Page 194 - Communication and the Evolution of Society

171 Historical Materialism

problems arise: What is the equivalent for the process of muta-
tion? What is the equivalent for the ability of a population to
survive? Finally, what is the equivalent for the evolutionary step-
ladder occupied by the various species?

a. In my view, the heuristic usefulness of the biological model
consists in its directing our attention to the evolutionary learning
mechanism. At the basis of cultural tradition there is evidently
a variety-generating mechanism that, in what is for the time being
a vague sense, corresponds to mutation. Natural evolution is not
affected by those individual learning processes of individual or-
ganisms that extend and modify genetically programmed behav-
ior (for the behavioral modification is limited to the life-cycle
of the individual organism and not fed back into the next round
of reproduction of the genetic makeup). By contrast, at the socio-
cultural stage of development learning processes are socially or-
ganized from the start, so that the results of learning can be
handed down. Thus cultural tradition provides a medium through
which variety-generating innovations can operate after the mech-
anism of natural evolution has come to rest.
The differences between mutation processes and social learning
leap to the eye.”° In the case of social evolution the learning
process takes place not through changes in genetic makeup but
through changes in knowledge potential. The distinction between
phenotype and genotype loses its meaning at this level. The
intersubjectively shared knowledge that is passed on is part of
the social system and not the property of isolated individuals; for
they become individuals only in the process of socialization. Nat-
ural evolution leads to a more or less homogeneous repertoire of
behavior among the members of a species, whereas social learning
results in an accelerated diversification of behavior. These com-
parisons could be continued. But I see a fundamental difficulty
in the fact that while biochemistry has recently met with success
in analyzing the process of mutation, the learning mechanism
that is at the basis of so complex a phenomenon as cultural tra-
dition is almost unknown. Again cognitive and analytical devel-
opmental psychology hold out some promise here; as learning
mechanisms they propose either accommodation and assimilation