The Human Animal: Instinct, Morality, and Transience

Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization - Chapter 4 - Conflict & Resolution: Tribal Forces Within Us All 

    My text looks at how our tribal instincts — that innate urge to stick with people like us and distrust outsiders — continue to shape modern conflicts today. Tyson argues that these instincts were once useful for survival but now cause problems in things like politics, religion, and identity. Basically, our brains are wired for tribes, not global unity. Understanding that is the foundation for the rest of his argument. 

    Tyson begins with the idea that human conflict is rooted in evolutionary tribalism, which is the instinct to favor those like us and distrust outsiders. These instincts once had survival value, but now fuel modern divides across politics, religion, race, and nationality. Conflict, in his view, emerges not purely from ideology but from a psychological default: our brains evolved to form tight groups, not to cooperate on a global scale. Recognizing this tendency is the first step toward overcoming it. 

    From here, Tyson suggests that science provides a model for managing disagreement. In scientific practice, conflicts are resolved through data, testing, and a willingness to revise ideas. Scientists compete over evidence, not identity; when new findings contradict their beliefs, they adapt rather than double down. Tyson argues that adopting this evidence-based mindset in society could shift us away from emotional and partisan clashes and toward rational dialogue. The lesson is simple: disagreements should aim for truth, not victory. 

Zooming Out (and In) 

    He then ties these ideas to what he calls the “cosmic perspective.” Seeing Earth from space reveals a borderless, unified planet. From that vantage point, cultural and national boundaries lose meaning, and humanity appears as one collective species. Tyson connects this to humility: realizing our small place in the universe should make our internal divisions seem trivial. From this perspective, it's hard to see humans as anything but cosmic dust mites. Nietzsche offers a similar yet distinct perspective with his concept of eternal recurrence, in that it employs an infinite vantage point to bring human life into greater focus. If you knew your life were to be repeated endlessly, would you still affirm it? It takes the human perspective and instead zooms inward, asking you to reexamine your life in its totality. And instead of using space to achieve that, it uses time. However, returning to the cosmic perspective, I actually have a different interpretation. I think that zooming out and seeing the pebble that is Earth in conjunction with the rest of the universe puts into perspective the immediacy and stakes of lived experience. It's akin to gazing at the night sky and focusing on a single star. All in all, the cosmic perspective doesn’t erase identity, but reframes it within a shared human story. 

The Game of War 

    Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian offers a darker counterpoint. The character Judge Holden describes war as the great convergence of human experience: “War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing of the unity of existence. War is God. (McCarthy 249)” To him, war is both man’s ultimate pastime and his ultimate test — a force of creation and destruction where ideals and powers collide. He even calls war “the ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. (McCarthy 248)” He brings man to the forefront as the most zealous and prolific expression of war. That all along, much before our time, war continued, grinding away at life, yet we are the best receptacle for its nature. It raises an unsettling question about our “true” nature and whether conflict is built into the core of who we are. William James offers a counterweight to McCarthy’s vision of war as humanity’s ultimate test. James agreed that struggle awakens something deep in us — discipline, unity, and purpose — but he believed that relying on literal war to summon those qualities was a moral failure. His idea of the moral equivalent of war was an attempt to preserve the virtues that war brings out in people without the destruction that usually follows. In other words, that same intensity of effort, sacrifice, and shared commitment could be redirected into cooperative, constructive tasks rather than violence. It’s the hope that the human appetite for challenge doesn’t have to manifest as bloodshed, but can be expressed as coordinated striving toward something larger than ourselves. 

Pandemonium (1841) by John Martin depicts Satan instructing his fallen angels in the capital of Hell—Pandemonium. Beyond its religious subject, the painting carries themes of temptation, vanity, and the sublime—the convergence of beauty and terror. Like McCarthy’s vision, Martin’s Pandemonium captures the tension between human ambition and the destructive forces unleashed when we attempt to elevate ourselves above our nature.

Cooperative Struggle 

    Returning to Tyson, he points to global scientific cooperation as evidence that unity is possible. International projects, such as the International Space Station, show that scientists from rival nations can collaborate successfully when shared goals transcend national politics. When curiosity and discovery become the priority, tribal barriers weaken. The scientific community becomes a model for how humanity might operate at scale. 

    Tyson closes by emphasizing humility and rationality as essential tools for civilization. True progress, he argues, comes from curiosity rather than certainty. Embracing the scientific mindset, characterized by openness, self-correction, and evidence-based decision-making over ego, could help societies move beyond tribal impulses toward rational cooperation and a shared purpose. The underlying message is that adopting both the methods and mindset of science can help us manage our deepest divisions. 

