Читать книгу The Cosmic Ocean - Paul K. Chappell - Страница 17

It was difficult being half Korean, a quarter black, a quarter white, and growing up in Alabama. As a child I felt like I was not Korean enough to be Korean, not black enough to be black, and not white enough to be white. Living in a world where so many people defined their identity by race, I felt like an outcast.

People have asked me, “What race do you see yourself as?” That’s a complex question, because is my race determined by how I look or how I think? My father conditioned me to think like a black man living before the civil rights movement, and my mother reinforced this view. My parents did this because they wanted to protect me from the racism that had harmed so many black men from my father’s generation. As a mixed race couple, they were not naive about racism in America.

During my childhood my mother frequently told me, “People will call you ‘Chinese-face,’ but when they find out your father is black they will treat you like you are black. When you buy something from the store always make sure you hold on to the receipt, because people often accuse black men of stealing. Be careful around women, because they often accuse black men of rape.” This was the reality for my father and other black men living during segregation, and although the civil rights movement achieved many important victories, much work remains to be done.

In the midst of these dark and painful experiences, I began to see light. After all, being an outcast can have its advantages. Because I did not belong to just one racial group, I taught myself to see beyond our differences and perceive the light of our shared humanity. As a young adult I realized that all people, regardless of their race, nationality, or religion, want purpose and meaning in life. And all people, no matter what their skin color, want to be around people they can trust.

Furthermore, although a broken leg can be caused by an accident, natural disaster, animal attack, or hateful human being, the greatest amount of psychological trauma will result if a hostile person assaults us, makes us feel helpless, and breaks our leg out of malice. This is true whether we are American, Vietnamese, Russian, Chinese, German, or Iranian.

Reading philosophy allowed me to find other thinkers who realized there is really only one race—the human race. Over two thousand years ago, Socrates said, “I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.”15 Many religions also express the idea that we are part of one human family. Only recently has science caught up with Socrates, when geneticists found physical proof in our genetic code that all human beings are actually related.

Spencer Wells started contributing to this groundbreaking genetics research while earning his PhD at Harvard and doing his postdoctoral work at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Wells is currently the director of the Genographic Project of the National Geographic Society in Washington, DC.16 As Wells explains, countless people throughout history believed that some races were intellectually and morally inferior to others, but modern genetics research has proven there are no intellectual or moral differences between the races. The myth of racial inferiority was used to justify slavery, colonialism, and other oppressive systems, and many people still believe this myth today. Wells tells us:

The American pro-slavery lobby embraced an extreme form of the Linnean view [of racial division] in the nineteenth century. The view that human races were actually separate, inherently unequal entities made it easier to justify the brutal oppression practised in the United States. The theory that human races are distinct entities, created separately, is known as polygeny—from the Greek for “many origins.” This theory clearly contradicted the biblical story of the Garden of Eden, inhabited by a single Adam and a single Eve, and thus raised the hackles of the church. Most biologists also objected to the polygenist view, noting the extensive hybridization among human races.17

Genetic testing shows that all human beings on the planet today descended from a common ancestor who lived within the past several hundred thousand years in Africa. When I mentioned this genetics research during one of my talks, someone responded, “Why does it matter if human beings are all related? Family members fight with each other all the time, so the knowledge that human beings are one big extended family will not end human conflicts.”

I replied, “Great point, and I think you are right. Conflicts certainly exist within families, but I am not discussing the end of conflict. Martial arts and the military taught me to see conflict as an opportunity, because it can allow us to arrive at greater clarity and understanding. What causes so much harm is not really conflict, but destructive conflict resolution, where I try to solve our disagreement or misunderstanding by punching you in the face. When family members have a conflict, should they resolve it by massacring each other? Most people would say no. Looking at history allows us to see how war, genocide, slavery, and oppression rely heavily on propaganda that dehumanizes people as being inferior and subhuman. It’s harder to justify massacring or enslaving a group of people when we transform the knowledge of our shared humanity into empathy for all human beings.”

The person then agreed that although the knowledge of us being one human family will not end conflict, this knowledge makes it more difficult to dehumanize people just because they have a different skin color. We can move the world closer to peace if we combine the truth of our shared humanity with waging peace skills that allow us to effectively resolve conflict.

Science confirms the truth of our shared humanity. Stanford professor Marcus Feldman led an international genetics study, which showed that human beings share about 99.9 percent of the same DNA.18 When a baby is born anywhere on earth, even to people whose skin color differs from yours, about 99.9 percent of your DNA is passed on. In the ancient era of Socrates, our shared humanity was a philosophical idea. Today it is a scientific fact.

