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HOW CULTURES EVOLVE

As a young man, I considered the “American Culture” to be a stable unchanging 

sort of thing that was uniform throughout the country. As I matured a bit, I 

discovered that the “American Culture” is not uniform throughout the country nor 

is it unchanging. It is in fact constantly changing. It is evolving in much the same 

way that our biology evolves. The primary difference between the two evolving 

spheres is that our biological evolution is constrained to the random variations that 

might occur from generation to generation or through gene expression. Our 

cultural evolution on the other hand is not constrained by anything other than our 

own reluctance to change. It is a continuous and ongoing process that seems to be 

changing at an increasing rate.

Biological change is primarily driven by changes in individuals which if selected by 

survival of the fittest, become characteristics of the individual’s progeny or family 

group. Cultural change on the other hand is driven by changes in groups. It does 

not require generations of progeny, only consensus in the selection of a proposed 

variation in behavior. It can happen in a day, but usually requires much longer 

because there is a significant portion of the population which is reluctant to change.

COMPETTITION VS. COOPERATION

In his writings on evolution, Darwin placed considerable emphasis on “survival of 

the fittest” which is basically an argument in favor of competition. Subsequently, 

Adam Smith applied the same argument in his definition of capitalism. 

Consequently, for the past 300 years much of western civilization’s economic and 

social evolution has been based upon competition as the primary “modus 

operandi”. 

However, during the twentieth century, as a result of the two world wars and 

several wars of lesser scope, the evolutionary process has been moving toward 

cooperation and away from competition. This is illustrated by the formation of the 

League of Nations after WW1, The United Nations after WW2, and a long list of 

groups of lesser international scope including: 

NATO

The European Union
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The Soviet Union

For a complete list see List of intergovernmental organizations - Wikipedia

This trend toward cooperation rather than competition came to a rather abrupt 

end during the second decade of the 21st century. A significant portion of the world 

population became dissatisfied with the trend away from individual responsibility 

toward communal responsibility. 

This was a result of:

1. The recent moves toward globalization which resulted in the NAFTA trade 

agreement and the development of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (unfinished). Both 

of these agreements encouraged the outsourcing and offshoring of American 

manufacturing jobs. 

2. The emerging threat of Global Warming and the related necessity to move away 

from fossil fuels as our primary source of energy. The resultant loss of employment, 

income and investments negatively impacts millions of people. This is reenforced 

as the initial effects of global warming become obvious in the form of extreme 

weather events, wildfires, water shortages, reduced food production, etc. 

As a result, several countries moved away from globalization toward nationalism 

(from cooperation back toward competition) Some countries even moved from 

democracy to autocracy, plutocracy and/or dictatorships. 

The U. S. seems to have lost its bearings completely in the 2016 election and spent 

four years dismantling what had taken seven decades to build. 

However, since the 2020 elections we seem to have regained our balance and are 

headed back toward cooperation on a global scale. How far we travel along that 

path remains to be seen.

GROUP BEHAVIOR VS. INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR

In my research associated with Cultural Evolution. There is an emergent theme 

that people do not think and behave the same way as individuals as they do as 

members of a group.
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This group behavior is particularly strong when the group is organized around a 

religious belief system or a political party. (which is why most people avoid 

discussing politics or religion). 

For a more erudite discussion of this concept see Multilevel Selection Theory -

Group selection - Wikipedia Multilevel selection theory and evidence: a critique of 

Gardner, 2015 - Goodnight - 2015 - Journal of Evolutionary Biology - Wiley Online 

Library

POLITICAL CLEAVAGE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleavage_(politics)

The concept of “Political Cleavage” and its dangers is also emergent. It is defined 

as follows: “In political science and sociology, a cleavage is a historically 

determined social or cultural line which divides citizens within a society into groups 

with differing political interests, resulting in political conflict among these 

groups.[1] Social or cultural cleavages thus become political cleavages once they 

get politicized as such.[2]

Several political cleavages are mentioned as possible such as “Owner vs. Worker, 

Church vs. State, Urban vs. Rural, Center vs. Periphery” and I would add Liberal vs. 

Conservative. 

MANIPULATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL VOTERS THROUGH THEIR SELECTED GROUPS

It is not the development of these differences that concerns me but the way in 

which some manipulators use these differences to win elections with lies and 

propaganda and then use the power of their elected positions to pass laws that 

benefit themselves and their financial backers, to the detriment of the majority. 

This basic process was described by Nicolo Machiavelli some 500 years ago in his 

book “The Prince” and has been used ever since by those who would manipulate 

the people including Popes, Kings, dictators, etc. 

It’s such an old and well-known con game that I am amazed that it still works so 

effectively and consistently. 

The manipulators simply produce a series of reality shows and most are based upon 

imagined reality at that. My hypothesis is that the individual’s perspective/behavior 

determines his/her selection (as in evolutionary selection) of the groups that 
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he/she joins, and the group simply reinforces the individual’s perspective/behavior 

as shown in the following diagram. 

