proposes a novel systemic hypothesis about human behavior that on its face seemed like a synthetic exercise: that our political systems have evolved according to the systemic rule of "power maximization."

It sets forth a novel conundrum that is anything but synthetic and that proves the author's point in a rather profound way. The conundrum is called the "Parable of the Tribes." Simply stated, the parable exhausts all the possible outcomes in a competition between a number of "non-power maximizers" and a single determined "power maximizer." The result is that in order to survive, the "non-power-maximizer" has no choice but to become a power-maximizer himself; that is to say, he must also adopt "the ways of power" whether he wants to do so or not. And in doing so, the circle of power is continued and the "ways of power" are extended.

According to the author's theory, it is selective biological and environmental pressures that have been responsible for the evolution of our human political systems into power-maximizing forms. However, in a world, where recently, there were two power-maximizers, each with enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world several times over, the dilemma of those facing a determined power-maximizer became more than just an abstract theoretical notion. It became a very real global existential trap indeed, escape from which required equally novel solutions.

As an Analyst for the U.S. Arms Control & Disarmament Agency (ACDA), I am proud to admit that we actually took Professor Smookler's theories literally in search of a way to deal with the very real problem of the threats that USSR nuclear arsenal posed.

Suffice it to say that most of the analysis involved expanded version of the classic "Prisoner's Dilemma" game theoretic schemata, and in particular, the Meta-game tableau, which expanded it, as formulated by Professor Nigel Howard. As well, we used some of the very excellent Game Theory work developed by Professor John Nash, whose life became a popular movie biopic.

The upshot of our analysis was that escapes from both the "Prisoner's dilemma" and the "Parable of the Tribes" could be found provided the "decision surfaces" were expanded to take into account new "meta- possibilities." In some ways, our proposed solutions were similar to the solutions Professor Smookler's oproposed in his subsequent work.

In any case, the book shows how serious theorizing can be put to good use in dealing with actual "real world" problems in our complex times. Since it was published, this has been one of my favorite and most cherished books.

Ten Stars.

Parable of the Tribes

Gripping in its fascinating subject matter, Andrew Bard Schmookler's The Parable of the Tribes flows with the elegance of language rarely seen in writing today. This important work highlights the essence of human existence, that which makes the complicated and messy business of civilization work: Power. The evolution of biological systems discounts the idea that organisms are slowly giving way to more perfect descendents, and the same holds true for civilization. Civilization doesn't get "better," it gets "different" depending on the interface between power and the environment. Like the blood coursing through our bodies, power flows through each and every one of us, an invisible force between minds and souls. Tapped into this power, each man, woman and child since the beginning of human existence has contributed its share to the super-organism called civilization. Power drives the vast majority of our individual decision-making process. Individual freedom in the true sense of the concept never existed in the first place. We, it turns out, are less in control of our destinies than once thought. It is the constantly changing invisible nexus of power that determines how, when and why we respond the way we do to the world around us. It is important to know that power is a child of the merging of many intellects, and not some brutish club wielded against the weak, as is so often described in texts on politics and war. It is a unified human force that can be described on a relative scale of both good and bad, with shades in between. I can honestly say that few pieces of literature have moved me in a profoundly thought-provoking way like this work. After reading The Parable of the Tribes, human events both tragic and beautiful that characterize our civilization suddenly make sense. One begins to understand why and how wars are fought and peace is forged. The beauty of this work is that it describes in wonderful detail the bond we share with each other, that we are literally linked together to form a single, very impressive experience called civilization. Leaders would do well to read this book, and learn the true ways of power. Many believe that power is a thing sprouting from the few, and that some, indeed most do not have this supposed talent. The reality is that power is in all of us, like the current pulsing through our nerves, its dendritic connectors tapped into our fellows around us. Scmookler, it must be said, does not believe even remotely that we are puppets floating about in a river of power, forever subject to its unknowable flow. Schmookler's point is that while we may make decisions based on what we believe is best, it is power, manifesting itself in the millions of human interactions which occur every millisecond, that long ago set events in motion forcing you to make a decision in the first place. We, one realizes, are the power.

Schmookler addresses a pervasive human problem: how we use and are used by power. He argues that war, for instance, is not a necessary fact of human interaction, but rather, that we continue to war because we want power, to be in control.

As a model of power Schmookler's parable is worth consideration:
"Imagine a group of tribes living within reach of one another. If all choose the way of peace, then all may live in peace. But what if all but one choose peace, and that one is ambitious for expansion and conquest?" (21) According to Schmookler there are four possibilities for these tribes: destruction, absorption and transformation by the conquerer, withdrawal, or a defense against power-expansion that forces the defensive tribe to imitate the aggressor. This model gives rise to an explaination of human civilization of progressing tumultousness and a disturbing lack of free will.

Unfortunately, this is only a parable and the inability to ground Schmookler's premises renders this book an intellectual exercise. Behind Schmookler's application of the parable of the tribes to civilization is a theory of social evolution, or rather a misapplication of Darwin's theory of natural selection: "All it [Darwin's theory of natural selection] requires are two things: a diversity of alternative forms and a systematic process of selection among those alternative according to some consistent criteria" (5). Darwin however, was talking about biological adaptation of organisms across time to changing environmental pressures. The application of biological adaptation to social bodies is erronous. The Human Genome Project has mapped the human genome and continues to identify phenotypic relations- there are 46 chromosomes in the human genome and this accounts for all the human diversity we see. Where, though, should we say that American culture ends? Is it in American ideals, American artifacts or should it be limited to only what happens on the North American country by that name? Furthermore, natural evolution is not unilinear: it isn't a progression from primitive to complex with an indentifiable destiny at the end of the road. Natural evolution is only an successful adaptation to a given environment; it is possible to have many different successful adaptations to the same environment.

Is this true of social evolution? No. He blantantly commits to a perspective that ancient, less-complex pre-civilizations were naturally peaceful and cooperative and uses contemporary "primitive" peoples as a model for the history of pre-civilization. This is one of the largest fallacies in anthropology: that primitive people represented Europe's past, and by studying the natives, you could study your history. Furthermore, Schmookler's premise that "Each component of the living system has a defined place out of which no ambition can extricate it" (19), is not true. There is variation generation to generation of every organism that is either adaptive to an environment, or not. The more adaptive should survive to reproduce and pass on their genetic diversity. There is no "defined place". Thus, the rise of civilization can't represent a falling away of the limits of an order that never existed. We haven't overcome our biology with civilization. Thus, the concept of a human complexity driven by indefinite social expansion is fallicious.

Lastly, the parable of the tribes assumes this 'power for power's sake' necessity of human existence. Schmookler's book makes a very compelling case for this particular scenario: one tribe seeks unconditional power and domination over another tribe. But the hypothesis that this scenario is inevitable is highly suspicious. The possibility of reaction, a question of parity or extreme disparity between power centers and the reality of intranational groups challenges the effacicity of the Parable of the Tribes. Is it really reasonable for one nuclear power to seek direct domination over another nuclear power in the age of Mutually Assured Destruction? How do we force the question of terrorism into Schmookler's model? Certainly the United States isn't facing annihilation from a vastly technologically inferior terror network- but how can the United States pose a defense against power-expansion that doesn't really threaten the United States' power-expansion? What if the four tribes don't choose peace, but can't choose war? Isn't then, peace, the default option?

I find Schmookler's parable an interesting intellectual laboratory for power relations, but his theory of social evolution is deeply flawed. Without the theory of social evolution to apply to the grand story of civilization, The Parable of the Tribes is confined to the walls of this laboratory, and grows increasingly esoteric as power centers shift to transnational entities and away from nation states.