By Kamran Nayeri, July 30, 2026
The question of human nature has
long been posed. It has been a common feature of moral and political discourse
among ordinary people, as well as among various religions, philosophers,
political scientists, and sociologists (Roughley, 2023). From views that saw
human nature in its social and natural life to views that saw man as a creature
with moral responsibility, a wide range of views on human nature have been put
forward in modern times by thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, Adam Smith, David Hume, classical German philosophers, and others.
In the nineteenth century,
socialism was envisioned as a political and economic system in which the means
of production, distribution, and exchange are collectively owned and controlled
rather than by private individuals. Clearly, such theories of socialism assume
that it is compatible with human nature. Yet they generally do not outline any, except
to some degree in Marx’s theory.
Karl Marx’s theory of socialism is a
much more sophisticated theory of the transition from an alienated capitalist
society to a society of freely associated producers, in which all vestiges of
alienation and exploitation would wither away.
In Theses on Feuerbach (1845), Marx defined human nature through
a philosophical anthropology lens by stating that “the essence of man is no
abstraction inherent in every single individual. In reality, it is the ensemble
of social relations.” (Thesis 6) Thus, he argues against “contemplative
materialism[1]”
of Feuerbach in favor of a materialist (as against Hegel’s idealist) historical
understanding of human nature. Therefore, Marx argues: “The standpoint of the
old materialism is civil society[2];
the standpoint of the new is human society or social humanity.”
In this context, Marx affirmed his
view that “the standpoint of the new [materialism] is human society or social
humanity.” (Thesis 10) That is, human beings are inherently social beings whose
nature, consciousness, needs, capacities, and freedom develop only through
historically formed social relations.
This idea stood in opposition to the
liberal view that isolated individuals are the basic units of human society.
Instead, he argued that human essence is fundamentally social and historical.
Historical materialism
In the same year, this idea of
human nature became the cornerstone of their materialist conception of history
in The German Ideology (Marx and Engels 1845).
Thus, they wrote:
“The first premise
of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals. Thus,
the first fact to be established is the physical organization of these
individuals and their consequent relation to the rest of nature. Of course, we
cannot here go either into the actual physical nature of man, or into the
natural conditions in which man finds himself -- geological, hydrographical,
climatic, and so on. The writing of history must always set out from these
natural bases and their modification in the course of history through the
action of men.” (my emphasis)
Let us underline what Marx and
Engels argued in these sentences. Of course, how human individuals emerged, and
their relationship with the rest of nature, are the first premises of all human
history. However, in 1845, nobody, including Marx and Engels, had any idea of
the natural history that led to the emergence of humanity.
The term "biology" was
coined by scientists like Lamarck and Travisanos in the 18th century. In the
19th century, advances in microscopy and cell theory by scientists like
Schleiden and Schwann established biology as a distinct discipline. Darwin’s theory of evolution, outlined in On
the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, was published in 1859,
linking all species throughout natural history.
In the 20th century, Watson and
Crick discovered DNA, further solidifying biology's status as a key scientific
field. Anthropology emerged as a distinct discipline in the 19th century, influenced
by Darwin’s theory. Franz Boas, often called the "father of American
anthropology," formalized the field in the early 20th century. The introduction of scientific methods and
fieldwork techniques solidified anthropology's status as a science. The field of archaeology was revolutionized by
carbon dating, which was developed in the late 1940s by Willard Libby; the
determination of the age of organic matter from the relative proportions of the
carbon isotopes carbon-12 and carbon-14 it contains. The ratio between them
changes as radioactive carbon-14 decays, which is not replaced by atmospheric exchange.
Carbon. It was first widely used in the early 1950s, marking a milestone. The
technique allowed for dating organic materials up to about 50,000 years old. It
provided a scientific method to establish timelines for archaeological finds.
Carbon dating helped confirm and refine historical chronology.
Fossil study and stratigraphy, a
branch of geology concerned with rock layers (strata) and layering
(stratification), contributed to further improvements in the dating of
archeological sites.
Techniques like potassium-argon
dating and uranium-series dating can date older materials. DNA analysis provides insights into human
evolution and migration patterns over time.
These contributed to a paradigm
shift in dating methods used by archaeologists and anthropologists.
On this basis, we know that life
emerged on Earth 3.5 to 4 billion years ago; the homo genus emerged 2.5 million
years ago; and Homo sapiens emerged about 300,000 years ago.
