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4.07 AVERAGE
4.07 AVERAGE
challenging
hopeful
informative
slow-paced
The premise of Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution is simple: cooperation is just as significant as competition – if not more so – in ensuring that a species or community thrives. It is a response to social Darwinism, not only as a counter to those regressive “survival of the fittest” ideas, but also as a mirror, in the sense that Kropotkin uses scientific evidence and appeals to nature to grant his philosophy legitimacy, just as those proponents of eugenics and laissez-faire capitalism do. Kropotkin, conscious that his ideas may be dismissed as utopian, makes a point to present them in a very matter-of-fact, common-sense way. He provides countless examples of mutual aid in action in the animal kingdom and in human societies from ancient past to (then-)present. Though this list of anecdotes is kind of tedious and more cursory than I’d like, it is undeniably accessible – far more accessible than, say, Marx, whose writing is riddled with equations and tables of economic statistics.
Despite being an anarchist and therefore very mindful of hierarchy and injustice, Kropotkin does have his blind spots and shortcomings (as do we all). On many occasions Kropotkin would celebrate the solidarity and benevolence of a given group, then casually mention something horrific like women being taken as spoils of war. It’s unclear, in these instances, what his intention is. Does he just not recognise how fucked up this is? Is he trying to make a point about humans being capable of both good and evil? It’s jarring either way, and odd because one of the things I admired in The Conquest of Bread was his consideration of women.
He is somewhat critical of racism, though obviously not as critical as he could be. Throughout the book, Kropotkin uses several terms which today would be considered racial slurs, though he does often put “savage” in quotes, presumably to demonstrate his disapproval of the phrase. He is sceptical of certain claims made about indigenous peoples – he argues that cannibalism emerges in times of scarcity, that “eye for an eye” conceptions of justice are just as prevalent in Western Europe as they are in native tribes, and so on. He also notes that much of what we supposedly know about these tribes comes from the observations of genocidal colonisers. That said, he does agree that the Khoekhoen (not the word he used) are “filthy” and “occupy one of the lowest degrees on the human scale.” He also seems to take empire and colonisation for granted, and his sociological analysis is decidedly Eurocentric.
I don’t think Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution is as good as The Conquest of Bread, personally, even though a lot of people say it’s better. I can say this much: I appreciate what Kropotkin was going for.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Racial slurs, Racism, Slavery, Violence, Kidnapping, Cannibalism, Colonisation
Moderate: Ableism, Animal death, Child death, Genocide, Sexism, Terminal illness, Murder, War
Minor: Gun violence, Incest, Infidelity, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Blood, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment
informative
reflective
slow-paced
"...Man is appealed to to be guided in his acts, not merely by love, which is always personal, or at the best tribal, but by the perception of his oneness with each human being. In the practice of mutual aid, which we can retrace to the earliest beginnings of evolution, we thus find the positive and undoubted origin of our ethical conceptions; and we can affirm that in the ethical progress of man, mutual support not mutual struggle- has had the leading part. In its wide extension, even at the present time, we also see the best guarantee of a still loftier evolution of our race."
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
A critique of not only the perception of native peoples under western "enlightenment" during the 19th and early 20th century, but also a solid critique of social darwinism. Topics range from the social aspects of ants and bees to the historical development of mutual aid in the modern world. Kropotkin's main thesis is correct: mutual aid, rather than competition, is an important factor of social and biological evolution.
If books change lives and make us who we are, then I owe this one a lot. The bottom line: "social darwinism is wrong and cooperating is what make us human".
Published original in 1891, it is still (maybe even more) polemic. Political optimism is now regarded as obscene. And it's always easier to believe that we do naturally prey on each other and come up with a general rule to explain it.
The problem is that there are many ideologies and ideas that promote behaviors where humans are supposed to fight each other.
This was also a great read, and after this I went on to The Conquest of Bread. Thank you Kropotkin for telling us how to get there.
Published original in 1891, it is still (maybe even more) polemic. Political optimism is now regarded as obscene. And it's always easier to believe that we do naturally prey on each other and come up with a general rule to explain it.
The problem is that there are many ideologies and ideas that promote behaviors where humans are supposed to fight each other.
This was also a great read, and after this I went on to The Conquest of Bread. Thank you Kropotkin for telling us how to get there.
