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What is Social Ecology? |
Vol.
3, No. 1
Buttercups and Sunflowers
On the Evolution of First and Second Nature
By Sonja Schmitz
  remarkable
feature of social ecology is that Murray Bookchin’s vision of an ecological
society goes beyond the development of eco-technologies and organic agriculture,
but expands into the philosophical realm through dialectical naturalism.
Murray recognizes the importance of healing the seemingly disparate relationship
between nature and culture (first and second nature) by reminding us of
the developmental relationship between them (dialectical naturalism). Through
his discourses on dialectical naturalism, Murray invites the participation
of ecologists, biologists, and scientists generally involved in the subject
of evolution. The following essay is a critique of one aspect of dialectical
naturalism. It is an attempt and also an invitation to other social ecologists,
to develop and refine Murray’s important and provocative work on the
relationship between nature and culture.
For Murray, dialectical naturalism serves as a potential source of objective
ethics for developing ecological societies as demonstrated by the following
quote:
Today we may well be able to permit Nature—not God or
Spirit or an Élan Vital—to open itself up to us
as the ground for an ethics on its own terms. Contemporary sciences’ greatest
achievement is the growing evidence it provides that randomness is subject
to a directive ordering principle, mutualism is good by virtue of its
fostering the evolution of natural variety and complexity.1
If there are indeed trends or universal laws that determine the evolution
of first nature, then humans should derive ethics based upon these principles.
Murray is particularly interested in those trends that are compatible with
anarchist principles. An ecological society would be based upon a harmonious
existence within its eco-community (ecosystem)2 by
fostering mutualistic and non-hierarchical relationships (mutualism), diversity
(variation) and self-organization (autopoeisis). In accordance with dialectical
naturalism, an ecological society would, in general, maximize the opportunities
for unfettered directionality toward greater complexity, diversity, and
subjectivity. Murray’s ecological society takes the form of libertarian
municipalism, the assemblage of multiple self-governing communities into
a complex of confederations. The complexity of the confederation allows
for a cultural diversity that facilitates freedom by diminishing racism,
classism, and any other “isms” that act to oppress and suppress
the potentialities latent within individuals of the human species.
As a student of social ecology and one trying to integrate my background
as a biologist, I was drawn to the question of whether nature could provide
a basis for deriving ethics. Scientists have been searching for universal
laws in evolutionary biology ever since Darwin. The search represents a
contemporary chapter in the historical quest for universal laws in the physical
and chemical sciences. Aside from the satisfaction of understanding the
world around us, there are, after all, practical reasons for deriving laws—they
allow us to make predictions. In the ecological sciences they provide a
basis for reconstructing ecosystems (restoration ecology) and inform decisions
regarding the conservation and management of wildlife. The laws that determine
evolution are not as easily subject to testing by the scientific method
as in ecology, nor is their practicality obvious. In evolutionary science
the trends are more philosophical in nature: (1) whether the tempo of evolution
is rapid or gradual (punctuated equilibrium vs. gradualism), (2) whether
evolution is goal-oriented and (3) whether evolution proceeds by an increase
in complexity and diversity.
Murray’s argument that nature has directionality toward ever-greater
complexity and diversity initially struck me as provocative, if not problematic.
The existence of multicellular plants and animals is often used to argue
that evolution proceeds by an increase in complexity. Evolutionary biology
is still in the process of describing the extraordinary leap life took in
its transitions from prokaryotic cells (bacteria) to the first eukaryotic
cells (protists) and from these single celled organisms to multicellular
fungi, plants and animals. One can interpret this progression favorably
by emphasizing the cooperative, communal, and mutualistic tendencies required
by these transitions, which is what Murray Bookchin does. Murray wants to
equate the evolution of a confederation of multiple self-governing communities
with the evolution of multicellular organisms. There is however, a darker
side to this progression. The evolution of complex life forms is a story
rife with tension between the autonomy of the individual cell and the drive
to assemble into communities of cells for the sake of survival. This in
itself is not incompatible with social ecology. But, the assemblage of autonomous
beings is usually accompanied by the reduction of the individual into specialized
and compartmentalized functions, words that conjure images of authoritarian
communism and fascist political regimes. Therefore, I would like to examine
whether it is indeed desirable to derive ethics from what biologists “know” about
the evolution of first nature.
The endosymbiotic theory proposed by Lynn Margulis suggests that the evolution
of eukaryotic cells may well have occurred by the ingestion (but incomplete
digestion) of one bacterium by another about 1.5 million years ago (mya).3 In
the process, the undifferentiated soup of molecules that comprised the guts
of bacterial cells was organized into an assemblage of specialized compartments
called organelles, each with a separate function much like our own organs.
The resulting eukaryotic cell harbors remnants of its prokaryotic ancestors,
mitochondria and chloroplasts, once intact, autonomous individuals, now
dependent upon and part of a greater assemblage. Therefore, the evolution
of the eukaryotic cell occurred at the expense of autonomous bacterial cells,
which are mere vestiges of what they once were (mitochondria and chloroplasts).
