Hello to all.  Namaste.

Glancing at:
                >  the June issue of "Prospect":
                > Darwinian ideas for the left
                >
                >The left -- urgently in need of new ideas --

In my estimation almost all new ideas originate in leftism (explained below).
Rightism would seem to be perpetually relegated to refinement and reworking
of raw originality, which is a necessary and good adjunct.

Before I get too launched into this though, let me preface myself
with noting that there are some who write here who are simply on
a different resonance than I.  I'd speak to them to say Let it be.
Please.  Dwell on three points:  Know Reading as well as 'Riting,
and you'll figure things out ('Rithmetic).

Somewhere in this thread already, (sorry, I'm terrible at names),
someone raised the question of the origin of moral goodness, or
something like that.
I haven't read the literature as extensively as the rest of you, and
I'd like to hear more about the volume cited -- but what I would offer
is a testimony to Edward O.Wilson's "Consilience:  The Unity of Knowledge"
(Knopf, 1998).  Wow.  Wow.  I don't know if this is gauche or something
-- if there's some Hatfield-McCoy thing between Chomskians and Wilsonians --
but I know when what I read makes sense.  A bell rings.  "Consilience,"
(and 'consilience' lower-case), rings true.
Just as a relevant teaser, which you've probably all already read but
in monograph mode you can't stop me if you've heard it:  Wilson finds
('proves', to my thinking) a biological basis for morality.
Open and shut.  Done deal.  To read it is to know it.  And once you know,
you know.
Beyond teasing, just so none should doubt what's being set out,
Wilson also finds God is a symbol, not real.  But very vital.  Or, in his
words (nearly):
"The human brain evolved to believe in God, it did not evolve to believe in
biology."

Point being:  if these sorts of upendings of long-held absolutes
puts one in mind of inanity, maybe it is best just to read and weep for me
rather than take action to try to steer such notions (or me) back into the
orthodoxy corral.  So, there is no God.  Not:  "God is dead."  There is no God.
(But there are morals.)  Let it be.  Read on, in suspended grief.

Back on topic:

                  >    ... [leftism] should consider adopting
                  > Darwinian concepts to freshen its politics, writes Peter
Singer,
                  > ...
                  > While evolution itself has nothing to do with left or
right, ...

(I think the meaning here is "leftism or rightism," and I disagree.  See below.)

                 > ... the right in the past has drawn most from Darwinian
thinking,

(And here:  "drawn more from Darwinism."  Or whatever.  I told you rightism
is optimized for refining, differentiating, extracting, applying thoughts.
Leftism
is for originality, integrating, synthesizing, creativism.)

                  > ... particularly as a means to suggest that economic
competition
                  > leads to the "survival of the fittest."

(Rightism's accomplishment of particularity is its own confinement.  Economic
or otherwise, but probably particularly economic.)

                  > The left rejected Darwin's ideas ...

(No they didn't.  They simply assimilated his and moved on to new ones.)

                  > ... because they shattered utopian notions of
                  > human perfectibility, Mr. Singer says, ...

(There is no "because."  In none of this is meant any disrespect for
the esteemed Mr. Singer.  He's a very learned and exceptional gentleman.)

                 > ... since Darwin believed that the struggle for existence,
                 > or at least that of one's offspring, is unending.

(I'll take your word that Darwin so believed.  I believe there's life,
and there's genetic prolongation.  Both take skill and luck, and are
aided by entrainment.  Which is to suggest a Lamarkian component.)

                 > But Mr. Singer contends that modern Darwinian thought ...

(That's my idea of oxymoronic.  I'll assume:  "the modern instance of
Darwinian thought.")

                 > ... "embraces both competition and reciprocal altruism."
                 > The left, therefore, should seek to encourage a broader sense
                 > of self-interest by showing ...

(First "by seeing," which would lead to "showing.")

                 > ... that the individual pursuit of self-interest
                 > can be collectively self-defeating, he says.

(Not "can be," but "necessarily is."  Nothing to an extreme,
everything in moderation.)

                > Creating incentives for mutual cooperation ...

(Offhand I'd say creating incentives is rightism's specialty.  Leftism is
better adapted to discover and note disincentives, or problems.  In this case:
"Noting limits for individual exploitations ...")

                > ... then could help the left achieve its traditional aims,
                > such as avoiding economic conditions that create outcasts.

If it's not already obvious, I don't ascribe aims, traditional or otherwise,
to leftism and rightism.  To me they are not testaments, they are processes.
Best done in tandem, or in mutual respect.

And here's my nucleus, the "below" I keep referring you to "see":
Leftism is right-brain thinking.  Rightism is left-brain thinking.

Everyone is both.  So we can stop the name-calling.  Indeed, everyone
seems to try each of them in various proportions in successive stages of life.
It takes two alternating feet to walk forward.  It take two specializing hands
to tie a shoe.  Both leftism and rightism are needed in addressing social
(polity) issues.

Leftism and rightism are the only two politics there are.  Always were,
down through time, world around.  Third parties are only exigent combinations
of the first two.

Politics develop from our anatomy.  The hemispheres of the brain are
two different organs.  Evolution grew the left-brain ("conservatism"),
called 'semantic memory' by neurologists, to cognize the question:  Who am I?
Right-brain ("liberalism"), called 'episodic memory', cognizes the question:
Who are we? or Who is part of me/am I part of?  (Survival advantage in
being able to process both questions, and disadvantage in only one.
Knowing self is obviously gainful.  Knowing family/clan/tribe/et al avoids
in-breeding's monstrosities.)

Figure - context.  Foreground - background.  Self - party.
Individual - collective.  Rightism - leftism.

My argument is fully circumstantial.  But it rings truth's bells.

Another thing it explains to me is the shift in politics with scale.
Residents are the collective, and leftism, when they deal with one
individual rightist in the house.  But a residence becomes rightist
when it contends its property line within the community (leftist,
collection of properties).

But the community morphs to its individual, rightist face
("we're number one") when it is represented throughout its state/
province/district/collection of communities (watching the welfare of
the many).

That state, however, stands on rightist "states' rights" before
the federal leftism of states united.  Then scale up and all in the
nation are fervently, patriotically rightist comparing one country
to the world of countries -- and we'll stop here at the global scale
where leftism senses first the holism issues of global climate,
atmospheric chemistry, oceanic shores touching every country.
(No, one more:  If aliens came from other worlds, every Earthling
would play the rightist -- individual in such context.)

It would seem that rightism is about privacy, leftism is about power.
(Those concepts also shift in interpretation with scaling changes.)

Every person has, and needs, both conservative and liberal views.

Darwin had them.  To take up his thought is to hold both, and what
you see just depends on how you turn it.  Was he considering a
species (individuality = rightism) in its ecosystem (collective = leftism)?
Or was he seeing a species (collectively = leftism) manifested in each
and any veritable example (individual = rightism)?

At least, that's how I look at it.  Anatomy is politics.  I'm sort of
test-driving, trial-ballooning the premise here, and working up to
a book on it:  "Political Anatomy."  I'd be very interested in responses
from this august subscriber base, and I'm trying to soften my
cattiness in places.  I understand it is off-putting, but it gets me
through my writer's block.  Please see past that -- Let it be --
and weigh the matter.

One thing for sure:  The absolute worst way to parse political import
is with half one's brain tied behind one's back.

Imagine there's no heaven.  It's easy if you try.
Visualize world peace.  And whirled bees.
Sure the future is a lot like having bees live in your head --
but there they are.  On the count of three you will awaken
and forget where you heard this:  both of your temples itch.
Three ... two ... one.   You're awake!