MAN THE SOCIAL ANIMAL
Man, the human animal, must satisfy certain natural basic needs in order to survive. He must eat, drink, excrete, sleep, maintain adequate health and procreate. These needs constitute the innate nature of man.
But Man cannot live alone—he must enter into relationship with his fellows if he is to develop and maintain adequate mental and physical health. We know that this dependency of man on others is exhibited in the continuum of the life process, with the parent-offspring relationship and with his existence within the womb and during infancy. The organism is dependent upon the maternal organism for the satisfaction of its needs. This satisfaction is the result of biological co-operation between the embryo, or the infant, and the maternal organism. The maternal organism, too, can only exist so long as the cells and tissues which comprise it act in co-operation one with the other. An individual cannot live if, among other functions, the heart does not pump blood to circulate through the body or the lungs do not supply oxygen, or blood does not reach the brain. Food must be broken down and digested so that the ingredients necessary to replace worn tissue and the supply of vitamin and mineral needs to the body is assured—the whole process of co-operation within the individual. Man's life can only continue so long as his bodily function are co-operative — in short, where there is biological harmony.
The above brief look at man as an individual leads us to examine him as a social being — one who lives in a group, subject to the demands and pressures of modern society. The nature of this society is based upon economic conflict. That is, the strivings of one class, (the capitalist class) to maintain and extend its economic supremacy and control over the working class by virtue of its ownership of all the means of wealth production. Man, as a member of the working class, is something less than a man — he is a commodity to be bought and sold on the labour market, just as is a pound of sugar, a loaf of bread or a tube of toothpaste.
Inherent in this capitalist society is conflict between its component classes — the working class and the capitalist class. Concurrently with this is the existence of conflict between worker and worker, between capitalist and capitalist, whether individual, group or national capitalist. This conflict expresses itself in many forms. The struggle of the worker to obtain higher pay, lowered hours of work, improved conditions, or at best, the maintenance of his present conditions of life. For the capitalist class this conflict expresses itself in price-cutting, trade rivalries, search for markets, new methods of production, tariffs, Common Markets, preferred trade agreements, sanction, embargoes and, finally, force of arms — war. But this constant state of war in every human activities is in the nature of everything that exists and lives. Some people are fit for life while others aren't, and disapear if they cannot settle for a compromise. Individuals fight to find a place, and keep it, they're all fighting against younger or older people, people from the opposite sex in a marital relationship, fighting with their colleagues who are never friends, but always opponents, and against their own kids will to overpower them.
This struggle is the direct outcome of the economic basis of capitalist society, that is, the ownership of the means of life by a small minority and the consequent enslavement of the majority, the working class, a society whose existence is dependent upon the production of commodities for sale and profit, a society where competition, aggressiveness and rugged individualism are lauded and exalted as the finest of virtues. This conflict is apparent in the misery surrounding us, in the unemployed, the hunger amidst abundance, the anxiety over losing one's job, in industrial strife, in criminality, prostitution and its attendant evils, in nationalism, war, etc.
This condition exists because man's social organization is built upon a division based upon private property and its relationships, with its consequent innate conflicts and antagonisms. This malady is as easily curable as a tooth-ache from a decayed tooth—remove it and the pain ceases. Remove the private property basis from our society and replace it with common ownership in the means of life and we will enjoy a society which is socially in harmony with man's biological necessity. Biologically man can live only by co-operation economically and socially he will be forced to cooperate if he is to survive. This condition exists because man is an animal and this nature will never change, as a result this struggle inside the human specie will never stop; there will always be people richer, stronger, than others who will be frustrated while at the same time will have the strong desire to become like the people at the top of the pyramid. Basically noone is innocent as we are all by all means necessary and in our hands, fighting to insure a better survival for ourselves at the expense of others. The game and its rules will never change, as they are the same in the vegetal and animal world, everything that lives, exists, is submitted to these rules. Sometimes in the animal world, human specie included, individuals who cannot or do not want to play the game anymore kill themselves, which ultimately benefits those who will stay, unless their survival was dependant of the individual who remove, withdraw himself from the game. We are all dependant of someone else, of others as everything is interdependant. Most people accept this life as long as they have a satisfaction they can envision. Life is made of suffering to obtain a reward; the average man and suffer all day long fighting for his survival against other life forms, thinking about how he ll sit in his couch in the evening , to watch television while eating. Some people are also able to go through an unsatisfying, frustrating life that see them being submitted to people who torture them, because they are at the same preparing a better life for their offsprings; they are basically sacrifying their own hapiness for the planned hapiness of their offsprings later: they cannot dominate in their own life, but are making sure they do everything right so their offsprings will be able to dominate others later. Again, our inner animal nature is revealed here; hapiness is domination, you are happy when you can dominate, or when you can envision your own offspring dominating others. You are unhappy when you cannot dominate, or when you are submitted in vain with little or no reward (hope to produce an offspring that will dominate such making your existence not completely "useless"). Needless to say most atheists do not believe in having offsprings anymore and only live to satisfy themselves first and foremost, at all costs, not caring about the future generations, they only exist for themselves and everything they do or think is justified cause their own survival is the only thing that matters to them. Religious people live by the same rules, but they want their kids to dominate once adults, so it gives a meaning to their own existence and their daily struggle for survival; I am sacrifying myself so my kid will be able to dominate others. Wether you want to dominate or want your offspring to dominate, the point of life is essentially always the same; domination, as domination is hapiness.
People who think alike stick together, but even in their cooperative realtionship, there is always someone who dominates while the other is dominated. In friendship, in marital relationships, in school, at work, in the family. A follower follows willingly hoping to one day take the place of his, her, master, and learning his, her strategies of survival daily while taking note of his, her mistakes at the same time. We are machines that calculate how to adapt and survive, our brains are calculators that impregnate themselves with all surroungding strategies of survival we re exposed to just like sponge. In our free time and at night our brain selects, rearange, manages all these informations. A healthy brains allows its owner to dominate.
Poorly educated people produce an ever growing unskilled workforce that will be ressources for the higher social classes that will use them to produce goods they will sell, most of the time to the very same people who work for them. Poor people can climb the ladder by concurrencing each others until only one survives at the expense of others. Basically each human being is constantly at war with everyone else, every individual having something others dont have. They can either cooperate, dominate or submit each others in their daily interactions until a balance is found that will benefit to the group as a whole. Peace of mind is found when the individual can find a place that satisfies him in the big picture. The only way for someone who starts at the bottom of the pit to get at the top is to walk on other people's heads. It is easier to do so when the person at the top who select people below him shares common traits and affinities with you in the first place; a Boss wants people like him to help, second him, and will make someone's life he finds too different a misery until this person doesn't threaten his place, survival. Basically a patron can only manage people who submit to him and think alike, and will never be nice to someone who doesnt submit to him. He can tho tolerate them tho in order to torture them as a daily guilty pleasure while knowing full well he has them by the balls paying them their salary.