By Karen Stewart, MA

Here we are at the start of another new year! I will turn 75 this year and, of course, the older I get the faster the time seems to slip by. Just this morning, Grateful Living’s Daily Word offered this beautiful quote from the gifted novelist Louise Erdrich:

We are so brief. A one-day dandelion. A seedpod skittering across the ice.
We are a feather falling from the wing of a bird. I don’t know why it is
given to us to be so mortal and to feel so much.
It Is a cruel trick, and glorious.

So Brief . . . So Mortal

We are ‘so brief’ both as individuals and as a species. I am rapidly approaching my expiration date and my life seems to have passed by unbelievably quickly. I was so arrogant in my youth secretly believing that old people were a different species and not really believing that I would ever be one! Even now I can forget that I am old until I encounter a physical limitation or pass by a mirror.

Our brevity as a species is even more startling. I have recently been listening to an extraordinary book that I cannot recommend highly enough. It is revolutionary. The book is Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman, a historian from Holland. He reminds us of just how brief is our existence as a species on this planet: if the history of the earth (4,000 million years) were represented by a calendar year, human beings arrived on the scene on December 31st at 11:00 PM (p. 51). I have trouble letting that sink in. It makes me feel both very small and insignificant and astounded at the vastness of our impact on this planet. If we are not careful, we will be responsible for cataclysmic changes that will threaten the whole thing.

Feel So Much!

Indeed, many of us are in danger of being overwhelmed by our feelings. We have our own personal trials and tribulations with health, work, finances, and families that can range from manageable to seemingly impossible to bear. Then we have all the usual horrors going on around us—wars, environmental disasters, tremendous income inequality, systemic racism, a continued pandemic, immigration problems, and inflation. Finally, this year is an election year. In an already divided nation, politics have the potential of making our situation even worse. Some say the future of our democracy is at stake.

How can we not only survive the next year but thrive? Bregman’s book offers radical hope. The title—Humankind—says it all. As a species we are inherently kind, generous, empathetic, and compassionate, with an aversion to violence; and we experience shame when we do something that violates our inner code of good behavior. Those very traits make us susceptible to being manipulated by humans who do not possess them, humans who have been corrupted by a desire for power that outweighs their natural desire for connection; sociopaths who do not experience shame when they hurt or harm others. We must remember who we are.

Bregman carefully takes us through the research that upends the prevailing view that we are selfish savages who are only kept in line by a thin veneer of civilization. He shines a new light onto what has come to be thought of as foundational research that supposedly ‘proved’ our base nature. He illuminates the flaws in that research and to my mind dispels it. He carefully presents the age-old debate about whether we were naturally cooperative and helpful creatures who existed peacefully before land ownership and civilization brought conflict and strife, or whether we are born savages and only civilization keeps us in line.

I will give an inadequate and simplistic but hopefully mostly accurate review of his book in this brief column, but I urge you to read or listen to the entire book. I apologize in advance for any misrepresentation of Bregman’s work. Of great interest is the new scientific evidence he gives to refute much of what has been considered sound scientific evidence of the ‘veneer’ theory, that we are savages with a veneer of civilization.

Instead, Bregman offers a wealth of evidence that we are naturally cooperative and helpful creatures but with some important provisos:

Tribalism

First: We do seem to have an inborn proclivity for tribalism. As hunter/gatherers we were keenly attuned to differences for reasons of safety. However, most of the time if a stranger was not a threat they could be tolerated or assimilated. We are one of the few animals who experience shame when we violate our inborn compass for what constitutes ‘good’ behavior. So in small hunting/gathering tribes our attachment to our tribal family promoted ‘good’ behavior and personal shame and our cohort kept us in line when we did something wrong. When members were selfish or aggressive, other members of the tribe would discipline, expel, or even kill them. When it was necessary to choose leaders, members chose strong but fair and generous leaders, and selfish or aggressive leaders were not tolerated.