In contrast, in the mid-nineteenth
century, Marx and Engels had access only to three thousand years of written
history. Thus, they were quite correct to admit “we cannot here go either into
the actual physical nature of man, or into the natural conditions in which man
finds himself -- geological, hydrographical, climatic, and so on.” They lacked
knowledge about humanity’s natural history, especially the 2.5 million years of
our “prehistory” as hunter-gatherers. Therefore, they could not have developed
a materialist conception of history because, in their own words, “The
writing of history must always set out from these natural bases and their
modification in the course of history through the action of men.”
Their theory of society and
history, historical materialism, is, of necessity, limited to three thousand
years of written social history of class societies (civilization).
Part
1. Marxism and human nature
Aware of this shortcoming, Engels sought
to address it to some extent by writing The Origins of Family, Private
Property, and the State (1884). In
this, he followed Marx’s notes on Lewis Henry Morgan’s Ancient Society or
Researches in the Lines of Human Progress from Savagery through Barbarism to
Civilization (1877). Morgan was an
American anthropologist and social theorist who developed his theory of stages
of human progress. Building on the data about kinship and social organization
presented in his Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family (1871),
Morgan developed a three-stage theory of human progress, from savagery through barbarism
to civilization.
In his book, Engels attempts to
show how Morgan’s theory of human progress was in line with historical
materialism and that the development of social institutions ultimately reflects
economic conditions. Morgan’s research on how the family evolved over time
provided substantial evidence of this. Morgan’s insight was to discover that in
prehistoric times, a “matriarchal gens,” a family structure that passed on the
family's rights and privileges through the mother, existed, tracing it back to
an original female ancestor. The mere existence of such a structure refutes the
contemporary notion that marriage has always been a strictly monogamous
arrangement with the father squarely in charge. This lends more support to the
fight from a patriarchal society. The book then proceeds in chronological
order, beginning with a broad overview of humanity’s progression through three
phases of development that Engels, following Morgan’s example, terms
“savagery,” “barbarism,” and “civilization.” Engels details a series of
premodern family structures in which consanguinity, the sharing of a bloodline,
was the central arrangement rather than monogamous marriage. Such systems also
tended toward matriarchy, as maternity was far easier to prove than paternity. Thus,
mothers were the most reliable conveyers of the bloodline from one generation
to the next.
It was the ancient Greeks who were
primarily responsible for the establishment of patriarchy, following an intense
period of economic development that induced a handful of powerful families to
concentrate wealth in their own hands, ultimately treating their own wives and
children as property as well.[3]
To preserve their wealth, the patriarchal societies created the state, formally
a neutral entity that was, in fact, charged with preserving the status quo by
which the few continued to enrich themselves at the expense of the many.
After a painstaking overview of the
transition from matriarchy under the Iroquois in North America and the
“barbarian” peoples of Europe to the patriarchy of Greece and Rome, which he
borrowed from Morgan, Engels sees the last flash of hope in the German and
Frankish tribes, which destroyed the Roman Empire and passed on a flicker of
individual liberty, which ultimately allowed for the abolition of serfdom. As
matters currently stand, capitalism has turned most people into producers of
commodities, over which they exercise no meaningful control. “Civilization”
itself, in Engels’s view, is a nice word for a condition of acute class
warfare. Humanity must therefore reach into it’s past to reclaim freedom in its
future.
In 1890, Engels further developed
his ideas about human nature in the essay “The Role of Labor in the Transition
from Ape to Man.” He argued that
evolution from ape to man resulted from the ape’s interaction with its
environment, which not only changed the environment but also transformed the
ape into man. As Levin and Lewontin (1980, p. 453), an ecologist and
evolutionary geneticist respectively, put it: “He saw ‘environment’ not as a
passive selective force external to the organism but rather as the product of
human activity, the special feature of the human niche being productive labor
and cooperation, which channeled the evolution of hand and brain.”
Levins and Lewontin’s approach
to human nature
In The Dialectical Biologist
(1985), Levins and Lewontin argue that human nature is not a fixed, genetically
programmed blueprint, but a flexible, constantly evolving process created by
the interaction between biology and society. They reject biological
determinism, the idea that genes dictate human behavior, and cultural
determinism, the idea that biology does not matter. Instead, they propose
dialectical determinism to offer a holistic alternative.
