The Law of the Jungle is Cooperation

"It's a jungle out there" - how many times have we heard this phrase used to justify cutthroat behavior? I hear it often in my work with conflict resolution. It's meant to suggest that nature is cruel, competitive, merciless. That trust is for the naive.

But this common belief is wrong. Dead wrong. The jungle is actually one of the most sophisticated cooperative systems on Earth. Most predators rarely kill their own kind. A lion pride survives through cooperation, not internal fighting. Even wolves, our go-to symbol for savage competition, maintain complex social bonds that enable their survival.

We misread nature because we see what we want to see. A tiger hunting deer becomes justification for office politics. But watch that same tiger with her cubs - infinite patience, careful teaching, absolute trust. The real law of the jungle isn't about ruthless competition. It's about building sustainable, hence evolutionary wise, systems of cooperation.

This isn't some feel-good philosophy. It's cold, hard, evolutionary fact. Humans didn't become Earth's dominant species through individual strength. We got here through unprecedented ability to cooperate, to build trust even with strangers. No other species can do this at our scale. Maybe Margaret Mead said: “the first sign of civilization in an ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed.” I am not sure about the actual quote, I would rather say that this is not only a sign of civilisation but of trust, full on trust not only in the emotional level but in the prolonged ability of the members of the community, even a non human community.

Thinking trust is weakness means simplifying and misreading complex processes, being stuck in a simplified cartoon version of evolution. Trust is more complex, more interesting, and ultimately more useful for understanding how to succeed in any competitive environment.

The Paradox of Trust in Competition

The most effective fighters emerge not from environments of constant competition. I am stating this from the vantage point of years in the dojo. Best fighters train in deep trust. This isn't just feel-good philosophy - it's practical reality. Any tiger cub or a house cat can attest.

What happens in a training environment where trust is absent? Practitioners can never push their limits, never expand their technique Repertoire. They must always play it safe, hold back, always maintain a defensive posture, always worry about injury. The result? Slower development, limited skill acquisition, and ironically, reduced combat effectiveness.

What happens in a training environment where trust is absent? Practitioners can never push their limits, never expand their technique Repertoire. They must always play it safe, hold back, always maintain a defensive posture, always worry about injury. The result? Slower development, limited skill acquisition, and ironically, reduced combat effectiveness.

This pattern extends far beyond the dojo. Elite military units don't build their legendary effectiveness through fear or pure aggression. Unit cohesion - the factor that repeatedly proves decisive in actual combat - depends on absolute trust between members. You can't coordinate complex tactics if you're constantly watching your back.

The business world tells the same story. When we look at organizations that consistently outperform their competitors, we find cultures of high trust. The cost of mistrust is a huge tax. I am thinking, for instance, of a manager that has to verify everything. This isn't because these organizations have eliminated competition. Rather, they've understood something fundamental: trust isn't the opposite of competition - it's what makes sophisticated competition possible.

Think about any complex competitive environment. Financial markets need trusted institutions and rules. Professional sports require trusted referees for trusted rules and shared conventions. Even warfare, the ultimate expression of competition, depends on trust inside the fighting unit.

The jungle is a wise (evolutionary proven) complex system to learn from, not a tale made up to support thinking biases. From symbiosis and coordinated hunts to training fighters and even building a toaster, trust is the foundation that enables complex achievements, in complex communities and partnerships; it can be learned.

Trust isn't the opposite of strength - it's what the original living world power multiplier, a coordinated effort. The law of the jungle isn't what we think it is, It's better. What if we embraced trust as our most powerful tool for navigating the jungle of modern life?