Until the World Wide Web gave us a virtual feel of how everyone on Earth is interconnected, humanity was abstract and distant to most of humankind.
But interconnected we always have been. Genetically, we are all cousins, various times removed, to everyone else alive. Culturally, the majority of our languages can be traced back to three origins: Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, and Afro-Asiatic. Technologically, inventions such as farming and weaponry spread intercontinentally through migration, intermarriage, trade and war. So were germs through the same channels, as illustrated in Jared Diamond’s Germs, Guns and Steel 📖. Developmentally, societies went through similar stages of development until we converge to the one we share now.
Needless to say, our connectedness only tightens in the post-globalization age. From your morning cup of coffee to the screen you cannot turn off at night, we rely on the industries of billions of others to provide for our necessities as well as niceties. When your cat post can go viral on the internet in a matter of minutes, we must admit that we are indeed, one of 7.7 billions. Given this interconnectivity and codependence, how can we not understand humanity and our fellow people?
Homo sapiens (i.e., our species) are a strand of nature evolved to current state through billions of years of natural selection as well as artificial selection (humans choosing who to breed with). Evolution puts out tests in the form of genetic mutations to see which traits are fit to survive in given environments, so variety is inherent in our nature. Until designer babies and sentient robots come into the picture, any given human trait, be it of physique, temperament, intelligence, or predisposition to illnesses, is a little experiment evolution generates to see if said trait could survive in the environment long enough for us to mate with someone, so that the trait can carry on for another generation. In other words, each one of our strengths, weaknesses and quarks is a “what if” scenario that nature throws out to see “does this work?” Someone might fall in the lower part of the bell curve (see graph below), for example, in terms of depression, but they might be above average in terms of intelligence. Someone might have a disposition of diabetes, for instance, but they may also have a high E.Q. In this sense, there is no need to feel inferior when you meet someone “endowed” in certain areas, and there is similarly no need to discriminate someone whose “challenged” or “different” in any way. There is a point and hence a place for every fortitude, flavor and flaw in our genes (keeping in mind that nurture can change predispositions too). Variety is a good thing — as in wildlife, you’d want diversity in our gene pool for the continued virility of humankind. More about human resilience in Self > Principles > Growth Mindset.
The same can be said about cultural diversity: the vitality of humanity depends on the variety in culture. Sure, some outdated practice such as human sacrifice deserves to be eliminated from our culture like a failed experiment of the ignorant past. That said, it is not justified to oppress or wipe out other vibrant cultures for dominance, such as European colonists’ eradication of indigenous cultures around the world and Nazi’s genocide of the Jews. Instead, we must learn to thrive in co-existence. To use a lighter example: even if you happen to be a big fan of Pop music, you don’t want the world to only support Pop artists because that means music fans of other genres would stop supporting music altogether. The lack of demand and the lack of competition would most likely drag down the quality of the dominating Pop music — why make an effort when you have a monopoly? And pretty soon, you might realize that you don’t actually like Pop music exclusively since Pop needs the constant stimulation of other genres such as Hip Hop to stay interesting and refreshing. Without the influx of other influences, too much of even a good thing will get tiring and eventually wilt.
The bottom line is: the human experience, even when experienced apart, mirrors, reflects and informs one another. All of humanity is one big book. Each human’s existence is a story inside, with newer humans adding the latest anecdotes to the epic volume. Collectively, all the humans that ever existed tell one big story.
One big part of this story is our shared suffering. Yuval Noah Harari, whose book Sapiens 📖 tells a holistic, informative tale about humanity, posits that individual suffering, oppression and exploitation played a key role in the development of human history (p. 109, 114, 116, 112). Take for example the plague Black Death ▶️, which is estimated to have wiped out 20%-60% of Europe’s population during the 14th century. The human loss was so immense that it inadvertently resulted in the raise of wages and living standards of lower-class labors, the proliferation of agricultural innovations, and the building of universities around Europe (due to the difficulty to get around during the plague), aiding the spread of knowledge.
As much as we suffer together, we transcend together as well. Steven Pinker is probably the biggest champion of human progress of our time. In The Better Angels of Our Nature 📖, he uses data to illustrate the decline of all types of violence such as war and torture over time and across geography.
In our age of relative peace in human history, we nonetheless face critical issues including emotion-manipulating social media, radicalization of public opinions, misinformation and disinformation, breakdown of inter-sectional and international discourse, digital surveillance, irreversible climate change, extreme weather, economic inequality, social injustice, downfall of representative democracy, rise of populism and authoritarianism, and limitation of human rights and freedom. These issues are big enough to be the black swan, or the events that disapproves the general rule of human progress, and might just set us back for centuries, if not ruin us once and for all.
It’s clear now we share a common fate into the future, can global citizens foresee problems and address them proactively? Do we really need another Black Death to force us into improving our fellow humans’ lives or to promote the spread of knowledge? Apartheid-fighting bishop Desmond Tutu said: “I am human because you are human. My humanity is caught up in yours. If you are dehumanized, I am dehumanized.” How do we turn mutual dehumanization into common humanization? One major way to do it is to develop an awareness not only for all the groups we’ve mentioned in the section: > self, family, romance, school, work, communities, etc., but have mindfulness for humanity as a whole (starting with How not to be ignorant about the world ▶️ by Hans and Ola Rosling). The key is to think global, act local. More about it in Groups > Principle: We Rise and Fall Together.
Another important way to ensure a better shared future is to consider time, as suggested by editor César Rodríguez-Garavito, and be what philosopher Roman Krznaric calls a “Good Ancestor” 📖. As the Iroquois saying goes: “In every deliberation, we must consider the impact on the seventh generation [after us]… even if it requires having skin as thick as the bark of a pine.”
It’s high time for us to wane off the mother milk of passive historical catalysts and start actively building a future we want to live in. Deliberative direct democracy, or D3, is a good way forward.
Read about other relationships in the 21st century:
- Self
- Romance / Sex
- Family
- Friends
- School
- Work
- Communities
- Social status
- Consumer groups / Economies
- Political Systems
- Memes / Ideologies / Religions
- Environment / World
- Universe / Beyond Our Universe
Do you have any suggestions, doubts, hypothesis or experience for this topic? Please comment below 👇!
