Dissidence: Evolutionary Considerations

In: http://hdl.handle.net/11201/150576

Abstract

[eng] Dissidence occurs when an individual opposes and resists in some way an established social order. The opposition can address any kind of social values: political, religious, artistic. Societies may tolerate or repress dissidence. In this work, I want to raise the question of whether dissidence makes any evolutionary sense. In many animal social groups, it happens that individuals can be ostracized, and this practice may turn out to be adaptive for the species as it can be seen as a mechanism of diversification, which may become functional as a way to respond to environmental changes. In what follows, I will consider several reasons why it might be evolutionary and adaptive for humans that some individuals fail to conform to the group standards, focusing particularly on the benefits of social innovation