Vedic Dharma: Collective conscience in the age of despotic individualism

Photo: Sugarridge.ca

In his seminal work “Sapiens”, Yuval Noah Harari observed that human success over all other species of nature rests on one very special quality of human’s; bigger collaboration!

He compared human collaborative activities with that of Chimpanzee’s. Chimpanzees are apparently more natural and practical than human, as they would collaborate only with other Chimpanzees they could directly interact with. That means, a Chimpanzee would interact and collaborate only for utilitarian purposes with other Chimpanzees who are in his close vicinity, has constant interaction, with whom he could share foods and other stuff and whom he knows personally. Harari also observed that, with these criteria, the size of a functional Chimpanzee group would never exceed the number of 150. Because, in Chimpanzee’s cognitive capacity, it is not possible to memorize, interact, know more than 150 individuals. As practical as a Chimpanzee is, he / she would not likely to recognize a distant friend or relative, with whom he /she has little or no interaction or daily use!   

The humans on the other hand, regularly collaborate with far larger number of people, even distant one with whom he / she never directly interacted with!

Why?

Because human believe others, trust others, observe and explore others. Human has much bigger cognitive capacity than Chimpanzees that enable him/her to interact, feel, imagine even about far distant things with which he / she has little to no direct interaction. Human invented transaction, trade relationship, friendship and even matrimonial relationships!