Contrasted to popular understandings of Darwinism and lending of Kessler’s work, Kropotkin proposed Mutual Aid as a major component for evolution. By first showing examples of cooperation in animals and across nature, he argues that mutual aid exists not only as an argument for moral sentiment in animals outside of humanity but as a law of nature and factor of evolution, being equally if not more necessary than mutual struggle.
Kropotkin then details examples of solidarity across different human societies and tribes, fundamentally arguing that cooperation and sociability are the major basis for life on earth and that mutual aid grants the best chances of survival to those that work together against the struggles of life.
Kropotkin ultimately shows that mutual aid has persisted despite centuries of repression - the fact that it remains is testament to how central it is to our lives.
The science and anthropology are obviously dated but the broad principle and its context are still important - although his listing can be quite tedious and repetitive to read.
"Compassion is a necessary outcome of social life. But compassion also means a considerable advance in general intelligence and sensibility. It is the first step towards the development of higher moral sentiments. It is, in its turn, a powerful factor of further evolution." (49)
"There is the gist of human psychology. Unless men are maddened in the battlefield, they 'cannot stand it' to hear appeals for help, and not to respond to them. The hero goes; and what the hero does, all feel that they ought to have done as well. The sophisms of the brain cannot resist the mutual-aid feeling, because this feeling has been nurtured by thousands of years of human social life and hundreds of thousands of years of pre-human life in societies." (228)
Pyotr Kropotkin's analysis is fascinating, even when his presentation occasionally appears irksome and of only academic interest. Kropotkin's main thesis here is that Thomas Hobbes was wrong, humanity did not arise from the self interested, "bloody war of each against all" to quote Thomas Sowell's [b:A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles|3047|A Conflict of Visions Ideological Origins of Political Struggles|Thomas Sowell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386923639l/3047._SY75_.jpg|6913]. Kropotkin demolishes this notion of homo economicus, by making documenting the striking and overt examples of compassion and comradeship across time and history in the human and non-human world, view within a consistent Darwinian framework.
Overthrowing Hobbes' speculative history of man isn't the only objective of Kropotkin's work, and he saves much of his ire for his contemporaries, the fin de siecle vulgarisers of Darwin, such as Thomas Huxley, Herbert Spencer and Alphonse Toussenel. Whilst the aforementioned 'naturalists' were praised by their academic contemporaries for supporting the ideology of industrial capitalism, Kropotkin saw through his ethnographic and historical work (much of inspired by Dr Karl Kessler), that they were wrong.
Higher and lower animals, tribesfolk, and modern man demonstrate that man needs compassion to survive and evolve, as the self-interested and asocial would be excluded from the group. "The cunningest and the shrewdest are eliminated in favour of those who understand the
advantages of sociable life and mutual support." For example, bees will allow a small number of the hive to make a preliminary investigation, risking their own lives in this search, before the hive migrates, thus saving the bee population (14). Similarly, amongst the barbarians, it was only the village populace, rather than isolated families, who could survive owing to their control over the wilderness, and the broad range of human capital.
However, in the modern era, the state has largely alienated these bonds, and taken away the social nature of men by placing the state in control of the human functions. Likewise, the nature of capitalism places man into an uncooperative being, who, once achieving wealth, realises "the conscience of human solidarity [...] then they try to find an outcome for that deeply human
need by giving their fortune, or their forces, to something which, in their opinion, will promote general welfare." (240-241).
This, roughly describes the plight of modern man, he is alienated from natural social bonds by the oppressive state, but he still has the innate compassionate tendency, leading to a mismatch between society and humanity, a feeling of alienation. An oddly conservative element appears out of this argument, with Kropotkin arguing that traditions and customs were kept alive by man, in spite of the ruthless anti-humanistic tendencies of the state. This is a thread Kropotkin should have developed more in this work, but I can understand why he wanted to keep the book focused on the Darwinian, and anthropological-scientific matters, above the political economy of his time.
Another thing to note is Kropotkin's lack of reliance on Rousseau. Keeping with the scientific theme of the work, Kropotkin argues that Hobbes' world, like Rousseau's is purely speculative, and that scientific research demonstrates that we needn't rely on either. Related to this, I've noticed that a lot of people raise Stephen Jay Gould's article on
Kropotkin as an example of Mutual Aid's contemporary relevance. With the summary on the blurb of MA reading "In fact, I would hold that Kropotkin’s basic argument is correct. [...] If Kropotkin overemphasized mutual aid, most Darwinians in Western Europe had exaggerated competition just as strongly....".
