Mutual help in the animal and human world

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Title page of the first German edition as mutual aid in development from 1904.

Mutual aid in the animal and human world ( English original title Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution ) is a book published in 1902 by Peter Kropotkin . Criticizing the theses of conventional social Darwinist views, he contrasts the struggle for existence with the concept of mutual help and sees both together as factors of evolution .

Although the book met with only moderate interest in scientific circles after its publication, it was later rediscovered in the reinterpretation of Darwin's theses and influenced modern scientists such as Imanishi Kinji , Ashley Montagu and Adolf Portmann .

Creation and publication

Kropotkin made mutual aid the foundation of his theory of communist anarchism early on , for example in his book Die Eroberung des Bread . His ideas for mutual aid go back to his experiences in Siberia , where he undertook long scientific and geographical research trips between 1862 and 1867 . Kropotkin later got to know the idea of mutual aid through a lecture given by Professor Karl F. Kessler , then Dean of the University of St. Petersburg , whose lecture he read in 1883. In January 1880, Professor Kessler gave a lecture to the Russian Congress of Naturalists on The Law of Mutual Aid , in which he said: “Mutual aid is just as much a law of nature as mutual struggle, but it is of the nature for the progressive development of the species much more important than struggle. ”This formula made Kropotkin the basis of his own work on mutual aid.

After Kropotkin moved to London in 1886 , he was given the opportunity to present his ideas to a scientific audience. In Great Britain he was already known for his geographical work. So Kropotkin were offered membership in the British Royal Geographical Society and a chair in geography at the University of Cambridge , which he declined because of his political work and his views. After his necrology by Darwin and in brief an article in the British monthly magazine Nineteenth Century 1887, Kropotkin was able to present his point of view for the first time in a lecture entitled Justice and Morality at the Ancoats Brotherhood in Manchester in 1888 before a larger audience. In it, Kropotkin described how - in contrast to the views of Thomas H. Huxley and Herbert Spencer - morality was already present in animals and prehistoric humans. In the course of evolution, this morality developed into the feeling of justice and finally the feeling of altruism .

The individual chapters of the later book appeared between 1890 and 1896 as a series of articles in the British magazine Nineteenth Century . The article wrote Kropotkin in response to Social Darwinism and in particular to the article Thomas H. Huxley from February 1888 in the same magazine named Struggle for Existence and its Bearing upon Man ( "The struggle for existence and its significance for humans") . Huxley compared the evolution with the fight of gladiators in the arena, where the stronger, smarter and faster survive only to compete against other opponents the next day. At Kropotkin's request, James Knowles, founder of Nineteenth Century, agreed to include a Kropotkin's reply in the magazine. The book was published in London in October 1902 and was translated into various languages ​​shortly after publication.

In 1904 the work was first translated into German by Gustav Landauer . It was published by Theodor Thomas Verlag under the title Mutual Help in Development . Further new editions were published by the same publisher in 1908, 1910 and 1920 under the title Mutual Aid in the Animal and Human World . In 1975 the work was published again after a long interruption by Karin Kramer Verlag and a year later by Ullstein Verlag . 1989, 1993 and 2005 editions followed in Still publishing and 2011 Alibri publishing .

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Mutual aid in the animal world

With honey bees , for example , Kropotkin shows that the strategy of mutual aid is much more widespread in the animal world than the struggle for existence . (Supplementary figure)

Starting with simple animal species, Kropotkin presents information about species-preserving properties in insects ( ants and bees), in birds (e.g. sea ​​eagles or kestrels ) and finally in mammals . Common hunting strategies, the rearing of young animals, mutual protection in gatherings, herds and packs , the concern for sick conspecifics and the ritual avoidance of conflicts within a species point to mutual help as an actually successful survival strategy in nature and as a drive for evolution. He sees the Darwinian term of the survival of the fittest misinterpreted by the social Darwinists: The fittest does not necessarily mean the strongest or the most ruthless for him , but describes the most adapted with regard to the survival of the entire system and one's own species. The system-endangering prevalence of individual animal species is rather prevented by climate fluctuations and diseases and less by the struggle within a species, which Kropotkin proves with reference to buffalo, horses and predators in North America , which at the time did not suffer from food shortages but indulge in abundance.

