The frequent brutal conditions under which the majority of human beings are living in the 21st century is exercising the minds or more than just the left in general and the Anticapitalist left in particular, but is also exercising the minds of the middle class liberal professionals. The latest example I have come across is someone called Jeremy Griffeth who is anxious to save humanity and also claims to have the support of many professionally qualified educators, doctors and intellectuals. His literary diagnosis and prognosis has been advertised in several posts on YouTube. In these he confidently attempts to answer the following rhetorical question;

“..why we humans are the way we are, so brutally competitive, selfish and aggressive that human life has become all but unbearable.” (J. Griffith. YouTube)

The first thing to note in the above extract is that this intellectual identifies a definite trait of some human beings – which does exist – but, just like all religions and right wing secular intellectuals, he applies this trait to all human beings. Which, of course, is just childish nonsense. This assertion is either an expression of ignorance of the existence of alternative characteristics in humanity or an expression of a prior ideologically position, which is overwhelmingly prejudiced. The extract above is not being proposed by someone with a neutral or rational frame of thinking or balanced experience of human life in general. In real life not all human beings are brutally competitive, selfish and aggressive and those that manifest those characteristics do not display such negative characteristics all the time and against all other life forms. Indeed, daily experience of life confirms the fact that human beings in most places and in most cases, if not neutral, are frequently unselfish, cooperative, gentle and supportive.

These alternative characteristics are obvious from the direct experience of everyday human life and from a consideration of animal and human behaviour across continents and across historical times. If we exclude the tiny minority of predatory species within the millions of biological species of life on earth, the overwhelming biological characteristics of the vast majority of species, from plants, insects, animals and humans, does not support that assertion by Jeremy Griffith. Even predatory species of life once their nutritional needs are met by killing and consuming their prey, cease to exhibit these characteristics and rarely display them against their own species or their own particular offspring. So even in the worst case examples of brutality the characteristic he mentions are not sustained or universal. This suggests that during the long evolution of life on earth, from single celled bacteria, to multi-cellular organic species of various sizes, morphological forms and environments, the biological norm has been overwhelmingly neutral or supportive to the existence of the rest of life on earth.

These more rounded observations will also suggest even more conclusions for thinkers who can approach the subject of humanity from non-ideological perspectives. It suggests that the characteristics of competition, selfishness and aggression are not some inner biological tendencies (or ‘instincts’) which will inevitably surface or burst out, but are more likely to be the results of particular existential or environmental circumstances which bear down upon life forms, in such a way as to disturb the above noted evolutionary biological norm. However, the author, Jeremy Griffith, the biologist, although he claims his theories are based upon biology goes on to assert that;

“our species’ divisive behaviour is due to a psychosis” (ibid)

So although repeatedly claiming his theory is based on biology when it is considered closely it is in fact based on individual psychology as his above diagnostic assertion of “species psychosis” indicates. It is at this point we can begin to suspect that his approach contains some ancient as well as 18th, 19th, and 20th century anthropocentric assumptions and prejudices. Indeed, the term psychology stems from the ancient Greek concept of psuche, and from the 19th century, the discipline of psychology has been defined as a ‘science of the ‘mind’. And of course the term ‘mind’, like the term ‘psyche’ is itself a pre-scientific term for the bio-chemical and electrical processes of a biological organ within animals now generally known as the ‘brain’. Since the 19th century it has been known that, this biological organ of the human (and animal body) has several physical layers (the cerebrum, the cerebellum, the thalamus, neocortex etc.) and the whole complex organ functions as a central processing and storing of information received from the sensory organs located on the bodies of most animals.

So already the language and thinking of this particular individual author is of ancient rather than modern understanding of the human condition. Therefore,  when he describes our human condition as psychologically troubled, he demonstrates that he has no clue what underlying socio-biological factors create the troubled condition he chooses to classifies as psychological. Indeed, he seems to have little understanding of the bio-chemical basis of life in general or the contradictory socio-biological life of humans in particular.

Despite extensive experiments in social conditioning by animal and human psychologists in which the manipulated social experiences of life have been demonstrated to ‘condition’ the behaviours and emotions of those experiencing them, he draws no inspiration from these science based conclusions. Instead, he goes on to speculate about what he classifies as an intellectual “predicament” arising in a hypothetical ‘transition’ between the pre-human condition currently designated as hominid to the one now designated as Homo-Sapien, and begins to wonders about it;

“the predicament faced by an animal whose life had always been controlled by its instincts suddenly developing a conscious mind,'” (ibid)

Once again we encounter an intellectual who has not extricated himself from ancient and later anthropocentric assumptions about animals who are pre-supposed to function on the basis lf ‘instincts’ rather than various forms of conscious processing of information about the world around them. The concept of ‘Instinct’ itself is rather like the concept of ‘gravity’, it merely identifies an observed effect whilst having no knowledge of the cause. Its use, as with ‘gavity’ is a pretence to knowledge, when in fact there is none. In reality, animal behaviour is not entirely or even in a major way controlled by something we don’t know (i.e. instincts). We do know that at least from birth forward, each individual animal is determined and effected by three external natural forces; the first is the inorganic forces and materials of the biosphere, such as gravity, air, sunlight and water. The second is the species multi-cellular body form the individual animal is born with, which determines how the individual animal and its senses interact with and within the biosphere.

The third is the immediate species community the individual animal is born among. At the very least, for most animals and mammals, that will be with the female animal who bore the individual. Even the offspring of many egg laying animals once they leave the shell, will imprint on the sight, sound and scent of the first entity they identify by their conscious perception and normally that will also be the female who bore them and who they will then receive nutrition from her – and often from the male partner also. Thus from leaving the female body they too become aware that they are part of a social group, whether it is a large or small one. During that formative period the new borns will learn by watching and imitation and part of that learning will be appropriate behaviour with those of their own species and with the other species sharing the same section or environment of the biosphere. That interaction will have multiple sources of social, environmental and behavoural inputs and adjustments depending upon the complexity of the particular species sensory organs and cells. But considering a broad spectrum of science based understandings is not the direction this author is taking.

