Louisville Process Theology Network

Robert Wright on Our Cultural Evolution

Oct 02, 2009

From ?“Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny?” by Robert Wright, Page 19.


?“One premise of cultural evolutionism is ?‘the psychic unity of humankind?’ ?– the idea that people everywhere are genetically endowed with the same equipment, that there is a universal human nature. The psychic unity of humankind is the reason that around the world, on every continent, cultural evolution has moved in the same direction.

The arrow of human history begins with the biology of human nature. That arrow, as I?’ve noted, point towards larger quantities of zero-sumness. As history progresses, human beings find themselves playing non-zero-sum games with more and more other human beings.

Interdependence expands, and social complexity grows in scope and depth.?”




Key definition: A zero-sum game is a circumstance where the player?’s gain or loss is exactly balanced by the losses or gains of the other players. When the total gains and losses of all players are added and subtracted, they sum to zero.

Zero sum games are called ?“strictly competitive.?” When one player wins, others must lose, because the total resources available are fixed. This concept was first developed in game theory and before long it was applied to classical economic theory.

On the other hand, a non-zero sum game is a circumstance where the various players?’ gains and losses sum to less than zero, or more than zero. The total resources available are changing; either shrinking or growing.

This means all players can benefit in a non-zero-sum game. In economics, it means that commercial exchange can benefit all parties. This happens partly because each party assesses the goods it is receiving to be more valuable than what it is delivering in exchange.

So, cooperation becomes mutually beneficial.

Evolution is continuous change in the short-run; but, its overall purpose for the long-run appears to be continuous growth.

Robert Wright theorizes in this book that societies are becoming more non-zero-sum as they become more complex and interdependent.


To be continued in the next post.