The next level of differentiation involves the assemblage of single celled
eukaryotes (protists) into colonies of cells and the first multicellular
organisms. Biologists see evidence of this transition in some algal species
like Volvox. Volvox consists of a hollow sphere made up
of a single layer of 500 to 60,000 flagellated cells that function in photosynthesis
and in the motility of the colony. Other cells in the Volvox community
function solely in reproduction (sex cells). This multicellular community
operates as a result of the simultaneous specialization of function of individual
cells and a division of labor among them. The next step is the organization
of hundreds of thousands of cells into tissues and organ systems. Not much
is known about how this transition occurred, but multicellular invertebrate
animals with organ systems suddenly appear in the fossil record about 700
mya (Ediacara, Australia). Nevertheless, the same themes of reduction and
specialization are observed in the evolution of multicellular fungi, plants
and animals.
 An
example from the plant kingdom, the buttercup and the sunflower, will illustrate
how the themes of specialization and reduction resurface in the evolution
of complex multicellular organisms. The buttercup flower is considered primitive,
meaning it is one of the earliest flower structures observed in the fossil
record and several million years older than the sunflower lineage. (There
are more ancient lineages among flowering plants, but I am choosing the
buttercup lineage because everyone can picture them). Each part of the flower
is distinguishable and together comprises a reproductive organ—the
buttercup flower. It has five green sepals, five yellow petals, many single
stamens (male flower parts) and many pistils (female flower parts) that
develop into little fruits called achenes. Upon initial inspection, the
sunflower does not appear much different. It has many green sepals, yellow
petals, stamens, and pistils. Although the sunflower looks like a buttercup,
its structure is deceivingly different. The sunflower is a community of
individual flowers, each with a specialized reproductive function. The outer
flowers each have one yellow petal; their pistils and stamens are inactive
or nonexistent. On the other hand, the petals of the inner flowers have
been fused into a yellow tube; and their pistils and stamens are still functional.
The outer flowers with petals function to attract pollinators, while the
inner tubular flowers produce seed.
The buttercup and the sunflower represent two levels of complexity. The
buttercup is a simple flower with many parts that produces many seeds, while
the sunflower is a community of many individual flowers with specialized
functions, each producing a single seed. The buttercup is an autonomous
individual capable of reproduction, while individuals of the mega-sunflower
community cannot function autonomously anymore, and must reproduce as a
unit.
I have often thought that Murray’s libertarian municipalism is like
the sunflower; each self-governing municipality is a single flower, while
the mega-sunflower community represents the confederation. But, upon closer
examination, the analogy is inadequate. The evolution of complexity in plants
is not compatible with, nor can it be equated with, the kind of complexity
and diversity Murray envisions as facilitating freedom in his libertarian
municipalities. The sort of reduction, specialization, and loss of autonomy
observed in the evolution of multicellular organisms is more compatible
with the functioning of a nation state or fascist political regime. Therefore
the evolution of complexity has outcomes frighteningly compatible with political
regimes that do not embrace the ideas of social ecology. If the buttercup
and the sunflower are interpreted as examples of the evolution of complexity,
do we want to cite this trend for constructing ecological societies or confederations?
Perhaps it is inappropriate to compare the evolution of plants with the
evolution of human social systems. While trends in the evolutionary process
can be identified, they are not universal and do not necessarily apply across
all lineages of life. Each of the five kingdoms is on a separate evolutionary
trajectory, as is each phylum in the animal genealogy. Even if we were to
limit our examination to mammals or primates, is it appropriate to extend
the “laws” or principles of first nature and superimpose them
upon cultural evolution? I would argue that because cultural evolution is
uniquely human, and not a generalized trend among other lineages, the trends
observed in first nature do not necessarily apply to second nature.
Although Murray applauds science in its achievements in illuminating the
role of mutualism, diversity, complexity (and other anarchist tendencies);
evolutionary biology is only beginning to yield under the scrutiny of the
scientific method, or in other words, provide an objective inquiry into
the laws of evolution. The exploration into the evolution of complexity
has left me with grave doubts as to whether social ecologists want to derive
ethics from first nature. My doubts however, do not diminish my desire to
construct societies on the basis of mutualism and diversity. Perhaps the
themes of mutualism and diversity hold up better under examination than
does the evolution of complexity.
In summary, this essay raises two separate yet related questions. Can
we derive an objective ethics from the trends or laws of first nature? And
if such trends, principles or universal laws do exist, is it appropriate
or even desirable to cite them for the construction of ecological
human societies? I reserve an examination into these questions for future
essays and invite other social ecologists to join in the inquiry.
Notes
- Murray Bookchin, “Toward a Philosophy of Nature” in The
Philosophy of Social Ecology (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1995),
p. 64.
- Scientific terminology is in parenthesis
- Lynn Margulis, Early Life (Boston: Jones
and Bartlett Publishers Inc., 1984), p. 75-104.
Published by the Institute for
Social Ecology
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