On Communism, Capitalism and Alloparenting.



On Communism, Capitalism and Alloparenting.

Anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy sets out a substantial evidence base to assert that human egalitarianism and prosociality are rooted in cooperative breeding. Unlike other great apes where mothers raise infants alone in competitive hierarchies, early human survival required shared infant care (alloparenting). This interdependence fostered mutual tolerance, empathy, and social monitoring, laying the evolutionary foundation for egalitarian social structures.

An enlarged forebrain and alloparenting evolved together in human history. Cooperative breeding helped provide the extra energy needed to grow a bigger brain. This shared care allowed mothers to raise smart, demanding infants with support from others to be come emotionally intelligent adults who could organise their lives around alloparenting.

What does the enlarged forebrain facilitate?

An enlarged forebrain facilitates advanced cognitive functions, complex social behavior, and flexible problem-solving. It allows humans to process intricate environmental signals, regulate emotions, and adapt to new or unusual challenges

Robert Sapolsky, an eminent and widely respected neuroscientist says the evidence is that the amygdala is set up for trust, and when the needs of the child are met, that trust is strengthened.

In his book Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst, neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky notes: "The default state is to trust, and what the amygdala does is learn vigilance and distrust."This means humans are biologically primed for social connection and cooperation first, while the amygdala steps in later to record fear, detect betrayal, and inject caution based on negative experiences


When the needs of trust building are undone by war, trauma, sexual abuse, acute and chronic impoverishment or neglect the forebrain is derailed as mediator of emotional reaction, and the reactions take over. Behaviour becomes reactive rather than. responsive. Fears conscious and subconscious drive behaviour.

Communism is a term the emerged from within a traumatised culture.

Perhaps it is time to claim Alloparenting Egalitarianism as the modality we seek, rather than that old and destructive cut-cut saw of the Capitalist vs the Communist, given both were and remain profoundly hierarchical, industrial and patriarchal in their original and current form. Neither speak substantively


to meeting the needs of the natural child.

Imagine a child in the future where wealth-as-power, militarism, misogyny and bigotry are absent in our society, and a child asks his or her or their parents "Mama, papa, what was war?"

What would they say to the child, what would be the child's response to what they describe?

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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