The number one enemy for any individual (in all of nature) is members of the same species. Because they're competing for resources in the same niche. Yes, I believe humans are one species. Which is why we keep murdering each other. Essentially we're still the same posturing baboons. We're just more sophisticated about how we do it than other primates. But we're still doing the same thing.
I recommend Stephen Pinker's Enlightenment Now. He argues that Rousseau got it backwards. The natural state of humans is to be a savage brute, and civilisation and enlightenment is all about preventing us from being our true nature. Which benefits us all. He also argues that modern society is feminised, we've cut the balls off the patriarchy, and that is also to the benefit of the world at large. Which is a fun theory. I think he makes a very compelling case.
In his book, Better Angels or our Nature he writes about the history of violence. Which clearly demonstrates the correlation. Both books are great.
Also, cooperation is a specialization.
Yes, with the end goal of dominating our rivals.
We are nothing if not plastic and adaptable. We are not baboons. We have a brain that can recognize when we are actually in danger and need to be reflexively aggressive and when we are not. We are capable of learning. Negativity bias is another vestigial survival trait that has served us well but doesn't any longer, and also explains why some people only see the negative, the savage brute, and not the peaceful bonobo, not the highly intelligent, complex, adaptable, aware social animals that we are.
The only evidence I see that our primal animal aggression is more significant than our intelligence and sensitivity is negativity bias.
And I just want to note that we are so adaptable in so many constant and subtle ways that right now, if you've read this, your brain has changed in some way. You might choose defensiveness or to assert your intellectual dominance (fueled by the subconscious animal brain urge to dominate that you mention) or your understanding might change in some small way, even if that change occurs later, like a seed that's been planted.
We all operate this way. There is no reason to think that the savage brute in us dominates in any conditions other than real threat. Negativity bias in this overwhelming information age may well excite our animal brain fear aggression and regress all of humanity into violent monkeys, but I doubt that would happen when the vast majority of us are not scared or feeling threatened, coupled with the fact that we are as capable of recognizing when we are actually under threat or just hearing a scary story or seeing scary images, meaning recognizing when our animal brain fear aggression does not need to be activated.
We're capable of fully utilizing our frontal lobes and disengaging animal brain reactions. At some point in our history, we all shit wherever and threw the bones of our dinner wherever. Like every other animal, we develop differently when we don't have other humans to cultivate our behavior, but most of the time we do, and there are seven billion of us cultivating each other's behavior constantly. So there is no reason to believe that that cultivation will take a nose dive into primal fear mentality and remain there. There's no reason to believe that aggression is the stronger influence on our evolution just because it's physical. Peace and pleasure are just as influential if not more so.
I fully acknowledge the
possibility that humanity could take a nose dive and devolve into a species of savage brutes, especially given the possibility of global disaster reducing humankind back to a few small groups without the stability and industry of civilization, but barring all that, I see no reason to discount the possibility of continuing to progress toward more peace, less war, more cooperation, less aggression, and brains evolved to handle a tribe of seven billion without engaging animal brain fear reactions, or to think that that is not even more possible given the superior benefits of our friendly nature.
Fear aggression and animal brain urge to dominate are powerful drivers, absolutely. And in our ideological world, they can clearly be hijacked on a national and global scale because of technology. But this state is not sustainable. Survival itself, not so much reason and conscious deliberation or desire for peace, but survival pushes people to abandon fear reactions when reality hits that prejudice will not pay the bills or feed the kids.