However, once we began to live in villages and became a largely agrarian society, the small coherent tribe gave way to larger communities where individual relationships were impossible. The idea of private property took root, people began to become invested in power and used it to claim land and to enslave others to do their bidding. Without the tempering power of relationship, a hierarchy was born. Civilization brought order to the scene. “The thinkers of Enlightenment laid the foundations for the modern world, from the rule of law to democracy and from education to science,” says Bregman. (p.245) Democracy, our system of justice and other noble ideas were birthed, but as we know now their implementation has been woefully flawed. Unfortunately, all of the ideas are based on the inherent selfishness/savagery of humankind.

Second, Bregman observes that while we remain naturally cooperative and helpful creatures, we are still subject to tribalism. We have an innate wariness of strangers. We vary widely with how big and inclusive our ‘tribe’ is but most of us have trouble in this multicultural, pluralistic society and we are capable of being manipulated to enhance our tribalistic tendencies and see others as enemies.

The very feelings that make us capable of cooperation, trust, and compassion also make us susceptible to being lied to, manipulated, and exploited by powerful leaders who do not possess the qualities of compassion, generosity and do not experience shame when they violate the standards of behavior.

A Source of Hope

So, what does all this have to do with surviving this year? Before reading this book, I was feeling pretty despairing of our ability to find our way forward, to solve what seem insurmountable problems to survive. After reading this I find myself having faith in us as people. Bregman sites many exciting instances of societies, businesses, schools, and cities that are being run based on trust in people that allows their intrinsic motivation to emerge and flourish. Most of us are fundamentally good people: helpful, cooperative, kind, and generous. I want to always remember that. We mostly want the same things: safety, health, and happiness for ourselves and our families. As we move through this year with all of the politicians vying for our votes, we must remember that some of them may be like us but some are very different and are capable of lying to us in order to manipulate and exploit us, capitalizing on our tribalism to see each other as bad actors, instead of fellow citizens who mostly want the same things.

Remembering Who We Are

We need most of all to remember who we are. We need to take care of ourselves and our families. We need to titrate our exposure to news and politics. I only read newspapers and Heather Cox Richardson’s column or listen to National Public Radio. I do not listen to pundits even those that espouse my views but do it by screaming and hyperbole. I know those are tactics to stir me up and trigger that fear and primordial tribalism. I want measured analysis not exaggerations, name calling, and other tactics that promote tribalism.

Why do I want to avoid pleas to tribalism? Because we are only going to survive and thrive if we realize that we are all in this together. Our tribe is not just the human tribe but includes all species on earth including plants and animals. We must see beyond our differences and use our wise minds to figure out what is important to us.

For me it is attending to climate change so my grandchildren have a healthy beautiful world to grow up in. It is making sure that the words of the declaration of independence come to fruition and we undo the effects of structural racism, patriarchy, and white supremacy. It is addressing the vast income inequality in this country and the world. The top one percent has amassed its vast wealth through the labor, resources, and infrastructure of the rest of us and it is time that they pay their rightful share of taxes. It is health care for all and a sturdy safety net for those who need it.

Your values may be entirely different but I urge you to articulate them and then listen to hear which politicians will actually deliver on them. Are they willing to work together with those on the other side? Are they cooperative, generous, compassionate? Are they people you would want to have in your family?

Glorious

And remember the glorious nature of this world and our place in it. Take time to experience awe and gratitude daily. Remember who and what you love and try to extend those boundaries even broader. Several weeks ago, I woke up in the middle of the night, I am a chronic insomniac. I asked Alexa to play music to help me sleep, instead she played a guided loving kindness meditation “May I be well, may I be happy, may my relationships nourish me, may I know love.” Absolutely beautiful, I do not know where it came from and have not been able to find it, but it stuck with me. This morning, I woke from a beautiful dream, the content is irrelevant, but the feeling was one of knowing loveat a deep and profound level. Glorious! We are such mortal creatures, but we can know love… Glorious and worth all the hardships along the way.