Levins and Lewontin argued against
E. O. Wilson's (1978) On Human Nature, which attempts to explain human
nature and society through sociobiology. Wilson argues that evolution has left
its traces on characteristics such as generosity, self-sacrifice, worship, and
the use of sex for pleasure, and proposes a sociobiological explanation of
homosexuality. He attempts to complete the Darwinian revolution by fusing biological
thought into the social sciences and humanities. On Human Nature was a
sequel to his earlier books The Insect Societies (1971) and Sociobiology:
The New Synthesis (1975).[4]
Levins and Lewontin (1985, p. 254)
wrote: “For Marxists the evolution of humans from prehumans and the inclusion
of human history in natural history presupposed both continuity and
discontinuities, qualitative change, but for most materialists’ evolution meant
simply continuity.”
They stress the foundational
quality of the conception of human nature.
“No political
theorist, not even the completely historicist Marx, has been able to dispense
with the problem of human nature; on the contrary, all have found it
fundamental to the construction of their worldview. After all, if we want to
give a normative description of society, how can we say how society ought to be
organized unless we claim to know what human beings are really like (ibid.).”
They then critique “reductionist”
views of human nature, focusing on E. O. Wilson’s sociobiology.
“Since the
individual is ontologically prior to the social organization, it is genetically
determined human nature that gives shape to society. Wilson (1978) gives an
explicit exposition of this theory. The biologically deterministic theory of
human nature is logically consistent (ibid.).”
They also
criticize the liberal, anarchist, and “classical Marxist” responses to
conservative theorists.
“The most
superficial disagreement with the conservative theory has come both from
liberals and from the anarchist left. This position holds that there is indeed
a biologically determined human nature and that a prescription for society can
be written using knowledge of that innate nature, but that conservatives have
simply got the details wrong. Whereas apologists for unrestrained competitive
capitalism claim aggressiveness, entrepreneurial activity, male domination,
territoriality, and xenophobia as the content of human nature, left anarchists
give a contrary description, arguing as Kropotkin did in Mutual Aid that
people are really cooperative and altruistic underneath but have been coerced
into competition by an artificial world. These critics agree with the
conservatives that a basic set of attributes is natural to human being as an
entity as an entity in isolation but that these attributes may be suppressed by
societies, that are either unnaturally competitive, as one’s taste runs.
“A more subtle
version of the human nature argument flows from classical Marxism. According to what little can be found in Marx
on the subject, this theory holds that labor is the property that marks off the
human species from all others, although it is not sufficient to specify the
form of social relations. Human labor is marked by these features: it
transforms the world of nature into a world of artifacts that serve human beings
(ibid. pp. 254-55).”
Levins and
Lewontin underscore that this transformation of nature is teleological: the end
product is envisioned by humans and actualized through cooperative effort,
using tools and implements, to arrive at the anticipated end product. They also
note that some nonhumans behave similarly, citing Jane Goodall’s observations
of chimpanzees. They also object to the universality of the classical Marxist
claim that all humans always behave this way. They cite the Kalahari Bushmen,
who alter nature minimally and, rather than production, plan consumption. The
point is well taken only if we explicitly recognize the difference between
hunter-gatherer cultures and the culture of civilized (class) societies. As I have
discussed, it was with the rise of agriculture that hunter-gatherer animist
views of the world were set aside, and anthropocentrism (a human-centered
worldview) was adopted. I will return to this key issue later.
The second problem
with the classical Marxist view[5]
is that even if true, it is not very informative. “It cannot be used to project
any actual features of human social organization, nor to say how that
organization may or may not change (ibid, p. 265).”
“A radical
alternative has been to deny the existence of human nature altogether, at least
in any non-trivial sense. Human beings are simply what they make of themselves
(ibid.).”
The existentialist
Simon de Beauvoir in The Second Sex (1953) makes this argument using Marx. She
wrote[6]:
“When we abolish
the slavery of half humanity, together with the whole system of hypocrisy that
it implies, then the division
“of humanity will
reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form.
‘The direct, natural and necessary relation of human creatures is its relation of
man to woman,” Marx has said. ‘The nature of this relation determines to what
point man himself is to be considered as a generic being, as mankind;
the relation of man to woman is the most natural relation human being to human
being. By it is shown, therefore, to what point natural behavior of man becomes
human, or at that point, the human being has become his nature.”[7]
Levins and Lewontin hold that the
question of human nature is the wrong question because it partly “carries a
vestige of Platonic idealism” (ibid. p. 257) and partly the analyst’s own point
of view.
