According tot he author, in order to live within a symbiosis unit, man must have self-descipline and the ability to distinguish between good and evil.
Drawing mainly from the two texts, the Old Testament and Hesiod's Theogony, Mr. Ponghis Derives that man acquired the conception of both good and evil and the use of fire, both of which differentiated him from animals, only after the advent of his individualization and the development of his third and fourth capacities after survival and procreation, namely greed and creativity. The use of fire started a storming period of continuous increased production and consumption.
Thus began the course of civilization, from the ancients on up through our modern economic, spiritual, ethical, and political systems, a course depictive of man's attempt of man's attempt to define the meaning of this civilization and how society is a compromise, which constitutes a construct of knowledge and fact on the one side and opinions on the other. Today's uncertainty and disorientation of mankind and civilization arises from the gap existing between the world of knowledge and facts and the world of opinions. When a society attempts to close this steadily widening gap the result is an open-ended society such as the United States and many West European countries characterized by pluralism and its variants, or totalitarian political systems and societies and their variants.
Peter Ponghis's book The Philosophy of Democratic Symbiosis is a noble exercise in free thought in which he exposes modern society's weaknesses and sets out the possible course for its future evolution.