Humans can be a source of love, learning, cooperation, and assistance
March 10th, 2010
…in more
unequal societies, these
problems aren’t higher by ten or
twenty percent. There are perhaps eight
times the number of teenage births per capita,
ten times the homicide rate, three times the rate of
mental illness. Huge differences…We show that these
problems aren’t affected by rich countries getting still richer.
There are problems that we think of as problems of poverty because
they’re in the poorest areas of society, but a country like the U.S. can be
twice as rich as Greece, Portugal, or Israel—the poorer of the rich, developed
countries we look at—and the problems are no better even though Americans
are able to buy twice as much of everything as the poorer developed
societies. That doesn’t make any difference; it’s only the gaps
between us that matter now. And that’s really quite
a striking thing to learn about ourselves
and the effects of the social
structure on us.
…Let me
tell you what I think
is perhaps at the very bottom
of all this. If you think of almost any
animal species, there is a huge potential for
conflict amongst members of the same species,
because they have all the same needs. They eat the
same food stuffs, they need the same nesting sites, they
value the same feeding grounds or territories, they compete
for sexual partners. It was that recognition in human populations
that made the political philosopher Thomas Hobbes in the 17th century
say that human beings, without a sovereign power to keep the peace, would
war against each other and have “nasty, brutish, and short” lives. Amongst
monkeys, inequality takes the form of dominance hierarchies, based on
power and coercion and privileged access to resources: “I get it first
because I’m stronger, and I don’t care if you’re hungry.”
Human hierarchies are similar—it’s why power,
status, and wealth all go together at the top
and why powerlessness, hunger, and
poverty go together at
the bottom.
But human
beings also have the
opposite potential. We can be
the best source of love and learning
and cooperation and assistance of every kind.
In a sense, Hobbes was wrong about people in a state
of nature. He was right about the potential for conflict, but
people have avoided conflict through food sharing, gift exchange,
and great social equality (for example, in hunter-gatherer societies).
The gift in a sense is a symbol that you and I don’t compete for the necessities
of life. We don’t need to fight each other for them. You feel a sense of indebtedness
and you reciprocate the gift, which anthropologists have suggested is a sort
of basic social contract. That symbolism is still really important:
You invite your friends over, sit around the same table, and
share food, the basic necessity of life. The symbolism
is also there in religious services and communion —
these things are very fundamental,
very deep.
Inequality
is a reflection of how strong
hierarchies are, how much we share or how much
we don’t. It shows us which part of our potential we’re developing.
What game do I play? Have I got to fend for myself? Or have I got to get people
to trust me and cooperate with me? Is my survival dependent on good
relationships? Are you my rival? Are you going to steal from
me? Have I got to keep what I’ve got, defend it?
Or can we share? Human beings
can do both.