“The evident fact
about human life is the incredible diversity in individual life histories and
in social organization across space and time. The attempt to understand this
diversity by looking for some underlying ideal uniformity called ‘human
nature,’ of which the manifest variation is only a shadow, is reminiscent of
the pre—Darwinian” idealism of biological thought (ibid.)
They also criticize the tabula
rasa hypothesis, which holds that humans are born with a blank slate,
unaffected by their biology. Proponents of the view include Aristotle, Ibn Sina
(11th century), Ibn Tufail (12th century), Agustina (13th
century), Descartes (17th century), John Locke (17th
century), and Freud (19th century).
Science has shown that we are not blank
slates at birth and that biology matters in differentiated human life histories.
Moreover, there are universal needs
in every species, including humans, such as the need for food. Warm-blooded
animals like mammals and birds require much more food than cold-blooded animals
like reptiles, as they must maintain a constant body temperature. Humans need
specific nutrients, such as vitamin C, because our bodies can no longer produce
them internally. We respond to stress the
same way other mammals do, such as increased adrenaline levels, higher blood
pressure, and a faster heartbeat. As in other mammals, the regulation of
breathing, blood circulation, digestion, and other functions is governed by
hormone secretion and the autonomic nervous system's unconscious activities.
However, humans have complemented their
bodies' innate needs with socially produced needs. We use clothing, shelter,
and fuel to warm or cool our bodies. Our
body temperature now is also a function of our economic standing, as some of us
cannot afford food, shelter, or fuel. Our ability to avoid and live in
stressful situations is related to our social standing. And, so on.
Taking an example from Levins and Lewontin,
a fundamental ecological problem confronting all organisms is how to cope with
the uncertainty of their food supply. Cold-blooded animals live slowly, so
their nutritional state depends on what they have eaten over the past few weeks
or months. Mammals and birds live quickly. They eat, process, and use up food in
a day or even in hours. So, they are more vulnerable to environmental
variability. One way to deal with this is to store food as body fat.
People have invented ways to store food
by curing, salting, smoking, cooking, or refrigerating it. People also
redistribute food through their social networks by creating social ties and
obligations, so today’s food can be tomorrow’s if supply problems arise. As food
is widely monetized, it can be separated from its original purpose of providing
nutritional value and, under certain conditions, become a source of insatiable appetite.
Food as a commodity traded internationally creates new sources of uncertainty. Fluctuations
in food prices become detached from local conditions. Thus, the price of bread
would become more of a function of what happens to wheat production in Russia,
Australia, Canada, the United States, and France. Further, food production
becomes increasingly detached from its nutritional goals and more aligned with
the profitability of the food-producing industry. What people should eat has been
biologically determined. What people can eat is an entirely different
question. Eating has become a social
occasion that cements family or friendship bonds, but it has also become an
opportunity for commercial exchange or for creating mutual social obligations. Hundred-dollar
plate dinner invitations are not about feeding anyone nutrition, but about
sustaining the body politic.
Critique of the Marxian view of
human nature
If we take the above presentation
of the Marxist view of human nature (assuming there is such a thing), let me
summarize its key elements:
First, Marx did not have a
well-defined theory of human nature. In his Theses on Feuerbach, he
limited it to “the ensemble of the social relations.” While it is true that
Marx considered human interaction with the rest of nature in his theory of
society and history, historical materialism, he abstracted from nature:
“The first premise
of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals.
Thus, the first fact to be established is the physical organization of these
individuals and their consequent relation to the rest of nature. Of course, we cannot
here go either into the actual physical nature of man, or into the natural
conditions in which man finds himself -- geological, hydrographical, climatic,
and so on. The writing of history must always set out from these natural bases
and their modification in the course of history through the action of men.”
Levins and Lewontin (1985, p. 255) admit
“little can be found in Marx on the subject,” that is, about human nature. At the same time, they also admit the
importance of a theory of human nature for socialism: “how can we say how
society ought to be organized unless we claim to know what human beings are
really like” (ibid., p. 254).
