Every animal's nature places it in relationship to other animals of its own and of different species. These relationships, by virtue of being with other animals, are necessarily dynamic. The animal is always responding, not only to a fixed environment (or one that changes independently), but also to entities capable of response and of forcing response. Dynamic relationships inevitably result in dynamic behavior by their totality. The system may be cyclical or chaotic, but under no conditions (short of extinction) can it reach a steady state or uncontrolled growth.

For some reason we are rarely aware of this fact as it pertains to our own species, or to the multiplicity of smaller systems we belong to. All the intelligence and rational planning in the world cannot change the basic fact of our dependence and effects on other individuals. If anything, intelligence multiplies relationships and accelerates the propagation of those low-level perceptions of intent and danger that drive unconscious choice. Crowds do not converge on solutions because they do not converge. The flock can only go in one direction once the internal dynamics have reached their maximum tension, at which point it is the most susceptible to change.

This is as much an argument against central planning as it against individualist theories of human nature. We are not going to avoid the cycles and unpredictabilities amply manifest in human history by denying the relational aspects of human nature or by attempting to force relationships into an appearance of unity or rationality. We are not going to avoid the cycles of nature at all, but we will weather them a lot better if we focus on fulfilling our nature rather than avoiding it.