This is totally agreeable, but it can leave the reader the impression that Kropotkin ignores the violence inherent in human history, which he does not. In fact, Kropotkin has no qualms pointing to the obvious fact that violence occurred (often as a last resort), superstition held some groups back, consanguinous relations were part of normal savage life, and the myth of the noble savage is dispensed with. "In the last century the 'savage' and his 'life in the state of nature' were idealized. But now men of science have gone to the opposite extreme [...] It is evident, however, that this exaggeration is even more unscientific than Rousseau's idealization. The savage is not an ideal of virtue, nor is he an ideal of 'savagery'...
"There is the gist of human psychology. Unless men are maddened in the battlefield, they 'cannot stand it' to hear appeals for help, and not to respond to them. The hero goes; and what the hero does, all feel that they ought to have done as well. The sophisms of the brain cannot resist the mutual-aid feeling, because this feeling has been nurtured by thousands of years of human social life and hundreds of thousands of years of pre-human life in societies." (228)
Pyotr Kropotkin's analysis is fascinating, even when his presentation occasionally appears irksome and of only academic interest. Kropotkin's main thesis here is that Thomas Hobbes was wrong, humanity did not arise from the self interested, "bloody war of each against all" to quote Thomas Sowell's [b:A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles|3047|A Conflict of Visions Ideological Origins of Political Struggles|Thomas Sowell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386923639l/3047._SY75_.jpg|6913]. Kropotkin demolishes this notion of homo economicus, by making documenting the striking and overt examples of compassion and comradeship across time and history in the human and non-human world, view within a consistent Darwinian framework.
Overthrowing Hobbes' speculative history of man isn't the only objective of Kropotkin's work, and he saves much of his ire for his contemporaries, the fin de siecle vulgarisers of Darwin, such as Thomas Huxley, Herbert Spencer and Alphonse Toussenel. Whilst the aforementioned 'naturalists' were praised by their academic contemporaries for supporting the ideology of industrial capitalism, Kropotkin saw through his ethnographic and historical work (much of inspired by Dr Karl Kessler), that they were wrong.
Higher and lower animals, tribesfolk, and modern man demonstrate that man needs compassion to survive and evolve, as the self-interested and asocial would be excluded from the group. "The cunningest and the shrewdest are eliminated in favour of those who understand the
advantages of sociable life and mutual support." For example, bees will allow a small number of the hive to make a preliminary investigation, risking their own lives in this search, before the hive migrates, thus saving the bee population (14). Similarly, amongst the barbarians, it was only the village populace, rather than isolated families, who could survive owing to their control over the wilderness, and the broad range of human capital.
However, in the modern era, the state has largely alienated these bonds, and taken away the social nature of men by placing the state in control of the human functions. Likewise, the nature of capitalism places man into an uncooperative being, who, once achieving wealth, realises "the conscience of human solidarity [...] then they try to find an outcome for that deeply human
need by giving their fortune, or their forces, to something which, in their opinion, will promote general welfare." (240-241).
This, roughly describes the plight of modern man, he is alienated from natural social bonds by the oppressive state, but he still has the innate compassionate tendency, leading to a mismatch between society and humanity, a feeling of alienation. An oddly conservative element appears out of this argument, with Kropotkin arguing that traditions and customs were kept alive by man, in spite of the ruthless anti-humanistic tendencies of the state. This is a thread Kropotkin should have developed more in this work, but I can understand why he wanted to keep the book focused on the Darwinian, and anthropological-scientific matters, above the political economy of his time.
Another thing to note is Kropotkin's lack of reliance on Rousseau. Keeping with the scientific theme of the work, Kropotkin argues that Hobbes' world, like Rousseau's is purely speculative, and that scientific research demonstrates that we needn't rely on either. Related to this, I've noticed that a lot of people raise Stephen Jay Gould's article on
Kropotkin as an example of Mutual Aid's contemporary relevance. With the summary on the blurb of MA reading "In fact, I would hold that Kropotkin’s basic argument is correct. [...] If Kropotkin overemphasized mutual aid, most Darwinians in Western Europe had exaggerated competition just as strongly....".
