Pëtr Kropotkin and Mutual Aid

> In any case, it suffers a little for what I think is the naive thesis of "if only mankind could cooperate like the animals do, we would live in a utopia." Of course, mankind has demonstrated through thousands of years of history that tribes of men can't really cooperate in any grand sense, so the point seems rather moot.

In one paragraph you say that his biological observations are still held in high regard. (Nothwithstanding that the science of such things was farily “underdeveloped”, he protested… you know, like how people massively protest against Darwin’s theories, from about the same era?) Then you take a dump on those same observations in the next paragraph because people who have lived in class societies, under strict hierachies (that’s all of recorded history, yes) weren’t nice to each other? Well… why do you think anarchists proposed an alternative to that?

You know what is utopian? To build a society on such a flawed human nature as what we have, centred around our selfish shortcomings—basing socity on on subjugation, oppression, and exploitation, so that (predictably) the ones who are vile and strong will take as much for themselves as they can and exploit the rest—see history—and for us collectively to doom ourselves by ruining the planet by pillaging it of its resources and all kinds of ecological balance. That’s utopian!

But congrats on your ebook project. Your pathetic little gloss demonstrates how classic literature is often wasted like pearls before swine.

I think the main thing missing from this simplistic analysis (which I would tie back to Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene" and the gene-centric view of evolution it proposed) is that organisms don't need to just replicate themselves, but also their environments. I mean look at lichen. A small colony of organisms from completely different domains of life and they would die without each other yet that algae would obviously prefer to replicate the fungi it partners with over some other species of algae. Bison need to keep grasslands healthy, worms need to keep the soil organisms alive, mycorrhizal fungi need to keep plants alive, plant roots have a large toolbelt of chemical dances it does JUST to cultivate the specific soil bacteria they like, our gut bacteria have it in their interest to keep us humans thriving and interacting socially, myrmecophyte trees attract and support ant life, capitalism needs to replicate artificial scarcity, parasitic plants like dodders actually provide a whole host of benefits to its hosts like acting as an above-ground communication network, beavers practice "niche construction", most "weeds" occupy a specific niche where they grow in disturbed soils only to "work themselves out of a job" by conditioning the soil to better health allowing for ecological succession to take place (e.g. dandelions decompacting soil), and your dog would very likely kill another dog (extremely genetically similar as they are) in order to save your life.

In the 1990s a cholera outbreak in South America created an interesting natural experiment. In some countries it was a deadly disease that spread through waterways. But in places with better hygiene, it couldn't spread through those typical pathways. So it eventually evolved into a much milder form in order to allow people to go out and socialize so it can continue to spread

This is why every single deadly pandemic has been zoonotic in origin. The black plague, covid, hiv, etc all came from other animals. It's a matter of maladaption. All the diseases that have been closely associated with humans for thousands of years have instead evolved to... not kill us. Some of them even became an essential part of our microbiome. Even herpes, a rather ancient human "parasite", actually plays some beneficial roles in our immune system. The microbial universe is a prime example of how organisms need not only replicate themselves but also the environments in which they thrive

I would ultimately say he is top one hundred (probably top 20 for me), but that's a personal opinion. If we look at the impact his ideas, beliefs and teachings had on the first half of the 20th century then he was a giant. Anarchism, and specifically how he taught it grabbed hold of much of the disparate political movements that occurred in that part of time. Anarchist movement's and mutual aid, take a grip in many parts of the third world even today.

Perhaps that's because I have taken note of these movements that I see him as one of the most famous, perhaps you see it differently which is fair. I see him as a contemporary to arguably the most famous political mind of all time, Karl Marx, and was regarded along similar lines for his impact.

Sure there are a range of people on the left and right of political ideological thought who could be considered famous, but not many who have produced what he has.