Survival of the Friendliest - Issue 46: Balance

Violence has been the sire of all the world's values," wrote poet Robinson Jeffers in 1940. "What but the wolf's tooth whittled so fine the fleet limbs of the antelope? What but fear winged the birds, and hunger jeweled with such eyes the great goshawk's head?" We've taken these metaphors for evolution to heart, reading them to mean that life is a race to kill or be killed. "Darwinian" stands in for "cutthroat," "survival of the fittest" signifies survival of the ruthless.