Thus, Marx’s theory of socialism
has an inadequate theory of human nature, which is the basis for any theory of
society. I have argued that Marx’s theories are anthropocentric, while the
existential crises of the 21st century are ecological-social
(ecosocial) (Nayeri, 2021, 2023, Chapter 19).
Second, Engels’ attempt to develop Marx’s
thinking on human nature represents a significant step in the sense that he
followed Marx’s notes on Morgan and developed them to locate the transition of
the hunter-gatherers' social organization to civilization (class society) with
the emergence of private property, family, and the state as markers of the
transition.
Of course, in the late nineteenth
century, little was known about our prehistory, including hunter-gatherers and the
emergence and evolution of life on the planet.
Levins and Lewontin (ibid., p. 255)
point to some of the limits to Engels’ hypothesis.
Third, Marxists, including Engels,
and Levins and Lewontin, entirely miss the world-historic changes in human
culture from ecocentrism to anthropocentrism. As others and I have argued, the
transition from hunter-gathering to agriculture required alienation from nature
and the need to dominate and control it systematically for their socioeconomic reproduction.
Fourth, as Levins and Lewontin note,
the “orthodox Marxist view…even if true” is “not very informative. It cannot be
used to project any actual feature of human social organization, nor to say how
that organization may or may not change (ibid. p. 256).”
Finally, while I agree with Levins
and Lewontin’s criticism of E. O. Wilson’s theory of human nature and
sociobiology (more nuanced in his later writings, with his emphasis on epigenic
influences) that he goes too far out on a limb trying to synthesize the
humanities and social sciences into a theory of sociobiology, Marx and Marxists
can be similarly accused of venturing too far out in their critique of
political economy to develop a theory of society and history. As some of the
key problems of our time are clearly specific to the present capitalist mode of
production, others, such as religion and war, date back to prehistory but are
now articulated within a capitalist world economy (Nayeri, 2015). Furthermore, I know of no Marxist who has
shown as much attention and care for the natural world as Wilson has. He was
not only a world-class entomologist and a prominent biologist, but also a
prolific author of many biological and biologically related books, and a
conservationist. His Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life (2016), the
last in a trilogy beginning with The Social Conquest of Earth (2012) and
The Meaning of Human Existence (2014), is demanding that half the
Earth’s land and ocean surface be set free of human intervention to allow
wildlife to prosper. A very small-scale experiment of his ambitious idea was documented
in the movie Wilding (2024), as the couple who owned it allowed all plants and
animals to go wild (for a review of the movie, see here).
Part
2. Gregory Bateson’s Ecology of Mind
Gregory Bateson (1904 –1980) was an
English American anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual
anthropologist, semiotician, and cyberneticist whose work intersected with many
other fields. “His contributions range from evolutionary theory to epistemology
to clinical psychology and psychiatry to anthropology to learning and
communication. His approach was decidedly multidisciplinary (Montuori,
2002).”
Bateson got on the path to what he
later called “ecology of mind” through his teaching:
“I have taught
various branches of behavioral biology and cultural anthropology to American
students ranging from college freshmen to psychiatric residents, in various
schools and teaching hospitals, and I have encountered a very strange gap in
their thinking that springs from a lack of certain tools of thought. This lack
is rather equally distributed at all levels of education, among students of
both sexes, and among humanities as well as scientists. Specifically, it is a
lack of knowledge of the presuppositions not only of science but of everyday
life (Bateson, 2002, p. 23).”
This interest led Bateson to
develop a methodology for piecing together information gleaned from various
fields into new patterns of knowledge.
“At present, there
is no existing science whose interest is the combining of pieces of
information. But I shall argue that the evolutionary process must depend upon
such double increments of information. Every evolutionary step is an addition
of information to an already existing system. Because it is so, the
combinations, harmonies, and discords between successive pieces and layers of
information will present many problems of survival and determine many
directions of change (Bateson, 2002, p. 19).”
Here, I will focus on Bateson’s
concept of the ecology of mind, which evolved over time in his writing, as
expressed especially in Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972) and Mind
and Nature (1979). Cybernetics and systems theory played a central role in
his theory of ecology of mind.
Cybernetics is the study of systems, control, and communication in
animals and machines. It explores feedback loops, which are essential for a system’s
regulation and adaptation; examines the role of information flow in maintaining
system stability and functionality; analyzes interactions among components
within a system to understand emergent behaviors; and investigates the
application of cybernetics across fields such as biology, engineering, and the
social sciences.
