Page 512 - Cultures and Organizations

The Evolution of Cultures 477

boundaries intact is one of the prerequisites for that. The motor of cultural

evolution is fission-fusion dynamics. People perceive these dynamics in
moral terms: “we” are good, while “they” are bad. Yet we urgently need
to get rid of the split between the global connectedness of our trade and
armies on the one hand and the parochial loyalties of our peoples on the
other. In recent millennia, evolution has pressed toward enlargement of the
moral circle, but we are not done yet. We have no choice but to pursue the
direction of expansion of the moral circle to all people in the world. And to
do this, we need to manage selective pressures at all levels of sociality, from
neighborhoods to the “global village community.” Depriving any group of
moral rights or moral duties must be denounced.
The message of this chapter is an encouraging one: you are an integral
part of human evolution, the future is ours to create, and you can make
a contribution, if ever so small. In contrast, the message of the rest of
the book was sobering: although moral circles can be expanded, cultures
resist change. It is therefore not realistic to expect that all world citizens
should become alike. Nor is it desirable or necessary that they should do
so. Peoples will differ, but they have to learn to coexist without wanting
others to become just like them. Any other road is a dead end.