ABSTRACT
In Sociobiology, Edward O. Wilson documented in 1975 how a society is not just a bunch of individuals who happen to be in the same place at the same time. A society is a group of individuals who communicate with one another in ways going beyond being just sexual. When you look closely at what people in human societies are like, however, what stands out is not how much the same they are, but instead how different from one another they all are in their looks, their ways, their wants, their ambitions, and maybe even in what rocks their boats. Yet despite such differences, as the anthropologist Anthony F. C. Wallace observed years ago, most of us are able to get along with one another. Wallace’s explanation for this seeming absurdity is still the most reasonable one. He called our ability to navigate the diversity of others “mazeway equivalence.” As he candidly suggested, when the scientist claims that all men, or at least all members of the same culturally organized group, must share a common panel of interests and motives (ideal states-of-affairs to which strong affects are attached), the humanist can only raise his eyebrows and smile a wry smile at the naïvety of scientism.