Gregory Bateson’s core thesis is that the mind is not an
isolated substance or faculty inside individuals’ brains, but a relational,
cybernetic process distributed across organisms and their environments.
Mind is a process that emerges from networks of
relationships among organisms and their environments. Human beings, other
living beings, and ecosystems are linked through flows of information. The mind
is a system of relationships; it is not a “thing” but a process. He defined a
mental system as one in which differences are perceived. Differences are
transformed into information. Information affects future behavior. Feedback
loops connect the parts of the system. A forest, a family, an ecosystem, or even
a society can therefore exhibit mental characteristics because they process
information through interconnected feedback relationships. This means no
organism can be understood apart from the ecological system in which it exists.
Information is "a difference that makes a
difference." A difference becomes information when it affects a system's
behavior. For example, changes in temperature affect a plant; a predator's
movement affects prey; a spoken word affects a listener.
Mind, therefore, operates through the communication of
differences rather than through material substances alone.
Epistemological
errors arise when we fragment this systemic whole into linear cause–and–effect
chains or oppose the self and the world.
Bateson’s theory has resulted in debates about systems
thinking, constructivist epistemology, and ecological ethics.
Bateson believed modern industrial civilization suffers from
a profound epistemological error. Western thought often separates mind from
nature, humans from ecosystems, and subject from object.
Bateson argued that these separations are largely illusions.
Humans are components of larger ecological systems, not masters standing
outside them. When people act as if they are separate from nature, they damage
the ecological systems upon which they depend.
Feedback and self-regulation
Ecological systems survive through feedback loops. Examples
include predator-prey relationships, body temperature regulation, family
interactions, and ecosystem nutrient cycles. Healthy systems contain balancing feedback
that prevents runaway growth or collapse.
Many social and ecological crises arise when these feedback
mechanisms are disrupted.
For Bateson, species co-evolve within networks of
relationships: Organisms shape environments. Environments shape organisms. Different
species co-evolve together. Thus, evolution is fundamentally relational.
The sacred unity of life
In his later work, Bateson increasingly emphasized what he
called the "pattern which connects," referring to the recurring
relational structures found throughout living systems: Examples: cells and
organisms; organisms and ecosystems; individuals and societies. He believed
wisdom consists in recognizing these patterns rather than focusing only on
isolated entities.
At the same time, Bateson’s view of the function of
consciousness “in coupling between man and the homeostatic systems
(self-regulating systems) surrounding him” is as follows:
“First, there is man’s habit of
changing his environment rather than changing himself. …In evolutionary
history, the great majority of steps have been changes within the organism
itself; some steps have been of an intermediate kind in which the organism achieved
[a] change of environment by [a] change of locale. In a few cases, organisms
other than man have created modified microenvironments around themselves, e.g.,
the nests of Hymenoptera and birds, concentrated forests of conifers, fungal
colonies, etc.
“In all such cases, the logic of
evolutionary progress is toward ecosystems which sustain only the dominant,
environment-controlling species, and its symbionts and parasites.
“Man, the outstanding modifier
of environment, similarly achieves single-species ecosystems and parasites in
his cities, but he goes one step further, establishing a special environment
for his symbionts. These, likewise, become single-species ecosystems: fields of
corn, cultures of bacteria, batteries of fowls, colonies of laboratory rats,
and the like. “Secondly, the power ratio between purposive consciousness and the
environment has rapidly changed in the last one hundred years, and the rate of
change in the ratio is certainly rapidly increasing with technological
advances. Conscious man, as a changer of the environment, is now fully able to
wreck himself and the environment—with the very best conscious intentions.
“Third, a peculiar sociological phenomenon has arisen in the last one hundred
years, which perhaps threatens to isolate conscious purpose from many
corrective processes which might come out of less conscious parts of the mind.
The social scene is nowadays characterized by the existence of a large number
of self-maximizing entities which, in law, have something like the status of
‘persons’-trusts, companies, political parties, unions, commercial and
financial agencies, nations, and the like. In biological fact, these entities
are precisely not persons and not even aggregates of whole persons. They
are aggregates of parts of persons (Bateson, 2002, pp. 451-452).”
