[lbo-talk] Left-neoliberalism: a bold strategy for the year 1999

[c b]

THE extraordinary success of Homo sapiens is a result of four things:
intelligence, language, an ability to manipulate objects dexterously
in order to make tools, and co-operation. Over the decades the
anthropological spotlight has shifted from one to another of these as
the prime mover of the package, and thus the fundament of the human
condition. At the moment co-operation is the most fashionable subject
of investigation. In particular, why are humans so willing to
collaborate with unrelated strangers, even to the point of risking
being cheated by people whose characters they cannot possibly know?

^^^^^
CB; Yes, cooperation or sociality should be the number one. Our
species name should be homo communis or socio, not homo sapiens (
intelligent).  Language is fundamentally socially constituted and
constituting.  A critical thing to understand is that a major aspect
of human sociality is social connects between living and dead
generations. Lenguage is a major function in this cross generational
connection.  The prime human intelligence is social intelligence. The
difference between human tool use and that of other species is that
knowledge of tools is passed on and accumulated across generations as
culture, language and custom. The wheel does not have to be
reinvented.

Very interesting that this somewhat pro-cooperation hypothesis is
spoken of favorably in "The Economist".