Purpose/4. Life And Exploiting/Exploiting
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Now to return to where this discussion began. Living entities, like automobiles, need constant refuelling to run. Competition for resources, pitting one life form against another, is the inevitable result. The most able become parents to offspring that genetically inherit their parents’ capabilities. In this way, the “exploiting” trait was strengthened as it self-selected down through the ages. The urge to exploit must by now be genetically encoded.[10] The natural world of plants and animals is not a paradise where every living thing exists in peaceful harmony with every other living thing. It is a battleground of constant aggression, each species against all others,[11] and within a species, one member against another. (In fact, it is precisely because species members compete against each other that species evolve into different species, as the Grant’s work with the Galápagos finches showed.) Nature only appears peaceful because we rarely notice the underlying conflict. Expansion and conquest take place slowly, as with plants; or unnoticed, as is usually the case with insects; or hidden in the underbrush, as happens mostly with birds and animals. When we eulogize the peacefulness and serenity of nature we do not recognize the irony we mouth. All species compete for territory to obtain resources. As these resources become depleted it is inevitable that this competition will become more and more intense, most particularly between members of the same or closely related species, for they eat the same types of food and prefer the same kind of habitat.[12]
It may not be pleasant to think that life aggressively exploits its surroundings,[13] battling with any life form that gets in its way, but that is the nature of the beast. (In fact, as Dawkins stated, animal speed, eyesight, hearing, and so on, increases precisely because they are taking part in “arms races.”[14])
The notion of a non-evolving, non-varying, non-exploiting, life form is non-sense. Non-exploiting life forms are dead life forms—living and exploiting are one and the same process. Further, much as we might dislike the idea that we humans exploit, we can find plenty of evidence that even the best of us live via exploiting and protecting what we have.[15] Who does not eat? Who would not buy stock if a genuine opportunity to gain presented itself? Actions such as these ably demonstrate that we all exploit when given the opportunity. Humans may not exploit every time, and we are usually selective in what, and who, we exploit. But some people are less circumspect than others, and some of their exploiting activities cause extensive grief and trouble to many.[16] (This is a topic to be discussed further, in Part Four, when we explore how excessive exploitation might rightly be identified and constrained.)
