Send message to Author

Paper short abstract

This paper explores the role of cooperation and trust, viewing them as near-universal engines of sociability itself. Such outlook, accompanied by fitting methodology, promises to enrich the existing outlooks on o human negotiation, identity and conflict strategies and the resulting polarization.

Paper long abstract

The aim of this paper is to draw attention to the subject of cooperative behavior and trust formation, framing them not as mere artifacts of social reality, but rather as foundational substrate that merely requires to become the center of our focus once again. Ultimately, I would like to introduce what I tentatively call: "Cooperation-oriented Paradigm" for social sciences.

From the most fundamental nature of communication itself, to maintenance of all vital social institutions, laws, customs and even division of labor - cooperation permeates and enables every aspect of our social existence: more often than not, without our own awareness.

Where as concepts of power and conflict have dominated the minds of modern social scholars (from Marx to Foucault), the much broader and more common realm of cooperative behavior remains a social-science's biggest blind spot.

Without understanding the nature of cooperation and mechanics of trust, our understanding of conflict is incomplete, shuffling us towards polarized world preoccupied by power. Cooperation gives conflict context, and trust gives solutions longevity. Without those: conflict becomes the norm, and power becomes a virtue.

Looking into already existing research done theory of games, evolutionary psychology, semiotics and pragmatic fields of philosophy, this paper seeks to establish a more nuanced tools for understanding asymmetrical forms of social structures. Modeling them as networks of agencies, investments and risk-regulators all operating towards a desired non-zero-sum goal, mutualism becomes the governing concern.

Through understanding cooperation, not as anomalies but as core human social strategies, our horizons could greatly expand.