Batson then notes several factors “which may act as
correctives.” They include love, by which he means “I-Thou” relationship,
“between man and his society or ecosystem,” and the formation of “sensitivity
groups,” arts, poetry, music, and the humanities, where “more of the mind is
active than consciousness would admit.” He adds contact between “man and
animals and between man and the natural world,” which “breeds,
perhaps—sometimes—wisdom (ibid., p. 453). He includes religion, to which I will
return.
Ecological implications
Bateson's ecological philosophy differs from both mechanistic
materialism, which often treats nature as an object, and spiritual views that
separate mind from the material world. Instead, he proposes a relational
ontology in which the mind is immanent in ecological relationships. Human
beings are part of larger living systems, and survival depends on maintaining
the integrity of these systems.
The fundamental reality is not isolated things but
relationships, patterns, and information flows. Human survival depends on
recognizing that the true unit of life is the organism-in-its-ecosystem.
The survival unit
While Freudian psychology expanded the concept of the mind
inwards to include the whole communication system within the body, the
automatic, the habitual, and the vast range of unconscious processes, Bateson
expands the mind outwards. Both these changes reduce the scope of the
conscious self.
“We get a picture, then, of mind
as synonymous with cybernetic system—the relevant total information-processing,
trial-and-error completing unit. And we know that within Mind in the widest
sense, there will be a hierarchy of subsystems, any one of which we call an
individual mind.
“But this picture is precisely
the same as the picture which I arrived at in discussing the unit of evolution.
I believe that this identity is the most important generalization which I have
to offer you tonight…
“This identity between the unit
of mind and the unit of evolutionary survival is of very great importance, not
only theoretical but also ethical. (ibid., p. 466).”
Let’s get back to religion for a moment, Bateson argues that
if
“You put God outside and set him
vis-à-vis his creation, and if you have the idea that you are created in his
image, you will logically and naturally see yourself as outside against the
things around you. And as you arrogate all mind to yourself, you will see the
world as mindless and therefore not entitled to moral or ethical
considerations. The environment will seem to be yours to exploit. Your survival
unit will be you and your folks or conspecifics against the environment of
other social units, other races, brutes, and vegetables.
“If this is your estimate of
your relation to nature and you have advanced technology, your likelihood of
survival will be that of a snowball in hell (ibid., p. 488, my emphasis).”
This is why Bateson has been influential in ecology, systems
theory, cybernetics, family therapy, and environmental philosophy.
Critique of Bateson’s theory
From the perspective of a theory of human nature and
socialism, it is evident that a cybernetic approach to human society operates
at a higher degree of generality and lacks the specific theories of society and
history that, for example, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Karl Marx have. However, he complements such theories of
society and history with a grand overall view that offers significant
advantages. To begin with, although Bateson does not explicitly discuss his
ontology, it is evident that he held a philosophy of being, existence, and
reality that is materialist and immanently relational. As I underscored in Part
1, even Marx’s historical materialism was constructed by limiting human nature,
society, and history to social relations arising from modes of production and
ensuing class struggles. Of course, Marx and Engels admitted this fundamental
shortcoming but never returned to the task of placing humanity within nature,
to which it is bound by natural history. A key exception is Marx’s concept of
the metabolic rift, which originated in his critique of capitalist agriculture,
which destroyed the metabolic relationship with the soil (Foster, 2000; Saito,
2017). However, contrary to claims of Foster and Saito, Marx never developed
the idea in his theory of society and history, and his historical materialism
and critique of political economy remained anthropocentric (Nayeri, 2023,
Chapter 22; Nayeri, October 12, 2023). Marx accepted the ontology of
nineteenth-century materialism but proposed it as dialectical materialism,
thereby rejecting the prevalent mechanistic view.
At the same time, Marx’s theory entails no environmental
ethics, while Bateson’s theory of ecology of mind does.
The task remains for the twenty-first-century ecological
socialists to develop a theory of human nature cognizant of Bateson’s
contributions.
References:
Aho, Kevin. “Existentialism.” Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy. 2023.
Brooks. Thom. “Hegel’s Social and Political Philosophy.”
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2025.
Engels, Friedrich. Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State.
1884.
Foster, John Bellamy. Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and
Nature. 2000.
Foster, John Bellamy, Brett Clark, Richard York. The
Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on Earth. 2010.
Levins, Richard, and Richard
Lewontin. The Dialectical Biologist. 1985.
Manghi, Sergio. Forward: In Wider Perspective. In Gregory
Bateson, Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. 2002.
