Human body and anarchy: Difference between revisions
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Here are some of the organisms with which the human body has a symbiotic relationship: | Here are some of the organisms with which the human body has a symbiotic relationship: | ||
<blockquote> | <blockquote> | ||
eyelash mites | * eyelash mites | ||
underarm bacteria | * underarm bacteria | ||
intestinal bacteria | * intestinal bacteria | ||
spirochetes in our gums | * spirochetes in our gums | ||
bacteria and fungi between our toes<ref>Margulis and Sagan, ''Acquiring Genomes'', 18.</ref> | * bacteria and fungi between our toes<ref>Margulis and Sagan, ''Acquiring Genomes'', 18.</ref> | ||
</blockquote> | </blockquote> | ||
<references/> | |||
Revision as of 13:17, 22 May 2017
Biologists Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan explain that human beings "are really walking assemblages, beings who have integrated various other kinds of organisms—that each of us is a sort of loose committee."[1]
Decentralization in the human brain
The human brain is remarkably decentralized, involving horizontal coordination between different parts. Colin Ward writes in Anarchy in Action:
If we must identify biological and political systems, wrote the neurologist Grey Walter, our own brains would seem to illustrate the capacity and limitations of an anarchosyndicalist community: 'We find no boss in the brain, no oligarchic ganglion or glandular Big Brother. Within our heads our very lives depend on equality of opportunity, on specialisation with versatility, on free communication and just restraint, a freedom without interference. Here too, local minorities can and do control their own means of production and expression in free and equal intercourse with their neighbours.
Social theorists Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri write:
The brain itself, moreover, does not function according to a centralized model of intelligence with a unitary agent. Thought is better understood, the scientists tell us, as a chemical event or the coordination of billions of neurons in a coherent pattern. There is no one that makes a decision in the brain, but rather a swarm, a multitude that acts in concert.[2]
Symbiotic relationships
Here are some of the organisms with which the human body has a symbiotic relationship:
- eyelash mites
- underarm bacteria
- intestinal bacteria
- spirochetes in our gums
- bacteria and fungi between our toes[3]
