Humans evolved as tribal hunters, fiercely loyal within the extended kin group - and sharply hostile to outsiders. This is the natural consequence of resource-scarcity once human populations reached local carrying capacity. The Neolithic Revolution – agriculture, herding – turned things around. With food surpluses, human groups expanded beyond Dunbar's number: cooperation with strangers became a social necessity.
Early civilizations remained kin-based, from Sumerian priest-kings to feudal lords and their dynasties. But liberal capitalism – uniquely impersonal, as Weber argued – made interactions between strangers a norm. Trade networks require transactions over blood ties. Contracts replaced clan loyalty. Work now demands a courteous face for every new job and every client meeting. We no longer kill for a stray look; instead, we smile.
This shift encouraged elite-selection for agreeable traits. Short tempers find little space in the boardroom. The high ranks favour the polite, the transactional, the deferential. And so we see a peculiar elite emerge: Kamala Harris, Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves. These are not warriors. They are managers, rewarded for navigating, not disrupting.
In contrast, warriors - Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Kemi Badenoch - are impulsive, aggressive, impatient with the status quo. These types disrupt systems, not preserve them. Capitalism needs both, but comfortable elites do not welcome challenges. Those who frighten our beta-elites elicit howls of outrage, get demonised.
The prosocial “mask” – the veneer of friendliness with strangers – is now sacred. Genuine feelings, as always, are reserved for kin, close friends, and lovers. Without this mask, social norms would collapse; yet the act necessarily breeds hypocrisy.
Humans are not wired to be nice to everyone; "niceness" is Darwinianly unstable. Wolves exhibiting “dark triad” traits - Machiavellian, narcissistic, psychopathic - prey on the doves. Today’s society valorizes the mask, repressing those dark impulses which simmer beneath. But dark emotions drive popular discontent; warriors emerge to channel such repressed urges in times of structural decadence.
Hegelian dialectic still walks the Earth: a world of managers develops society in relative peace until the veto network of lobbies, pressure groups, activists and special interest groups stifles it; then comes the time for warriors to smash resistance, to usher in a new foundation for future growth and progress.
