Cooperation is in the essence of the human being, although the current development model, today in crisis, has marginalized it in favor of competition. That is why we need to recover such necessary aspects as creativity, self-management and mutual support.
A century ago, the Russian ethnologist Pyotr Kropotkin demonstrated the fundamental role of cooperation and mutual support for human beings; among other things, because it was the determining factor in the evolutionary process of Homo sapiens. This theory, which questions Charles Darwin’s vision and highlights its inadequacies, is supported by many current scientists, including biologists Máximo Sandín and Humberto Maturana. The latter states that «the anthropological origin of Homo sapiens did not come about through competition, as Darwin planned, but through cooperation. During the most remote prehistory, before the appearance of complex societies, human collectives were organized and functioned according to criteria of solidarity, and it was joint action, the search for well-being and the common good, which encouraged creativity and allowed our first ancestors to survive. But in a short time, this way of life linked to the original matriarchy came to be practiced only in some tribal cultures and minority groups, and the predominance of patriarchy – with the consequent hierarchical division of labor, roles and gender that it entails – replaced it with relationships based on the power of a few over all, selfishness and individualism. These are behaviors that industrial society and the current capitalist system -based on competitive barter- have turned into their icons. It is interesting to note that the human mammal is the only species that has broken that form of relationship, innate and natural, based on cooperation, solidarity and mutual support; behavior that, however, occurs throughout the animal kingdom, as Piotr Kropotkin himself demonstrated. Much research has been done in this direction. It is known, for example, that a stressed ant instantly communicates its state to the other ants. The ants react to this by seeking ways to resolve the conflict that arises in their bodies, thus counting all of them. Something similar was described by Karl R. von Frisch, one of the fathers of ethology, in his study of bees. He observed that they have the ability to transmit to their companions the exact location of the pollen they have found by means of a «dance» composed of horizontal and circular movements, a fact that enhances cooperation between all members of the hive and their integration. Therefore, if this behavior is part of animal nature and of the essence of the human being, it is worth asking whether there is any specific factor, beyond the cultural and economic components, that prevents its development and social configuration and, on the contrary, imposes the individualistic and competitive model on society as a whole. It was the Austrian-American neuropsychiatrist Wilhelm Reich who, decades ago, showed that it is decades ago demonstrated that it is precisely our personal structure and its character configuration which is articulated during the maturation process that reinforces and maintains this social dynamic.
We observe that today human beings usually relate to their offspring, from the beginning of their lives until maturity, in an anti-ecological way, by not sufficiently satisfying or even repressing their natural needs, this generates a psychocorporal defensive system or «character-muscular armor» which, although it protects the child from emotional suffering, in adulthood deprives him of internal contact with his natural needs and potentialities, including his capacity for self-regulation, love and cooperation with others, in turn atrophying the feeling of belonging or ecological awareness. The powers that be reinforce this state of affairs through education, social institutions and the media. This is confirmed by the research carried out in recent years by the psychologist Michael Tomasello, co-director of the Max Plan according to this, children who collaborate fairly in a job tend to share the results and the prize, while when they do it individually, their motivation and way of acting is based on obtaining the benefit, one of the conclusions of these studies is that «cooperation is a human tendency mediated by the way we educate». It should also be borne in mind that society has changed dizzyingly in recent decades. Even the theoretical schemes, forms of operation and education that underpinned industrial society, based on the need for mechanical labor and specialized technicians for its development, are no longer of any use. The new technologies are rapidly eliminating jobs, and will do so much more. We are heading towards a society in which «intelligent» machines, at the service of a few, could coexist with large masses of enslaved, misplaced human beings without a specific occupation, which would entail the annulment of identity, and therefore of ecological functioning. In the words of the writer Arthur C. Clarke, «what began as a science fiction novel is being finished as a reportage”.
In the new paradigm that Western society needs to overcome the global and planetary crisis – a paradigm that physicist Fritjof Capra calls Global Ecology – human beings should recover the foundations of their nature, cooperation, solidarity and mutual support being its main references. For all these reasons, we need today, on the one hand, to break with those outdated molds that have proven to lead us to barbarism and the depletion of the planet, with the evident risk that our species will become extinct in a few decades; and on the other hand, to put into practice alternative dynamics based on models of cooperation. For this we need the following principles: Adopt, as far as possible, a «cooperative rationality», so that individual interests cannot be separated from those of the rest of society, trying to put aside, as the Brazilian philosopher Mauricio Abdalla advises, the economistic and individualistic way of thinking and being in reality that dominates nowadays. There are some occasional experiences that can facilitate this cooperative rationality. I remember, in this sense, a session with a therapeutic group in which one of the participants suddenly manifested that, after so many hours of sharing, he felt that, after so many hours in the group, he could not be able to find a way of thinking and being in reality.
Over the course of two years, he finally became aware of who he was; he said he lost the feeling of loneliness by realizing that the rest of the people in the group were with him in some way. What he did had an impact on others; what he did for others had an impact on him. I immediately associated his enthusiastic statement with the phrase with which the great philosopher of complexity, Edgar Morin, once closed an interview: «I am who I am, I am me, I am you, I am the whole of humanity.» To put the necessary means in place to radically change the type of education, directing it – as advocated by Ken Robinson, one of the champions of the «new educational paradigm» (author of The Element, Debolsillo 2011) – towards a model in which collaboration and cooperation prevail. Otherwise, our children, no matter how much homework they do and how brilliant their academic records may be, will not be able to develop their potential or choose a social activity that is satisfactory for themselves and for the collective, for the society in which they live.
To support and make possible the sustainability of all labor collectives that are operating within models based on self-management and ecology, where the authoritarian hierarchy is replaced by the authority of the assembly and the recognition of shared functions. As well as the educational spaces that follow this line. In this sense, I remember a free school with which I have a very close relationship, in which the assembly of children and teachers -which they call the «magic circle»- is the space where tasks are programmed together and where any internal conflicts that may arise among them are resolved.
– Modify the way in which children are accompanied from the beginning of their lives, organizing open, expansive, joyful family systems that truly respond to the needs of their members, and in close collaboration with school spaces.
– Coordinate both spaces, the family and the school, with even ecological parameters, so as to respect the rhythms and trust in the self-regulation capacity of each one, allowing them to participate from the beginning in the decisions, tasks and activities of the space shared by all, recognizing the importance of the family and the school. The family system would facilitate children’s development of their potentialities, limits and idiosyncrasies, so that in turn each member could recognize the potentialities, limits and idiosyncrasies of the others. Thus, the family system would provide children with the development of the instinctive, the innate, the essential, while the school system would provide them with the cognitive substrate, the recognition and management of the innate from concrete instruments, such as organization and work in creative and supportive groups. This model could be extended to sports and leisure clubs, and to any other group in which children develop. These measures would undoubtedly help the new generations -once they acquire their human identity and share an ethic of solidarity- to be able to face the current global crisis with new courses and new skills, and to face the challenges of the new society in order to transform it into a more humane, just and supportive one, in which the life of each and every one of us is better.