Morgan, Lewis Henry. Ancient
Society or Researches in the Lines of Human Progress from Savagery through
Barbarism to Civilization. 1877.
Nayeri, Kamran. “Economics, Socialism and Ecology: A Critical Outline,
Part 2,” Our Place in the World: A Journal of Ecosocialism.
October 29, 2013.
_____________. “An Ecological Socialist's Reflection on Edward O.
Wilson's Sociobiology.” Our Place in the World: A Journal of
Ecosocialism. October 16, 2015.
_____________. “E. O. Wilson: The Sixth Extinction: Life and Death in the
Biosphere.” December 12. 2016.
_____________. “The Case for Ecocentric Socialism.” Our Place in the World: A Journal of
Ecosocialism. July 4, 2021.
_____________. “Was Marx an
Ecosocialist?”
Our Place in the World: A Journal of Ecosocialism. October 12, 2023.
_____________. Whose Planet? Essays on Ecocentric Socialism.
2023.
Roughley,
Neil, "Human
Nature", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2023
Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.). Wilson, E. O. Sociobiology:
The New Synthesis. 1975.
Saito, Kohei. Karl Marx’s
Ecosocialism: Capital, Nature, and the Unfinished Critique of Political
Economy. 2017.
Wilson,
E. O. On Human Nature. 1978.
___________.
Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. 1999.
___________.
The Social Conquest of the Earth. 2012.
___________.
The Meaning of Human Existence. 2015.
___________.
Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life. 2016.
Notes:
[1] Contemplative materialism
focuses on the relationship between thought and material reality, rejecting
abstract idealism. Feuerbach believes that true human essence is found in our
sensory experiences and social interactions.
He advocates for a philosophy that prioritizes human
experience and empirical observation over metaphysical speculation. This
approach aims to reconcile human nature with the material world, fostering a
more grounded understanding of existence.
[2] The concept of civil
society evolved over time. Aristotle
viewed the political community (polis) as the natural and highest form of human
association. He did not sharply separate “state” from “society” as human beings
were “political animals,” whose fulfillment came through participation in
communal life. Thus, in classical
Western thought, civil society and political society were fused. In modern thought, the two concepts have been
separated. John Locke argued that civil
society emerged from a social contract: individuals agreed to establish
government specifically to protect their pre-existing natural rights. This was
a significant departure from the classical view because it placed individual
rights prior to the state. Jean-Jacques
Rousseau and Adam Smith held that the binding principle of civil society was a
private morality, grounded in self-interest but ultimately serving collective
ends.
Adam Ferguson went further, contributing directly to
the literature on civil society and democratic political society through his
influential work in Scottish Enlightenment philosophy, emphasizing voluntary
associations as a counterbalance to state power. G.W.F. Hegel provided the most decisive
theoretical break by fundamentally redefining civil society, giving rise to a
modern liberal understanding of it as a form of non-political society, distinct
from the institutions of the modern nation-state. For Hegel, civil society was
a “system of needs” situated between the family and the state (Brooks, 2025).
It was the realm of economic activity, social interaction, and individual
pursuit.
[3] In The German Ideology,
that is how Marx and Engels describe women and children in the patriarchal family
structure.
[4] Levins, Lewontin, and
Wilson were all professors at Harvard University, with their labs and offices
close to each other.
[5] Levins and Lewontin use
“classical Marxist” view and “Orthodox Marxist” view interchangeably. They were
part of the young radicals in the United States who were attracted to the pro-Moscow
Communist Party, later disillusioned with it, and formed the radical Science
for the People as a loosely organized political organization. The author joined
this group in 2008. In the post-Occupy Wall Street action, some Generation
Alpha, the first full generation not to have known a world without smartphones
and social media, who became radicalized scientists, mathematicians, and engineers,
formed the new generation of Science for the People. The earlier generations,
who were mostly active in politics through the Science for the People online
discussion list, gradually abandoned it due to age-related factors.
[6] According to Jean Paul,
the first principle of existentialism is that we exist for ourselves as
self-making or self-defining beings, and we are always in the process of making
or defining ourselves through the situated choices we make as our lives unfold.
This means that man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterward,
defines himself.” (Aho, 2023).
[7] The quotation is from
Marx’s Philosophic Manuscripts, vol. 6, italics are in the original.
