The Parable of the Tribes - Essay Example

Schmookler believes that for a creature to grow culture to the point that it can devise its way of life seems to offer freedom. Still, that freedom is a trap, and that freedom for any existing society is anarchy in a cooperative system of these societies. Anarchy — exceptional in life history - makes inevitable a power struggle amongst clubs. This perpetual competition, together with open-ended cultural innovation possibilities, inevitably drives social evolution towards an unchosen direction, according to the author: ways of life which do not confer adequate power, regardless of how civilized intrinsically, are eradicated, while the power ways are relentlessly spread throughout the system (Schmookler, 93).

The author says that he experienced the vision containing his idea in 1970, and the book developing the image was published in 1984. In between those years, he asserts that he had conducted research in the many diverse, relevant study areas to check out the central thesis and the various subordinate hypotheses that forms the components of the general theoretical edifice. Schmookler relies on a schematically nursed parable to lay down his argument: how one aggressive tribe among an otherwise peaceful group can force the spread of power, civilization and involuntary cultural evolution. The author offers the reader a model that makes his / her predicament understandable, which makes the book important. It supplies pieces missing from a great puzzle (Schmookler, 83).

While human well-being could be incidental to one major social-evolutionary force, there remains room for human ambition to dictate the other part of the evolution story. I, therefore, argue that not that Schmookler’s work has been the only force directing civilization evolution but only that it stands out as a significant factor. Civilization evolution can be seen as a debate between the organized selection for power and the human striving for a civilized world, between the necessities forced upon humankind irrespective of their efforts and their wishes to be capable of choosing the cultural setting in which they will live.