Political attitude as an influence on Human Evolution?

 I recently ran across a question in the Anthropology Network which asks how political perspective influences the role of culture in the evolution of H sapiens.The writer presented the question in terms of poll and asked readers to respond by selecting between 5 political attitudes ranging from the most conservative to the most radical. Specifically, between Reactionary and Radical.

At first I dismissed the question and the poll as "interesting" but irrelevant. How could my political outlook today have anything to do with the development of culture and human evolution? But as I thought about some more, I realized the question really attacks the question of how does cultural dynamics work and what impact has this had on the evolution of our species and its cultural diversity. A question that has been at the center of my own anthropological interests for more than four decades.  

The answer which I have found come from readings dating back to the 1960s and 1970s related to a seminar in community development which I took with Dr. Edward H. Spicer upon my return from the Peace Corps. The key book was Ward Goodenough's Cooperation In Change. Goodenough builds much of his theoretical argument based on the work of Anthony F. C. Wallace's Culture and Personality.

I realized that political attitude played out at the supraorganic or societal level certainly can influnce the cultural response of the group and thus indirectly the course of human evolution.

Anthony F. C. Wallace answered this question a long time ago and the Eastern religions even longer ago. It is the tension between "radical" and "reactionary" that produces the evolution in Human culture which in turn has promoted the biological evolution of the Homo sapiens species.

Wallace identifies two forces or principles at work in cultural development. The first, here the radical, is the principle of the ORGANIZATION OF DIVERSITY (OD). Human group activity which brings diverse elements in the environment(s) together to successfully solve a survival problem favor the survival of that group. The willingness to experiment and break with or question tradition is a radical position leading to innovation.

The second, here the reactionary, is the principle of REPLICATION OF UNIFORMITY (RU). Individual activity does not guarantee success and individual success does not guarantee group success. What is required to produce both innovation and evolution is the replication of successes across generations and the elimination of failed experiments. The resistance to change, orthodoxy, is critical to the replication of success.

Culture, based on these two principles, provides the tension which enables these principles to operate. Evolutionary success is the centrist or moderate product of these principles operating in a give environment. Change the environment and the system must recalibrate, i.e. the species must adapt and evolve..

So to answer the original question, I must ask another question: What is the environment for making a choice?