ECOLOGY OF EVERYDAY LIFE
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subjective sensuality in the natural world, Kropotkin portrayed the pleasure
gleaned from the animal play of higher mammals as a joy of life.
The idea that animal behavior may be driven by something other than
utility or necessity, something homologous to human desire, represents a radical
break with the Hobbseyan portrayal of nature (and society) as a war of all
against all. In turn, by emphasizing the theme of a tendency in the natural world
toward mutualism, Kropotkin challenged the Baconian portrayal of nature as an
inert passive machine, a portrayal popularized with the emergence of modem
Cartesian science. For Kropotkin, a trend toward latent mutualism is constitutive
of a development that becomes more complex, rational, and conscious through
the evolutionary process. According to Kropotkin, this trend expresses itself “in
proportion as we ascend the scale of evolution, growing more and more
conscious (eventually losing its) purely physical character.. .ceasing to be simply
instinctive, it becomes reasoned, it becomes a voluntary deviation from habitual
moods of life.” 4
Hence, this latent level of mutualistic ‘joy5 in more simple species
gradually gives way to degrees of more intentional and conscious associative
‘joy5 in more complex species. This trend can be observed in the elaborate
grooming behaviors of most primates which serve not only the function of
necessary hygiene, but of sensual nurturing and social reassurance as well.
We may trace humanity's social desire for sensual association back to this
latent mutualistic tendency in the natural world. The human yearning for a
particular quality of association, one that is subjectively pleasurable, finds its
origin within latent degrees of subjectivity in the animal world as species strive
not only for that which is physically necessary, but that which is qualitatively
desirable as well. In this way, we could say that in the natural world, there exist
nascent expressions of a sensual and associative subjectivity that become
increasingly conscious within humanity in the form of self-conscious sensual
and associative desire.
However, we must not overstate the homology between a mutualistic
tendency in nature and social desire in society. Kropotkin erred on the side of
romanticism in his exuberant anthropomorphic celebration of ‘dancing ants’.
What makes Kropotkin’s discussion radical is not his romantic idealization of
animal behavior, but rather, his understanding of the continuity between the
tendency for mutualism in nature and culture that runs through natural
evolution.
TIhE EcoEROTiC PRiNCiplE Of DiffERENTiATfoN
Exploring the qualitative and subjective dimensions within species brings us to
the
second
ecological
principle
of
differentiation.
The
principle
of
differentiation in nature represents the tendency toward flexibility,, spontaneity,
and creativity which allows organisms to deviate from established patterns or
norms. Geneticist Barbara McClintock, who studied genetic mutations in com,