September 8, 2010--The Lord of the Andes

The Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding during the Cold War, is set at a time in the future when a nuclear World War III was raging. The main characters are from private schools in Great Britain who find themselves alone and isolated in a paradisiacal country, far from any trace of civilization. The book portrays their descent into savagery: these well-educated children regress to a primitive state.

The allegory is obvious--

Golding's is a deeply pessimistic view of human nature. Man, he asserts, if left to his own devices, without clear ethical codes, the imposition of civilization, and the rule of law, will strive for power and dominance in a bloody struggle for survival. His a limited version of Darwinism with nature, as Tennyson wrote, "red in tooth and claw."

A closer reading of Darwin shows him not only explicating the combative ways in which individual members of a species struggle to survive and thereby pass on their genetic makeup, but reveals how he also struggled to understand how self-sacrifice among many creatures also contributes to species propagation. How, for example, social amoebas (dictyostelium discoideum) and common ants sacrifice their individual lives so that others might survive and thereby produce future generations.

In The Descent of Man, in response to John Stuart Mill who saw human goodness as a learned and not an inherent trait, Darwin wrote:

. . . it can hardly be disputed that the social feelings are instinctive or innate in lower animals and why should they not be in man? . . . Several thinkers believe that the moral sense is acquired by each individual during its lifetime. On the general theory of evolution this is at least extremely improbable

.

There are numerous human examples of this same kind of self-sacrificing behavior. From the battle field where a soldier throws himself on a live hand grenade, giving up his life to save his buddies, to firemen racing into a collapsing building to rescue others. As we approach the ninth anniversary of September 11th, we are reminded of hundreds of stories of this kind of remarkable courage where saving the lives of others trumps saving even one's own.

And now there is the stunning example of the 33 miners who have been trapped a half mile below ground in a gold and copper mine in Chile. Unlike the boys of The Lords of the Flies who descended into barbarism that included cannibalism, the men of San José, Chile have risen to civilization. (See New York Times story linked below.)

During the 35 days they have thus far been underground, huddled in an area the size of a small apartment, even before being contacted by rescuers who now are able to supply them via a four-inch bore hole, they organized themselves into a mini functioning society. The oldest of them, 62-year-old Mario Gómez has become their spiritual guide while 54-year-old Luis Urzúa organizes their daily work assignments and is in charge of guiding the drilling of the rescue tunnel. And there is Yonny Barrios, 52, who is serving as their medic, following instructions from literally above about the administration of medical tests and medicines.

Chile's health minister says, "They are completely [self] organized. They have a full hierarchy. It is a matter of life and death for them."

It will not be until at least Christmas before they are rescued--more allegory--and no one seems unduly concerned that they will not survive because they are taking care of themselves and, at least as important, each other.

Darwin is surely smiling. As are our ancestors the dictyostelium discoideum.