3.2 Natural Analogs of Societal Conurbations
Numerous analogs to conurbations exist in nature, and sociobiologists and other
students of animal behavior have sought to identify them. Eusocial insects are
perhaps the most commonly chosen model (Wilson 1975); these include ants
(of the order Hymenoptera) and termites (of the order Isoptera) that can number in
the millions and as eukaryotic organisms are perhaps the most numerous. As with
sociologist Émile Durkheim’s model of complex, hierarchical human societies
exhibiting organic solidarity (Durkheim 1933), these colonies of insects include
specialized occupations for types (or castes) of individuals that carry out specialized
functions that cannot be substituted by those that perform other functions, such as
work, reproduction, and the like; they also consist of individuals of different
generations, and these carry on through time. Such colonies could be seen as
entomological analogs of the objective of urban sustainability (as discussed, e.g.,
in Low 2019). And the complex functionality and specialization seen in these
contrasts with Durkheim’s concept of mechanical solidarity, in which any particular
player can assume the role of any of the others in terms of simple criteria such as
gender and age group affiliation. In a later version of how to identify human
groupings, philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (Badiou 2008) distinguished between serial
ensembles and fused ones: serial ensembles are like people in line to catch a bus—
anyone could substitute for any of the others, and they do not have to know or even
speak to each other at any time. Fused ensembles are groups with a special purpose
consciously in mind, usually a political purpose, like the July 1789 storming of
the Bastille, which led eventually to the establishment of republican France, though
the participants did not in principle know each other or have interests in each other at
the start of the conflict. They accomplished something together, and it was new.
Eusocial insects seem to act like fused, complex, hierarchical human ensembles;
they can also change the environment, as do humans in the process of landscape
transformation. Termites may be the best example of landscape transformative
eukaryotes; the Formosan subterranean termite (Coptotermes formosanus Shiraki)
“can modify its habitat by using clay to fill tree cavities” (Wang and Henderson
2014).
Metaphors of nonhuman animal societies as being like that of humans have a long
history in anthropology. In the nineteenth century, Lewis Henry Morgan, founder of
kinship studies and a theorist of human cultural evolution, had in his early career
argued that beavers were consciously cooperating engineers of the landscape by
building dams and altering watercourses. To Morgan, the chief difference they
exhibited when compared with humans was lack of language—he refers to beavers
as “mutes” that nevertheless possess “intelligence” that performs for them what the
mind does for humanity (Morgan 1868). It is probably not nature, however, that can
account for the megacity, or even for the city. The argument, in other words, can be
refined.
36
W. Balée
Numerous analogs to conurbations exist in nature, and sociobiologists and other
students of animal behavior have sought to identify them. Eusocial insects are
perhaps the most commonly chosen model (Wilson 1975); these include ants
(of the order Hymenoptera) and termites (of the order Isoptera) that can number in
the millions and as eukaryotic organisms are perhaps the most numerous. As with
sociologist Émile Durkheim’s model of complex, hierarchical human societies
exhibiting organic solidarity (Durkheim 1933), these colonies of insects include
specialized occupations for types (or castes) of individuals that carry out specialized
functions that cannot be substituted by those that perform other functions, such as
work, reproduction, and the like; they also consist of individuals of different
generations, and these carry on through time. Such colonies could be seen as
entomological analogs of the objective of urban sustainability (as discussed, e.g.,
in Low 2019). And the complex functionality and specialization seen in these
contrasts with Durkheim’s concept of mechanical solidarity, in which any particular
player can assume the role of any of the others in terms of simple criteria such as
gender and age group affiliation. In a later version of how to identify human
groupings, philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (Badiou 2008) distinguished between serial
ensembles and fused ones: serial ensembles are like people in line to catch a bus—
anyone could substitute for any of the others, and they do not have to know or even
speak to each other at any time. Fused ensembles are groups with a special purpose
consciously in mind, usually a political purpose, like the July 1789 storming of
the Bastille, which led eventually to the establishment of republican France, though
the participants did not in principle know each other or have interests in each other at
the start of the conflict. They accomplished something together, and it was new.
Eusocial insects seem to act like fused, complex, hierarchical human ensembles;
they can also change the environment, as do humans in the process of landscape
transformation. Termites may be the best example of landscape transformative
eukaryotes; the Formosan subterranean termite (Coptotermes formosanus Shiraki)
“can modify its habitat by using clay to fill tree cavities” (Wang and Henderson
2014).
Metaphors of nonhuman animal societies as being like that of humans have a long
history in anthropology. In the nineteenth century, Lewis Henry Morgan, founder of
kinship studies and a theorist of human cultural evolution, had in his early career
argued that beavers were consciously cooperating engineers of the landscape by
building dams and altering watercourses. To Morgan, the chief difference they
exhibited when compared with humans was lack of language—he refers to beavers
as “mutes” that nevertheless possess “intelligence” that performs for them what the
mind does for humanity (Morgan 1868). It is probably not nature, however, that can
account for the megacity, or even for the city. The argument, in other words, can be
refined.
36
W. Balée