Think back to high school and fitness. No, not the gym — sports were never my thing — think of biological and evolutionary fitness instead. Biological fitness is defined as “the genetic contribution of an individual to the next generation.” The keyword here is individual; it is the basis of natural selection and evolution. Even behaviors where individuals help their relatives, called kin selection, are explained through individualism and selfishness. Individuals help their relatives not out of goodwill, but to pass on the genes the relative shares with the individual.

I took an ecology class last quarter, and I realized this way of thinking about evolution has problems. Basing a central theory in biology off of the individual is reductive and overlooks the web of connections in nature. Biology works cooperatively everywhere we look, from the cells building our body to the web of connections keeping ecosystems healthy; yet, biological education tends to focus on one cell or one species at a time. Biological education takes an individualist approach in a cooperative system.

Take plants getting nutrients from the soil. It is well known that plants do this through their roots, but roots are not the only organism involved in nutrient uptake. Mycorrhizae are fungi (the biological group mushrooms are in) that associate with plant roots to exchange resources. The fungi give the plant as much as 80% of their soil nutrients, like nitrogen and phosphorus. In exchange, the fungi get sugars from the plant. Up to 90% of plants have mycorrhizae, and this cooperation has been going for over 400 million years, yet mycorrhizae are often ignored in textbooks and research studies. Biologists only look at the plant, overlooking their relationship with fungi.

This is a parallel with modern human society. Humanity built the modern world through cooperation, sharing knowledge with each other to grow collectively. However, society is increasingly individualistic and resources, including knowledge, are increasingly hoarded. The environment and historically marginalized groups are often overlooked, and with no one looking out for them, they may be subject to exploitation.

Exploitation is common in nature too. All animals need to eat other organisms to survive, like a lion hunting a zebra, yet lions never hunt zebras to extinction. As the zebra population drops from hunting, it becomes harder to find zebras to hunt. Ecological modeling predicts that predators will try to hunt the easiest food source and switch to that new food source. Real world ecology confirms this, as zebras are obviously still around.

People need to eat too, yet modern society does not seem to follow this model. A perfect example was the collapse of the Atlantic Ocean cod fishery. For hundreds of years, cod were sustainably fished in the Atlantic, but after World War II, fishing increased. Cod populations dropped and they became harder to find. Rather than finding a new resource to gather, people kept fishing cod until cod became impossible to find. This is a classic example of tragedy of the commons, where a shared resource gets depleted due to individuals acting out of their own interests rather than managing the resource as a group.

It was not just fishing that changed after World War II. This was the “Golden Age of Capitalism,” a period where society began to resemble what it looks like today. A lot of this was due to the rise in hyperindividualism, where society became extremely centered around the idea of self.

A big danger with focusing too much on the self is that the individual gets blamed for the problems, but individuals are not responsible for the harms of individualism. Individuals get blamed for consumerism, unfair labor and environmental destruction, yet it is the socioeconomic system, not individuals, that create those problems.

Some level of individualism is good, as this is what principles like freedom of speech are based on. In ecology too, natural selection cannot be properly explained without thinking about the reproductive success of individuals. However, individualism at the excessive cost to others or the environment is not good. This rarely happens in ecology, yet it became widespread globally after World War II with the rise of big industries.

Big industry by itself is not bad, but when combined with hyperindividualism, it leads to disastrous exploitation. From fast fashion to factory farms, big industries destroy the environment and exploit the labor of millions of people. For example, textiles from fast fashion end up getting discarded in Africa where they choke the environment with pollution. Meanwhile, injuries in the meat industry, such as a person’s leg getting shredded in a factory, are not isolated instances — they are the trend.

The plus side of big industry is that it creates an abundance of resources that theoretically will be shared with everyone, yet despite these industries producing tons of clothing and food, these resources are not benefitting the entire collective. It’s hard to quantify how many people are clothing insecure as there is a lack of research on it, but fashion journalist Lottie Jackson estimates that over 5 million people in the United Kingdom, with a population of nearly 70 million, do not have access to enough clothing. Food insecurity is more quantified. In 2023, over 700 million people worldwide did not have access to enough food.

The problem comes down to a key principle in economics, the idea that all resources are scarce. When resources are scarce, people hoard them. A thirsty dog is not getting water if a person is stuck in the desert with half a bottle. 

“The Serviceberry,” written by indigenous author Robin Wall Kimmerer (author of “Braiding Sweetgrass”), attempts to reframe the idea of economic scarcity into one of economic abundance. Modern society has enough resources to survive and thrive, but these resources are not getting to the people who need them the most. Imagine the dog again, but now there is a lake nearby. Despite the abundance, in an economy of scarcity, the lake gets privatized and hoarded, and the dog is still not getting water, unless a high price is paid. This is what human society does today.

Kimmerer suggests that rather than a price, there should be a mutual understanding of gift giving. If everyone helps each other, then a favor given will be returned at some point. This kind of system builds positive relationships in the community and is what the oldest forms of ecology are based on. Indigenous ecology, which is stored in traditional ecological knowledge, is based on a web of relationships involving humans and other lifeforms. 

Ancient European cultures also engaged with ecology. Some scholars argued that ecology was a relationship between humans and other organisms. Aristotle, in contrast, viewed humans as separate from other life and believed that this allowed for exploitation of the environment. Until World War II, relationship-based ecology dominated the field. After World War II, “modern ecology” was founded, and this is when ecology became more individual-focused. Recall that this is also when modern capitalism emerged.

Modern ecology is based on the economic system it was created in and has principles that align with this system. With this, it is no surprise that when thinking about the environment, the main question is how much can be exploited (concepts like maximum sustainable yield reflect this). When thinking about ecology and economy in terms of relationships, this shifts from “What can be taken?” to “What can be shared? What can people do to help the whole system?” 

I recognize that attempting to overhaul an entire way of thinking is beyond difficult, and I realize this will not happen overnight. The good news is that abandoning individualism means that challenges can be tackled as a group, not alone. If the thinking around the system shifts, people will come together to make these changes happen.

Ben Wollack enjoys sharing gifts from the garden with the community.