Absolutely. The notion that fierce competition for survival is the state of all things in nature is reductionist at best, and incredibly harmful when applied to the human social world.
Take some of the more successful species out there: there are countless species of fungi which thrive on a mutually-beneficial relationships with the root systems of plants (check out the Wood Wide Web); or lichen, which are composite organisms arising from algae or bacteria living in fungi.
Competition is undeniably a big part of the natural world, but it's not something that captures a fraction of the complex relationships between and within species.
Appeals to this survival of the fittest nonsense justify all sorts of terrible behaviour -- and I guess in this context, self-flagellation -- but have little a very weak relationship with modern understandings of biology, history and sociology.
Take some of the more successful species out there: there are countless species of fungi which thrive on a mutually-beneficial relationships with the root systems of plants (check out the Wood Wide Web); or lichen, which are composite organisms arising from algae or bacteria living in fungi.
Competition is undeniably a big part of the natural world, but it's not something that captures a fraction of the complex relationships between and within species.
Appeals to this survival of the fittest nonsense justify all sorts of terrible behaviour -- and I guess in this context, self-flagellation -- but have little a very weak relationship with modern understandings of biology, history and sociology.