The collective knowledge store in the above diagram needs a little explanation: 

Biological Knowledge is that knowledge which we acquire through genetics. We are 

born with it. A good example is our reaction when we are in a dark wood and hear 

a twig snap nearby. Experiential Knowledge is that knowledge which we acquire as 

individuals after we are born, each pleasant or painful experience contributes. 

Subjective Knowledge began to accumulate a few thousand years ago as we 

developed languages, alphabets, writing, pictographs etc. and these new tools 

were used to develop elaborate belief systems that we convey to our progeny 

through education and example. Objective Knowledge began to accumulate a few 

hundred years ago after we developed an initial set of tools like magnifying glasses, 

telescopes, microscopes etc. which facilitated the development of “Scientific 

Methods”. This type of knowledge is conveyed to our progeny primarily through 

the education and communication systems that have evolved. The Next Form of 

knowledge is currently emergent. It will be generated by Artificial Intelligence and 

conveyed by the emergent forms of media.

The flow diagram on the right side of the diagram also needs some explanation. 

Notice that the flows between the individual’s perspective and the group 

perspective form a reinforcing loop in both directions. Because the individual 

chooses to join groups that have perspectives that are like his/her own, any inputs 

from the individual will reenforce the group’s perspective and any feedback from 

the group will reenforce the individual’s perspective. Understanding this provides 

an explanation for the seemingly irrational behavior of the several right-wing 
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groups that participated in the Jan 6th Insurrection. PolitiFact | Yes, Jan. 6 Capitol 

assault was an “armed insurrection”

HOW DO WE PROCEED?

How do we mend the internal U. S. political cleavage? – First, we must come to a 

common understanding of the U. S. political system. This is one of the several 

complex, adaptive systems that comprise our sphere of cultural evolution. The 

complexity of these systems has led several researchers to despair of ever fully 

understanding them all. I have had the same doubts but have found that it is 

possible to adequately define and discuss complex systems by way of influence 

diagrams. The following example depicts the U.S. political system as it has 

functioned for the past half century.

Interpretation: Beginning at the lower left, State Voting Laws have a significant 

influence on the voters, particularly in the case of voter suppression laws and 

gerrymandering. However, in both the 2018 and 2020 elections, the attempts at 

voter suppression seem to have a diminishing effect on the millennial generation. 

(in the 2018 elections, the turnout rate for that group increased from 22% to 42%. 

I find no final stats for that group in the 2020 election but based upon stats 

published during the early voting/mail in period, it probably exceeded 50%
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The Voters have a relatively large influence upon the electoral college and the 

electoral college in fulfilling its roll has a significant influence on the legislature. 

The dominant influence in the system is wielded by the Oligarchy. They wield a 

heavy influence on their representatives in the congressional lobby, and through 

them, the oligarchy wields a heavy influence on the elected members of both 

parties of congress. They also wield a heavy influence on Republican candidates for 

election (including those already in office) primarily by funding election campaigns 

sometimes by direct contributions and sometimes through PACs.

The diagram also indicates that the Legislature has some influence on the courts 

but only through their ability to approve or reject candidates nominated by the 

Administration. The Courts are influenced to a much greater degree by the Store of 

Legal Knowledge and this influence continues throughout the appointee’s time in 

office.

The heavy influence wielded by the Oligarchy is the primary threat to our 

democracy and the primary cause of the inequity that currently exists in the 

distribution of income and wealth in the United States. We must find a way to 

decrease the current ability of the Oligarchy to influence both the Legislature and 

the Administration..

Can we or should we return to the encouragement of cooperation on a global scale, 

or should we scale to more regional goals such as Central and North America 

(NAFTA), then South America etc.

On the global scale we have: 

The U.N. is actively pursuing global cooperation and we should continue to 

cooperate with their efforts. 

In regard to Climate Change, we have the Paris accord and we have already rejoined 

that effort. However, we must accept the fact that China, although they 

compromised their perspective in regard to their economic system several years 

ago and reverted to capitalist competition, that change was only in reference 

groups outside of China. They are still reluctant to embrace cooperation with 

groups inside China. It remains to be seen how much they will cooperate with the 
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goals of the Paris accord. How much of their internal energy consumption will be 

converted from fossil fuels to renewable energy. 

What will it take to get China, Russia, Iran and North Korea to cooperate with the 

rest of the world? If you take away the demand for fossil fuels, what resources do 

Iran, Russia, or even Texas have?

It remains to be seen whether we as a global society will be able to curtail our use 

of fossil fuels quickly enough to avoid “growth to collapse”. 

I’ve been researching these questions for almost 50 years now and the only answer 

that seems feasible is that we need to develop a toolset that will enable us to 

evaluate the many variations that are available and rapidly select those that are 

most effective. Fortunately, that tool set has existed for those fifty years. It’s called 

Systems Dynamics. Unfortunately, it has not been accepted by the political system, 

the economic system or the social science portion of the scientific community. 

Admittedly, it is a heavy lift but there must be a way to convey the complexity of 

our systems to the general public and gain the understanding and consensus that 

is necessary for cultural evolution to proceed rapidly.