The biologist Lynn Margulis would sometimes comment on what she saw as the greed and egocentrism of Homo sapiens. A lack of knowledge and appreciation of other forms of life is readily apparent in the human’s conventional view of bacteria, microorganisms Margulis knew well. Historically, this major domain of life has been studied by the human exclusively for its potential to cause disease in the human and, more recently, still narrowly, for how it can be used to improve human life. The complexity of a bacterium’s social life and its relationship, not only to its conspecifics, but to its physical environment, have been neglected.
Margulis saw non-human forms of life such as bacteria as more orderly and less harmful to Earth’s life. What would it look like, however, if hungry bacteria evolved into a complex multicelluar organism with the brain power of Homo sapiens?
Roughly two billion years ago, the eukaryotic cells emerged. These nucleated cells, which form the basis of Animals, Plants, and Fungi, are known to be a symbiosis of Bacteria and Archea, originally independent prokaryotic cells that joined together to form a more complex functioning unit. In this way, through the creation of a new design of life, some bacteria and archea can be said to have evolved into life forms that include Homo sapiens.
According to Bowen theory, life exists within an emotional system that is present in all life. The emotional system governs instinctive behavior in the quest for survival and reproductive success, including an ongoing activity to create an environment that is conducive to life. Lynn Margulis and James Lovelock referred to this idea in the Gaia Hypothesis, a view of Earth as a living system.
Once life initially emerged on Earth, it began to change the earth’s mantle and atmosphere to be more hospitable to life. Life gradually tamed the stark rock and water that it found itself in to create the vibrant blue and green planet we know as Earth. In cavities and crevices, in unprotected expanses, even in extremes of temperature, altitude, and draught, life can be found to be making the environment right for it.
We may assume that human efforts to rein in climate change and other harm to the environment stems from the ability to think and to reason. But the human’s effort to save the environment may be based largely in the human’s emotional system that functions, like the emotional systems of all life forms, to preserve and extend life and its environment.
A hungry bacterium’s tendency to use up all of the resources in its environment to promote its own survival and reproduction may seem to contradict the idea that life creates an environment conducive to life. Consider, however, how a bacterium functions as a systems player. For example, when nutritive resources are exhausted in an area, the bacterium Paenebacillus merges with others to form a spinning multicellular phenomenon in which the majority of the group are spun out into new, resource-rich territory, while those near the center never leave the central, depleted territory, but continue to spin in place in order that the group as a whole may survive.
Bacteria can also be said to function as a systems player on the scale of Earth itself. They are the original photosynthesizers, and they are the ongoing sanitary workers for the planet, turning waste and the dead into rich humus for new life. Bacteria make life possible on the planet by simultaneously seeking their own survival. To what degree may this be an ingenious and innate characteristic of life?
Laurie,
What you do here, elegantly, is to look at life from the broadest perspective. Bacteria and humans as evolving social species with the common objective of survival and reproduction. Was her non-pathology attitude toward bacteria part of what made Margulis open to seeing them as complex social systems? Did Bowen’s non-pathology view of humans open him to his natural systems thinking?
To take a leap to current societal process, what I see is evidence of a high level of chronic anxiety and low level of differentiation being expressed in a polarized political contest. Evidence of increased regression since Bowen originally wrote about that. The problem of over-reproduction and scarce resources is something we have in common with bacteria. What can we learn from them?
After reading this post I looked up Lovelock and read his Wiki page.
I was interested to find this material on recent changes in his position on global warming:
“In the MSNBC article Lovelock is quoted as proclaiming:[29]
“The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened;” he continues
“The climate is doing its usual tricks. There’s nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now,” he said
The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time … it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising – carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that”, he added.[29]
In a follow up interview Lovelock stated his support for natural gas; he now favors fracking as a low-polluting alternative to coal.[19][40] He opposes the concept of “sustainable development”, where modern economies might be powered by wind turbines, calling it meaningless drivel.[40][41] He keeps a poster of a wind turbine to remind himself how much he detests them.[19]”
Thanks Laurie. I am fascinated by this. I have always thought that access to the intellectual system would allow man to work his way out of the environmental problem. Your ideas offer something different…..that the driving force to save the planet may come out of the emotional system. At least that is how I am hearing your idea. Am I correct. Perhaps there is such a thing as a cooperative or balanced relationship between the two. Hard to achieve no doubt.
” Bacteria make life possible on the planet by simultaneously seeking their own survival. To what degree may this be an ingenious and innate characteristic of life?”
Good question, Laurie. I hope the answer is yes.
It’s almost automatic that I go back to memories of what Bowen said.
In a clinical conference in the late seventies or early eighties, in response to a question I had and cannot remember he said that life in it’s present form is ultimately unsustainable. I was shocked.
He also said that when man’s back is up against the wall he’ll get beyond the emotional forces that have constrained constructive action and solve the problem. That’s my impression probably from things he said and wrote at different times.