Cultural heritage can be understood quite simply as the evolving forms and relationships within our ecosystems, and this cultural heritage is equally important to genetic heritage in determining evolutionary outcomes.
As much as it is the characteristics of a specific organism that will enable it to prosper or not, it is the shape of the ecosystem within which that organism lives. Ecosystems and communities, with their continuing and evolving relationships, will squeeze the direction of evolution, destroying that which does not fit and promoting that which does, just as surely as will variations within particular individuals.
So there we have the dual drivers behind natural selection:
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- the individual/self-interest/survival of the fittest/genetic heritage; and
- the community/benevolence/mutual aid/cultural heritage.
These two drivers feed into and overlap one another, with the individual and the community each effecting outcomes for the other. We can see dual motivations within the individual organism: to commune with and to control its surrounds. We can also see both competitive and co-operative relationships existing side by side within a community.
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About the Author
Thirty-something Gilbert Holmes lives with his wife Catherine in Brisbane. They are expecting their first child. Gilbert has a long standing interest in yin-yang polarity, and most recently has turned his attentions to understand polarity in relation to political and economic philosophy. He is working on a book on this subject. Gilbert is an advocate of a decentralised, direct democratic society, with a balanced, cooperative/competitive economic system. You can read more at polaritycorner.blogspot.com