Peace for the World World ! Your War Our Lives
The Dalai Lama
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
(Full Story)
Back to 500BC.
Monday, January 9, 2017
Tribalism, Nationalism And Fascism
A drop of good sense, in a sea of emotion
When I was 7 years old, and in the third grade of school, my teacher
described human behavior in a way that has stuck in my mind for three
quarters of a century: She said “A drop of good sense, in a sea of
emotion!”
Our emotional nature is very ancient. Many human emotions can be traced
back to our remote ancestors in the animal kingdom. These emotions are
not necessarily appropriate in the complex society of today. The
Nobel-laureate physiologist Albert Szent-Gyorgyi once wrote:
“The story of man consists of two parts, divided by the appearance of
modern science…. In the first period, man lived in the world in which
his species was born and to which his senses were adapted. In the
second, man stepped into a new, cosmic world to which he was a complete
stranger… The forces at man’s disposal were no longer terrestrial
forces, of human dimension, but were cosmic forces, the forces which
shaped the universe. The few hundred Fahrenheit degrees of our flimsy
terrestrial fires were exchanged for the ten million degrees of the
atomic reactions which heat the sun.
“This is but a beginning, with endless possibilities in both
directions, a building of a human life of undreamt of wealth and
dignity, or a sudden end in utmost misery. Man lives in a new cosmic
world for which he was not made. His survival depends on how well and
how fast he can adapt himself to it, rebuilding all his ideas, all his
social and political institutions.
“…Modern science has abolished time and distance as factors separating
nations. On our shrunken globe today, there is room for one group only:
the family of man.”
Tribalism
Tribalism is closely related to nationalism and fascism. Today it is our
most inappropriate behavioral tendency. It is the tendency of humans
to be kind, loyal and supportive to members of their own group, but
sometimes murderous towards outsiders.
The human tendency towards tribalism evolved when our remote ancestors
lived in small, genetically homogeneous tribes, competing for territory
on the grasslands of Africa. Because marriage within a tribe was much
more common than marriage outside it, genes were shared within the
tribe. The tribe as a whole either survived or perished. The tribe,
rather than the individual was the unit upon which the Darwinian forces
of natural selection acted.
Although it was a survival trait 100,000 years ago, tribalism threatens
our human civilization of today with thermonuclear annihilation. As
Konrad Lorenz put it, “An impartial visitor from another planet,
looking at man as he is today, in his hand the atom bomb, the product of
his intelligence, in his heart the aggression drive, inherited from his
anthropoid ancestors, which the same intelligence cannot control, such
a visitor would not give mankind much chance of survival.”
Nationalism
Today, at the start of the 21st century, we live in nation-states to
which we feel emotions of loyalty very similar to the tribal emotions of
our ancestors. The enlargement of the fundamental political and social
unit has been made necessary and possible by improved transportation and
communication, and by changes in the techniques of warfare.
The tragedy of our present situation is that the same forces that made
the nation-state replace the tribe as the fundamental political and
social unit have continued to operate with constantly increasing
intensity. For this reason, the totally sovereign nation-state has
become a dangerous anachronism.
Although the world now functions as a single unit because of modern
technology, its political structure is based on fragments, on absolutely
sovereign nation-states – large compared to tribes, but too small for
present-day technology, since they do not include all of mankind.
Gross injustices mar today’s global economic interdependence, and
because of the development of thermonuclear weapons, the continued
existence of civilization is threatened by the anarchy that exists today
at the international level.
Fascism
Fascism appeals directly to the lowest human emotions. Fascism calls up
the devils of tribalism and nationalism. Therefore it is fundamentally
antisocial and destructive. At the same time, the low, emotional appeal
of fascism has led to its political success. The fanatical crowds that
cheered Hitler, Franco and Mussolini in the 1930’s are worryingly
similar to the crowds that cheered Donald Trump during the disastrous
2016 US presidential election.
The family of humankind
On our shrunken globe, there is room for one group only, the family of
humankind. We face a difficult future. Climate change threatens to make
large parts of the world uninhabitable. Fossil fuels must be kept in
the ground if we are to have any chance of avoiding catastrophic global
warming. Climate change, the end of the fossil fuel era, and rapid
population growthe threaten to produce famine on a scale that has never
previously been witnessed.
To face the severe challenges successfully, to avoid a political drift towards fascism and war, we need human solidarity.
Individual citizens of the world must join hands and work together with
dedication to overcome the threats of tribalism, nationalism and
fascism.
We must build a new global ethical system where we recognize that we are
all members of a single family. We must save the future for our
children and grandchildren, and for all other creatures in our beautiful
world.
Some suggestions for further reading
John Avery received a B.Sc. in theoretical physics from
MIT and an M.Sc. from the University of Chicago. He later studied
theoretical chemistry at the University of London, and was awarded a
Ph.D. there in 1965. He is now Lektor Emeritus, Associate Professor, at
the Department of Chemistry, University of Copenhagen. Fellowships,
memberships in societies: Since 1990 he has been the Contact Person in
Denmark for Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. In 1995,
this group received the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts. He was the
Member of the Danish Peace Commission of 1998. Technical Advisor, World
Health Organization, Regional Office for Europe (1988- 1997). Chairman
of the Danish Peace Academy, April 2004. http://www.fredsakademiet.dk/ordbog/aord/a220.htm. He can be reached at avery.john.s@gmail.com