He thus contradicts the validity of the population law of Malthus , of which the evolutionists of his time were convinced: While the food supply can only be tapped arithmetically , the population grows exponentially, which leads to an intraspecific struggle for survival. Kropotkin sees this natural law (and its transfer to capitalist societies as a cultural law) as the product of an ideology of justification for social Darwinism. It proves that rather a development towards cooperation dominates: Even predators can prey more when hunting together than the sum of the prey of hunting loners. The main aspect is the natural law of mutual help as a result of sociability and individualism and not the secondary aspect of the struggle for existence under the pressure of short-term hardship. Kropotkin does not deny eating and being eaten in nature, but also understands this as a principle in nature that, like other forms (e.g. symbiosis ), ensures the stability and survivability of the entire system.

Mutual help in the human world

Clan societies

The Dayak ; neither noble savages nor Hobbesian wolves : they see headhunting as a moral duty, but ethnologists describe them as extremely social and lovable and despise robbery and theft. (Supplementary figure)

Primitive peoples are organized in clans , that is, numerous associations within a tribe based on kinship . These clans are jointly owned and the booty is shared with all members; a form of coexistence that Kropotkin calls a primitive communism . Individualism is unknown to most indigenous peoples and incomprehensible. Coexistence is regulated by social norms as unwritten laws that are seldom broken. The people in primitive peoples know no authority , except public opinion , with which they can sanction the wrongdoing of other people. For example, Kropotkin mentions the practice of the hunters among the Eskimo people of the Aleutians of giving up all their prey to a greedy fellow hunter in order to shame him. Kropotkin illustrates his remarks on tribes that have retained their traditional way of life and have been researched by many contemporary ethnologists, such as the Yámana of Patagonia , the Khoi Khoi or the Tungus .

He criticizes the one-sided speculative images of man on the one hand by Jean-Jacques Rousseau with his idealized noble savage and on the other hand by Thomas Hobbes' idea that man is a wolf to man . Huxley's interpretation of the uncivilized savages who practice cannibalism , infanticide and the abandoning of old people, refutes Kropotkin and presents them as rough generalizations. With some peoples, cannibalism is practiced when there is an extreme shortage of food, although with some peoples of Mexico or Fiji cannibalism has become religious ceremonial developed. The killing of children happens only rarely and in dire straits, and old people voluntarily stay behind in times of need because they do not want to jeopardize the life of the entire clan. As a rule, indigenous peoples treat the elderly with care and greatly appreciate them.

Families are later developments in human evolutionary history and not, as Thomas H. Huxley thinks, preconscious basic units to which unconscious beings unite in the course of evolution and only in the course of time formed clans, tribes, peoples and nations . According to Kropotkin, families have only gradually evolved from clan societies as a result of changing marriage conventions.

The village march of the barbarians

Mutual help with the Kabyle shows, for example, in caring for the poor and hungry, regardless of their origin. (Supplementary figure)

The growth of the clan organization as well as the migration of individual families of a clan and the admission of members of foreign origin into one's own clan gradually led to the clan organization being replaced by village communities . Kropotkin points out that this process was very similar in different parts of the world. The village mark refers to a defined area and thus defined a territorial community. At the same time as the community expanded, it was also able to integrate people from other tribes.

Kropotkin shows the forms of mutual help in different communities, such as the Ossetians , the Buryats , the village communities of the Scots and the South Slavs . Ethnologists point out the special role of private property in all communities. No community knows the exclusive and unrestricted private property. This is limited to personal matters or is distributed as a share of the common ground and reallocated after a certain period of time. The community regulates its affairs in popular assemblies (such as the Germanic Thing or the djemmaa in the Kabyle of North Africa). Some communities write down their decisions, but the spoken word is binding in all cases.

The forms of mutual help are very similar in different and widely separated village communities. In many cases, mediators are used to try to settle conflicts. As a further example, Kropotkin cites agreements that include that in the event of war no vital objects are destroyed or attacked, such as the market place, wells or canals.