In order to advance his thesis on human nature and convince the reader on how he thinks we ought to cure its so-called psychosis, this author next creates a fictitious character called Adam Stork (I assure you I am not making this up) who supposedly represents the average hominid proto-human being and writes the following;

“Adam Stork doesn’t think about or question his behaviour, he just follows what his instincts tell him to do..” (ibid)

Now just note here that the authors line of imaginative story telling has the verbal abstraction ‘instincts’ (which I suggest do not exist as entities or even as useful descriptions) telling the imaginary Adam Stork what to do and this is not the end of this imaginary nonsense. The author continues taking his readers on a trip down his Alice in Wonderland type rabbit hole by suggesting that Adam Stork has been trying to be different but then we are informed that;

“Adam’s instincts realise he has strayed off course they are going to criticise his deprogrammed behaviour and dogmatically try to pull him back on his instinctive flight path, aren’t they? In effect, they are going to condemn him as being bad.” (ibid)

Note that in this imaginary ancient narrative, ‘instincts’ have gained some conscious understanding of the world and that his ‘instincts’ have condemned him as “being bad”. I won’t bore you with much more of this mad hatters tea party type fantasy and finish with this last quotation, in which the abstract religious concept of ‘evil’ is introduced into his diagnosis.

“Adam doesn’t have this self-understanding. He’s only just begun his search for knowledge. In fact, he’s not even aware of what the problem actually is. He’s simply started to feel that he’s bad, even evil.” (ibid)

This example, and the many others I have pointed out in numerous earlier articles, indicates that there are many shades of opinion and anthropocentric focussed solutions among the intellectual classes. Each one is competing to attract us to their perspective of how to change the current human reality into something they think will be better, whilst helping them in preserving and conserving the existing hierarchical mass society class form and structure. For example, in a recent 2025 Lancet report by 128 multi discipline experts the Executive Summary notes the following;

“Preventing climatic changes that exceed the world’s capacity to adapt requires high greenhouse gas-emitting countries and corporations to urgently reduce their emissions. However, amid backsliding of commitments from some key decision makers and world leaders, the growing leadership of other actors—local governments, civil society organisations, private sector organisations, local communities, and, importantly, the health sector—offers promise for delivering the urgently needed system-wide transformation that prioritises prosperous economies and improved health. Community-led action, litigation, and civil society organisations are forging new avenues to hold governments and corporations to account in their duty to respond to the evidence and protect people’s lives, health, and wellbeing. Crucially, the economic momentum provided by the growth of the clean energy sector can offer new opportunities to tackle greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector—the biggest single contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions—while providing access to healthier energy and cleaner air.” (The ‘Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change. Executive Summary’ emphasis added. RR.)

Note although having so many multi discipline experts, the urgent priority in this prestigious and lengthy report is still “prosperous economies and improved health” for the human species. Prosperous societies  are what have accelerated the rapid disintegration of the biosphere’s supportive species matrix! Yet again – other species are not even mentioned in passing. Therefore, implicitly and explicitly what is being conserved in such proposals, is the hierarchical mass society class-based social form and its exploitative relationships with the rest of the earth’s species. This is because none of the authors of the examples considered so far have adequately understood the biological structure of life on earth itself,  nor how the hierarchical social form of human aggregation since its inception, has been both consuming and simultaneously eroding the ecological species foundation of the biosphere upon which all forms of life on earth are totally dependent. All the examples considered so far, from left, right and centre, are all starting from a set of common anthropocentric focussed assumptions which serve to conserve the status quo of the hierarchical mass society form, whilst only offering different political and social reforms of their political superstructures. For a further example German left researchers considering the lack of working class activism, failed to mention the effect of class based overproduction upon the ecology of the biosphere but concentrated on redistribution;

“The widespread criticism, anger, and biting dismissal of political elites shows that the legitimacy of capitalist democracy is under strain. “Just because I live in this system doesn’t mean I like it,” one of our interviewees put it. The current crises will only deepen these problems of legitimacy — though it is unclear what the consequences will be. Right-wing actors will seek to harness the all-too-understandable impulse to defend one’s slice of the pie first. The left, in turn, must develop a strategy that credibly promises to enlarge the pie for the working population as a whole: a strategy that highlights the strength that comes from fighting for shared goals, and that names the real opponents standing in the way.” (Moral Disapproval. The Political Consciousness of the Demobilized Working Class.” Critical Sociology. Emphasis added RR) 

The claim by some on the anti-capitalist left that some of these anthropocentric political and economic reforms (de-growth etc), are revolutionary is spurious, for their proposals neither aim to transcend the existing class and gender contradictions within human societies, nor end the competition between human communities for monopolising the largest resources (i.e. ‘enlarging the pie’) that can be extracted from the rest of nature (i.e. all species of life on earth). It will take a serious study of the reality of the biological and ecological processes of life on earth – as a whole – and a serious study of the reality of the hierarchical social forms to produce a revolution in the thinking of a critical – mass of humanity and then a genuine revolution in humanities actual interactions with its millions of kindred and supportive multi-cellular life-forms. But of course, this revolution in thinking and actually doing does not need to wait for elite permission or top down direction, it can also begin (and indeed has begun) on a small scale, one person, one small group and one community, at a time. Others can always follow, when circumstances permit or when existing social disintegrations leave no alternative social form for them to pursue.

Roy Ratcliffe (November 2025).