Diversity and Deviance: A Biological Perspective 
by
Paul Grobstein Published in
Bryn Mawr Alumnae Bulletin, Spring 1989
Why does oppression exist? What is responsible for it? Perhaps most
importantly, what can be done about it? In deal with pressing social
and political concerns, it is sometimes helpful to step back at least
briefly and look at the problems from a broader
perspective. Oppression is not unique to a particular time or to a
particular human group. It is instead a longstanding and widespread
phenomenon of human history. One can't escape the feeling that
oppression somehow relates as much to the biology of the human species
(and perhaps to biology more generally) as it does to the
characteristics of individual human beings or of particular social
groups.
This is not to say that nothing can be done about oppression, but
rather that in trying to eliminate it, knowing a bit of biology may be
helpful. Biology, unfortunately, has something of a bad reputation in
this area. Too frequently, one group of human beings has justified
oppression against another group on the grounds of allegedly
biological arguments. The essence of such arguments is that it is
somehow possible to rank groups of human beings one against another
and hence to say which is superior and which inferior. I hope to
convey here, first and foremostly, that any argument of this kind
reflects a profound misunderstanding of basic principles of biological
organization. In fact, I believe that these principles do more than
provide a basis for the rejection of specious arguments: they provide
as well as useful framework for new efforts to understand and combat
oppression.
When someone mentions biology, the first thing that probably comes to
most people's minds is "evolution operates through the survival of the
fittest" or "oxygen is necessary for life" or some other similar rule
taught in biology class. These rules are useful summarizing statements
about one of the most characteristic features of living organization:
it has a very high degree of order. But if, instead of calling up
associations with biology in the classroom, we look around and try to
describe life as we actually see it, its most obvious characteristic
is not order. It is instead diversity. When you look out the window,
what you see is not a predictable distribution of a particular element
but an assortment of living things, and assortment which is different
in each direction you look. Moreover, if you happen to see six pine
trees, you don't see one paradigmatic pine tree replicated six
times. You see six pine trees, each different from the others. This is
true of any biological system: a cell, an organism, a group of
organisms, the entire earth. They are all made up of elements which
differ from one another.
Diversity is as fundamental to life as is order. It is neither
incidental nor detrimental. It is instead essential to the success of
any biological entity. A human being exists only as an assembly of
many different kinds of cells: blood cells, skin cells, sex cells,
brain cells, lymphocytes, and so on. Not only do cells differ in kind,
but in many cases, there are important differences among individual
cells of a given kind. Similarly, the earth can exist as a biosphere
precisely because of the diversity of organisms it contains. Animals
are not capable of photosynthesis and would not survive if there
weren't plants to trap the energy of sunlight. The success of
biological systems in general is due not to homogeneity but to
heterogeneity: they depend critically on the existence of differences
in the elements which make them up. The human species is no different,
and this alone is enough to raise serious questions about any effort
to rank one human or group of humans against another. It is
meaningless to ask whether one lymphocyte is better than another, or
whether blood cells are better than nerve cells. Each is essential for
the success of the others, and for the success of the larger whole.
Diversity is of even greater importance for the origin of successful
biological systems. The reason we exist in our current forms is that,
over a long period of time, variants of the ancestors of humans, and
before that, variants of the ancestors of the ancestors were
produced. Natural selection acted on the pool of variationto yield
what we now see as human beings, and the same is true of lions,
wolves, maples, and piranha. Natural selection isn't interested in
producing a perfect lion, maple, piranha or human being. Rather, the
biological process aims to produce variants. This is the only way to
be prepared for unknown challenges, times when the environment, the
reality which selection reflects, changes in unpredictable ways. It is
the variants which provide the basis for dealing with such
challenges. The odds against the survival of a completely homogeneous
species are exceedingly grim. We are the product of those variants,
over millions of years, who were able to survive and reproduce in the
face of new, sometimes sudden, challenges. Our survival continues to
depend on our production and nurturing of variants. There is no way
for us to predict which variants of the human species will be able to
cope well in an unknown future environment.
Diversity is thus fundamental to successful biological organization
for two reasons: a profound mutual interdependence of variants in the
here and now, and an even more profound dependence on variants to meet
the challenges of the future. Together, these two characteristics make
absolute nonsense of any argument which claims that human beings can
be biologically ranked one against another. Without the prototype, the
paradigm which has never and will never exist, and which would not be
in the best interests of life anyhow, there is no biological sense to
the words "superior" and "inferior."
I think that this biological perspective has an even wider
significance. It suggests that diversity is not only something to be
tolerated but something to be encouraged. The best argument against
oppression may not be the common characteristics of all human
beings but the great, indeed critical, value of their differences. Our
political system appropriately acknowledges the common characteristics
as a basis for every individual's human rights. But a properly
functioning social system may well depend as much on the differences
among individuals as it does on their similarities. Biology would seem
to tell us that the rights of individuals and of distinctive groups of
individuals should be regarded as deriving not only from their common
characteristics but also from their differences.
The biological perspective may also help in answering the question of
why oppression exists, though what I have to offer here is more an
approach for further investigation than a completed explanation. The
order evident in biological systems, as I have said, derives from and
continues to be dependent on the generation of diversity. Yet too high
a degree of deviance may disrupt some minimum level of order on which
biological systems also depend. There is a dynamic tension between
order and variance. Surely on e of the roots of oppression is a
perceived threat on the part of one group that the social system will
be disrupted by another group.
What needs to be explored is the human inclinationto equate the
disturbance or altering of social systems with biological hazard. In
the case of convicted murderers, there is a reasonable basis for
equating social and biological threat. But to perceive a particular
skin color as biologically hazardous is, very simply, to be wrong.
We need a better understanding of how humans learn to perceive and
evaluate threats as individuals and as groups, of what disrupts and
what supports group cohesiveness, and of how group identification and
success relate to biological success. These questions are complex and
extend from the realm of biology into those of psychology, sociology,
and political science. At the same time, these questions are
approachable, and the understanding gained from investigating them
might go a long way toward helping the human species outgrow its
oppressive inclincations.
There is hard work to be done, and much time to pass, before
oppression will disappear entirely as a characteristic of our
species. But the objective, as seen from the biological standpoint, is
clear: a social and political system which respects and nurtures
differences instead of attempting to eliminate them, and one which
assures that community actions reflect the wisdom inherent in the
assortment of perspectives made available by those differences and not
the relative numbers, wealth, or status of the individuals holding the
various perspectives.
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