    Both Tyson and McCarthy seem to suggest that our tribal instincts are deeply tied to what makes us human, whether that’s our downfall or our unifying force. And so, my discussion question is: Can we ever achieve human unity without resorting to our tribal instincts in our darkest moments? 

Reflection 

I think unity is possible, but not through erasing our tribal instincts. It comes from recognizing and integrating them — like acknowledging a bias before you can correct it. Depriving them of their mysticism, not treating them like what goes bump in the night, is what will allow us to actually move past them. However, that’s a very difficult thing to do as it forces us to come to terms with both our evolutionary origins and our darker parts. It’s the same kind of issue that plagues much of the social justice movement. “I don’t see color”, “I just treat everyone the same”, “how can I be X, I’m/I have Y”. These are all things we tell ourselves to stay self-assured because it’s easier than examining our biases and making sweeping changes to the structure of our actions. It’s also important to recognize their amorality, which means they’re neither good nor evil. Which, in truth, they’re not; they’re just symptoms of outdated software, the leftover wiring of a world that no longer exists. We have drives for sex, novelty, entertainment, etc., but we don’t vilify them in their totality; we integrate them into the betterment of society (sex education, scientific and social progress, art, etc.).  

Tyson provides a good example of how to apply this to society at large in the realm of scientific achievement, but I think Nietzsche finds the best individualistic outlet in his idea of ‘self-overcoming’. His self-overcoming has much more nuance than I can grant it here, but it includes some basic “steps” (using the term very loosely): rank ordering of drives (artistic distance ties into this), sublimation, and self-stylization (and outward creative expression). And while he would expressly disapprove of any universal timeline or “schedule” one should look to when becoming who they are, this is the general order I’ve interpreted. All of these “steps” ultimately aim at forging a unified character capable of expressing its highest drives freely and creatively. This all rests on Nietzsche’s claim that many people only ever live in the “foreground” of their lives. That is, they only ever interpret the immediate, lived experience; typically, in the form of emotions, instincts, and reactionary thought. When Nietzsche talks about “artistic distance”, he’s referring to the gap between immediate experience the “foreground”) and the reflective space we gain when we step back and view our lives as if they were a work of art. He lends credence to art/artists as the catalyst for an individual to interpret deeper patterns and conceptualize a true hypothetical self. Once one can look at themselves with greater lucidity, they are able to analyze and order their drives so as to direct/divert the ones they choose to. And then begins the sublimation of the drives, transforming the raw, chaotic drives into creative expression (e.g., turning suffering into depth of insight). Like refining raw flour to make bread later on. With drives ordered and sublimated, the individual begins to shape themselves deliberately, as if crafting a work of art. The self becomes an artistic project, not a fixed essence. And this is what he refers to as “self-stylization”. Ultimately, the elevated, stylized self expresses its internal order outward through art, philosophy, ways of living, and the creation of new values, among other means. This is where, like Tyson, Nietzsche thinks the highest human passions find their fullest expression — not in domination or rule, but in creation. And even more importantly, as I see it, people’s hesitancy to address the darker areas of their psyche comes from perceiving themselves as a unified self. If they were to come to terms with their more unsavory qualities, they would begin to attribute them to their entire character. Which is why I believe it’s important to view the individual as a multiplicity of selves, each seeking expression. Once we recognize it as part of us, not the whole of us, we can consciously act beyond it and make decisions that aren’t just echoes of survival strategies baked into our biology. 

Additionally, I think that movies/media where the good guy spares the villain to show that they won’t give in to their instincts (and other derivatives of this trope) are inauthentic to the lived experience. They operate on symbolic logic, not human logic. It’s almost like seeing a story of a rescued puppy on social media; it’s a feel-good story. It’s very comforting to be able to assure ourselves that we are more than beasts, and our rationality is the ultimate adjudicator. But that is wishful thinking at best. Moral psychologists like Jonathan Haidt argue that reasoning is mostly a post-hoc justification for gut reactions (a position I also hold). If that’s true, then the idea of a character pausing, evaluating, and consciously choosing virtue over instinct is exactly backward. Stories rewrite the process to make it inspirational. Stories allow characters to transcend their instincts cleanly, but real people rarely get that luxury. Narrative clarity is not the same as psychological truth; it’s a comfort we grant ourselves because reality gives no such guarantees. In other words, the hero who effortlessly transcends instinct isn’t a reflection of human psychology, but a projection of our longing to believe we’ve outgrown the very tribal machinery that evolution built into us. No one knows if they’ll run into the burning building until they feel the heat. 

 

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

— Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994