The guilds of the medieval cities

For Kropotkin, guilds are another mutual aid institution . They arise in all areas of life, whether as beggars, craftsmen or traders guilds, also as temporary agreements. In principle, all members of a guild have equal rights, with differences only being made on the basis of age and professional experience. The guild realizes a brotherly ideal and acts, for example, as a common buyer of raw materials and tools and as a common seller of the products it makes. The individual guilds combine all functions necessary for survival and therefore form an autonomous society on a small scale. They have their own jurisdiction and form their own band in military conflicts. The prosperity of the medieval cities is based on the autonomy of their guilds.

The decline of the guilds and the free cities is heralded by the strengthening of the central states in the 16th century. These destroy the networks of mutual aid by privatizing common property and banning the guilds so as not to allow a “ state within a state ” to emerge.

Mutual help in modern society

Kropotkin describes how the principles of the Dorfmark have survived in some rural communities. Kropotkin cites examples from communities in Germany , England , France and Switzerland . Cooperatives and syndicates were formed for joint projects, such as the joint purchase of fertilizer or to finance a water pump for everyone. In Germany, for example, Kropotkin describes the Kegel Brothers and the Froebel Association , which introduced the kindergarten system. In Great Britain he describes the Lifeboat Association as an institution of mutual aid. He specifically refers to the preservation of the Artels in Russia , the Balkan Peninsula and the Caucasus , where these small cooperative associations of farmers, traders and artisans were formed to regulate common affairs.

Quote

“However, every time you went back to that old principle [of mutual help], your basic idea was expanded. It expanded from the clan to the people, to the union of the people, to the people and finally - at least ideally - to the whole of humanity. It was also refined at the same time. In original Buddhism, in early Christianity, in the writings of some Muslim teachers, in the first writings of the Reformation, and especially in the ethical and philosophical movements of the last century and our own time, the idea of ​​vengeance or retribution - good for good and evil for evil - always harder. The higher notion of "no vengeance for wrongdoings" and voluntarily giving more than one expects to receive from one's neighbor is proclaimed as the true moral principle - a principle more valuable than the principle of equality or justice, and that is more appropriate to create happiness. And man is called upon not to let himself be guided in his actions not only by love, which always relates only to persons, at best to the tribe, but by the awareness of his unity with every person. In the activity of mutual help, which we can follow right up to the very beginning of development, we find the positive and indubitable origin of our moral ideas; and we can say that mutual assistance - not mutual struggle - has played a major part in human ethical progress. In his extensive activity - also in our time - we see the best guarantee for an even more proud development of the human race. "

- Peter Kropotkin : Mutual help in the animal and human world

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literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. The individual articles appeared in the Nineteenth Century as follows: Mutual Aid among Animals , September and November 1890; Mutual Aid among Savages , April 1891; Mutual Aid among the Barbarians, January 1892; Mutual Aid in the Mediaeval City, August and September 1894; Mutual Aid Amongst Modern Men, January 1896; Mutual Aid Among Ourselves, June 1896.

Individual evidence

  1. For the current relevance of Kropotkin, see: Günther Ortmann: Organization and World Opening: Deconstruction. Springer 2008, p. 259 f.
  2. ^ Rattner, Josef: Humanism and the social thought in Russian literature of the 19th century . Königshausen & Neumann, 2003, p. 219.
  3. Nettlau, Max : The first heyday of anarchy 1886-1894 . History of Anarchy, Volume IV. Topos Verlag, Vaduz 1981, p. 32.
  4. ^ Kropotkin, Pëtr Alekseevič: Spravedlivost i Nravstvennost . Golos Truda, Petersburg / Moscow 1921, p. 45 ff.
  5. Jan Sapp: Evolution by Association . Oxford University Press US, 1994, p. 21.
  6. ^ Heinz Hug: Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921). Bibliography . Nevertheless-Verlag, Grafenau 1994, p. 80.
  7. Prince Peter Kropotkin: Mutual help in the animal and human world Verlag von Theod. Thomas, Leipzig, 1908, p. 274 f.