Heroes and Justice

A society might be better in terms of individual freedom and equality if it aggressively promotes all the things that conservative political elements hate… you know — the “liberal” agenda. In fact this agenda is usually about stricter outlawing of all the kinds of things that set up inequality in terms of access to food, shelter, water, education, medical care, legal systems…

There used to be the idea that human society changed and people became better. More intelligent, more moral, more creative, more angelic.. so you start with short-lived savages and end up with long-lived scholarly liberals. Whether you think it happens through social and economic transformation or through genetic change is hardly even that important. It is all tied up with the idea that human prehistory and history represents a story about progress.

I don’t believe it.

For one thing, it is at odds with what we really know about how species evolve. Wildebeest today are not “better” than their ancestors — their ancestors were probably just as good and kind to their calves and their close herd mates as their descendants are today, for that matter. What makes modern wild horses look and act differently from Eohippus has nothing to do with progress toward some ideal horse species or horse society.

I have seen some credible evidence in my lifetime that all human beings — even those who live like the “savages” of old time myths — are rather alike in cognitive and neurological functions. We all crave belonging, and the safety and comfort of strong bonds with others so much that we literally often die without these, often by our own hands. Or become bitter hermits, a social death.

What the foragers seem to all have understood only too well was that the human being has a great emotional weakness as well. The hubris that comes of being placed somehow above one’s fellows is our weakness. That was the point that Richard Lee was trying to drive home when he wrote “Eating Christmas in the Kalahari”. The old guy’s comment “If a man is praised for sharing the meat of his kill, he may come to think he is better (more important) than other people. Someday he might kill someone.”

That says it all…. But apparently not. It has taken years of research to uncover this aspect of our human nature.

To uncover the fact, that the assumption of authority, or even the obedient assumption that one may suspend one’s own judgement to a higher authority — even in an experimental setting- somehow turns off empathy and compassion.

There even some who say our evolutionary history shows that humans, particularly males, compete with one another for status, and that this competitive rise up a power hierarchy involving aggressive self-promotion and even physical clashes is somehow “natural”.

I question this. Beating up — or beating out — others as if this raises one’s status is just terrorizing people. You gain nothing but intimidation — high status is not based being more scary than anyone else, it is based on a reputation for qualities of character; and more often than not, these are qualities of character that actively repudiate use of brute force and crude threats, let alone an uncaring attitude toward those more vulnerable than oneself.

The game of status, thus, as the human animal plays it, is not about getting power over others. No. We humans play a more complex game than chimpanzees.

Our game is weighted with intangible advantages like friendships and handicaps like an offensive temper: among human males, the status game is not even really about access to females: it is about influence over others, both male and female, and even influence over the dreams and hopes of future generations.

I tell you — the game of status and power among humans — is about marshalling the combined forces of moral and physical effort to your side, from your own group and even from well beyond your personal circle.

And it is reciprocal — you only earn what you yourself will offer to give, even if it be your life, for the sake of those who take their lead from your example.

If, as a society, we can reduce injustice, unfairness, social isolation, disrespect, bullying and so on, we tend to be a lot more trusting of one another, to be given to random acts of kindness and sharing.

We have an immense capacity to love each other. Is this not the reason people saw so much positive in the eclipse of hereditary monarchies and aristocracies, where hubris could become an intergenerational flaw? Is this not why slavery was abolished and why we now live in an world which has, at least on paper, a commitment to the rights of all human beings to be treated fairly and honourably? What are all the bipartisan and international efforts about if not for greater justice for all?

Consider again: what is the goal of high status among humans then? From early childhood humans are outraged by unfairness. Outraged by dishonesty. Outraged by injustice. But also — and you also see this in very small children — incredibly generous and forgiving. Our status is related to how we act on these emotions.

So what’s the problem? The hubris, of those awarded high status, erodes compassion, erodes the capacity of these natural leaders to feel outrage at injustice and unfairness, what then?

It changes the game doesn’t it? Tyrants can arise, through intimidation and fear. They hold no moral high ground, and have no high status based on character: their place is purely advanced by power to harm those who disagree with them. And these days, it is usually not personal power, but martial force. In this situation, entire nations, millions and millions of people, are reduced to living in a state of fear — or else a kind of blind complacency that may be largely due to the squalid fear at the bottom of life’s impulse to outlive the present.

The only good thing in this research is that it does not happen to 100% — there are people who see what is happening and fight it. People who say “this is wrong”. Often they are the folks who either stop the experiment or in real life, or die on the barricades. Human beings do have the capacity to act with heroism. The fact that we have a word for this in every known culture should tell us something.

By the way, the word for “hero” among foragers is often translated incorrectly as “warrior” since it means one who fights on behalf of others. I have a feeling that the first battles among human beings were fought, in fact, by heroes of this kind.

A hunter-gatherer can walk away. A hunter-gatherer inhabits an economic system (while such is still intact) based on an extremely easy and secure supply of all necessities. A hunter-gatherer cannot be thrown out of his job or lodgings. But most humans on this planet can, and frequently are. Entire peoples have had their whole landscape taken taken out from under them. Look at the Scottish highland clearances. And that was done by their own clan leaders.And the pain of people under such circumstances, and the guts it takes for them to try to remake their lives elsewhere, is heart-breaking. Makes me weep. And we wonder why the world is full of people in a rage, crying out for justice.



“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”
― Gospel of Thomas