In a comment to the Spanish version of a
previous article in this blog, JI Gs wrote this:
All
societies have an explicit social order, whether they are fundamentally
believers or not in the immaterial; even animal societies, let alone insects,
have a strict social order and the immaterial has no need to act to generate it
or to maintain it.
I have two considerations to make:
 |
| Solitary bee (Megachile) and social bee (Apis) |
- Comparing human societies with insect societies is a false step. The human social order is based on a set of moral rules that has remained fairly constant over time, except in relation to sexual morality (see the appendix to The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis). The social order of insects is programmed in their genes and their nervous system. While in the human species it is possible, even frequent, that one or more members of society rebel against one or more rules, or even attempt to overthrow the entire social order, the members of insect societies cannot rebel. In other words, man is conscious and free, insects are not. Any comparison between them is out of place, because they are based on totally different structures.