This is totally agreeable, but it can leave the reader the impression that Kropotkin ignores the violence inherent in human history, which he does not. In fact, Kropotkin has no qualms pointing to the obvious fact that violence occurred (often as a last resort), superstition held some groups back, consanguinous relations were part of normal savage life, and the myth of the noble savage is dispensed with. "In the last century the 'savage' and his 'life in the state of nature' were idealized. But now men of science have gone to the opposite extreme [...] It is evident, however, that this exaggeration is even more unscientific than Rousseau's idealization. The savage is not an ideal of virtue, nor is he an ideal of 'savagery'...
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Brilliant, albeit I did sense a stench of confirmation bias in various regards, I will definitely have to read da bread book xD
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
I came by way of this book through a completely surprising path. In reading the biography of an eminent Philosophy professor in the Romanian Academia of the first half of the 20th century (Nae Ionescu), Kropotkin was almost a footnote on the page, mentioned as one of the minds of the movements born in those times and whose readings might have influenced our professor.
In researching details for a better understanding, I found read about Anarchy and the Mutual Aid movements, as Kropotkin calls them, along the centuries, where unions of people banned together to regain their freedom, independence and sense of humanity. Kropotkin combated T.H.Husley's Darwinist theories about the survival of species, showing in Mutual Aid how, since the very beginning, human collectives have followed the natural laws of any society - be it human or animal - in putting their efforts together to feed the entire community and taking care of its weakest, whenever the possibilities allowed it. The tribes evolved into clans, evolved into villages, evolved into free cities, such as beautiful Florence in the Medieval ages. Kropotkin wants to iterate that aid among the members of such communities in the animal kingdom, as much as adaptation, has been the key factor in their survival and that we've always turned to one another in times of need and it was our cooperation that has made this world possible.
A lot has changed since the 15th centuries, when warlords became kings and disbanded guilds and self ruling societies in favor of their autocracies. A lot more has changed since Kropotkin wrote his book. Society still thrives and flourishes but it also creates numerous problems that are being ignored by those we choose to lead us. Mutual aid still thrives in the numerous organizations that rise to the needs of the many who do not have the means to help themselves, they lend a voice to those that do not have it, they fight for the well being of all in their community, not just of those that can afford it, and anarchy lives in the spirit of those echo villages, where men gather into self operating communities, striving for as much independence as we're allowed these days.
Kropotkin never theorized a world in which people would rely less on governments and multinationals and would actively participate in the civic life of their communities as well as the communication with the surrounding communities. Perhaps the world has grown too large for such a concept, too bleak and dangerous, but I think we must think about the kind of world that we want to live in, as the one we have right now is not performing to our needs anymore, and try to see the way forward.
In researching details for a better understanding, I found read about Anarchy and the Mutual Aid movements, as Kropotkin calls them, along the centuries, where unions of people banned together to regain their freedom, independence and sense of humanity. Kropotkin combated T.H.Husley's Darwinist theories about the survival of species, showing in Mutual Aid how, since the very beginning, human collectives have followed the natural laws of any society - be it human or animal - in putting their efforts together to feed the entire community and taking care of its weakest, whenever the possibilities allowed it. The tribes evolved into clans, evolved into villages, evolved into free cities, such as beautiful Florence in the Medieval ages. Kropotkin wants to iterate that aid among the members of such communities in the animal kingdom, as much as adaptation, has been the key factor in their survival and that we've always turned to one another in times of need and it was our cooperation that has made this world possible.
A lot has changed since the 15th centuries, when warlords became kings and disbanded guilds and self ruling societies in favor of their autocracies. A lot more has changed since Kropotkin wrote his book. Society still thrives and flourishes but it also creates numerous problems that are being ignored by those we choose to lead us. Mutual aid still thrives in the numerous organizations that rise to the needs of the many who do not have the means to help themselves, they lend a voice to those that do not have it, they fight for the well being of all in their community, not just of those that can afford it, and anarchy lives in the spirit of those echo villages, where men gather into self operating communities, striving for as much independence as we're allowed these days.
Kropotkin never theorized a world in which people would rely less on governments and multinationals and would actively participate in the civic life of their communities as well as the communication with the surrounding communities. Perhaps the world has grown too large for such a concept, too bleak and dangerous, but I think we must think about the kind of world that we want to live in, as the one we have right now is not performing to our needs anymore, and try to see the way forward.