What else does modern genetics research reveal about the truth of our shared humanity? In an article for Vanity Fair, Spencer Wells explains that because all people on the planet today share a common ancestor who lived hundreds of thousands of years ago in Africa, we are all technically African: “What if I told you every single person in America—every single person on earth—is African? With a small scrape of cells from the inside of anyone’s cheek, the science of genetics can even prove it.”19

Genetic evidence shows that humanity almost went extinct during the past several hundred thousand years. The reason we are all related is because we descended from the relatively few who survived. Going extinct is not unusual, because nature has driven most species to extinction. Many scientists estimate that over 99 percent of the species that ever existed have gone extinct. To understand how difficult survival can be, let’s discuss how our human ancestors lived hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Our nomadic ancestors were the most vulnerable mammals in Africa. We are too slow to outsprint predators and too weak to quickly climb trees. Lions and leopards can climb trees much faster than the average human. We are also too big to burrow underground for safety, and because our large brains take so long to develop, human children remain helpless for a longer period of time than the offspring of any other mammal. To make matters worse, we have no natural weapons such as fangs, claws, tusks, or horns.

With no natural weapons, relatively weak bodies (in comparison to chimpanzees and gorillas), and the inability to outsprint much faster predators, how did our early ancestors survive on the African savannah hundreds of thousands of years ago?

Imagine a pride of lions hunting an early human tribe. A tribe of ten to twenty people* would have included elderly, children, infants, and probably some pregnant women. When lions hunted early humans, how would our ancestors have reacted? Would they have thrown grandma to the lions and run away? Would the adults have fled, letting the children fend for themselves? If lions threatened your grandmother and children, what would you do? Military history reveals that when our loved ones are in danger, people often use tools as weapons and react with an emotion I call fury.

To understand fury, we must first understand every army’s greatest problem. As I explain in my first book, Will War Ever End?, the greatest problem of every army in history has been this: when a battle begins, how do you stop soldiers from running away? Where our fight-or-flight response is concerned, the vast majority of people prefer to run when a sword is wielded against them, a spear is thrust in their direction, a bullet flies over their head, or a bomb explodes in their vicinity. In the U.S. Army a complex system of conditioning trains soldiers to stay and fight—but the ancient Greeks discovered a more effective method still used today.

The Greeks realized that one simple thing could give soldiers endless courage when their lives were threatened and convince them to not only stay and fight, but to sacrifice their lives. At first glance the Greeks’ solution might seem like a contradiction, because the most powerful motivator that convinces people to stay and fight is not a natural propensity for violence or killing, but their capacity for love and compassion. Halfway around the world, Lao-tzu, a Chinese philosopher who lived during the sixth century BC, also acknowledged this fundamental truth about human nature when he said, “By being loving, we are capable of being brave.”20

The military taught me that when soldiers bond as comrades and view each other as family members, they will more likely fight and die for each other. This is why the military puts so much emphasis on camaraderie and the ideal of being a “band of brothers.” The military does not do this because it is sentimental, but because of military necessity. Soldiers who view each other as family members will fight harder and be less likely to retreat from the battlefield.

At West Point I learned a famous passage from Shakespeare’s Henry V that reads: “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; for he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.”21 In The Art of War, written over two thousand years ago, Sun Tzu says, “Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys; look upon them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death.”22

When I give lectures around the country I often ask, “If our flight response is stronger than our fight response when we are threatened by lethal violence, what is the most effective technique ancient armies used to encourage soldiers to fight and not retreat?” The audience immediately realizes the answer to this question when I ask them another question, “What would all of you die for? Raise your hand if you would risk your life to protect your family.” All of the audience members will raise their hand.

In my book Peaceful Revolution I describe a radio interview I heard in 2002. The interview was with a seventy-three-year-old woman, Margaret Hargrove. Her story reinforced what the military taught me about love creating courage. She described how she had been walking in her neighborhood when she saw an aggressive pit bull running toward her. What would you do in this situation? Because our flight response is more powerful than our fight response, most people would rather run to a safe place than fight a large animal.

But Mrs. Hargrove was not alone. She was walking Alex, her small nine-month-old Scottish terrier. Reaching them, the pit bull latched its jaws onto her tiny dog. Mrs. Hargrove, driven by concern for her loved one, bent down and bit the pit bull on the neck until it let go.

How would you react if you saw a large animal attacking your dog, child, spouse, parent, or friend? Would you not feel compelled to protect your loved one? Although our flight response is usually more powerful than our fight response when violence threatens us, our instinct to protect our loved ones is usually stronger than our flight response. Protecting those we love can even be more powerful than self-preservation, and military history confirms this. When we see our loved ones in danger and our concern for them fuses with adrenaline, causing us to rush to their aid, I call this emotion fury.

When asked if she was afraid for her safety during the attack, Mrs. Hargrove said, “I wasn’t scared. I was scared my dog was dying. I wasn’t afraid of danger. I will never get over the look in Alex’s eyes while I was trying to get him loose … I’m fortunate not to have been killed. I’m very lucky, and Alex is very lucky. I hope he knows how much I was willing to do for him.”23

Imagine a pride of lions hunting an early tribe of humans, and these people experiencing the fury that erupts when our loved ones are in danger. If lions threatened to kill your children, spouse, and parents, how would you react? You would probably become extremely aggressive. Imagine an early tribe of humans throwing rocks, shouting, and shaking large sticks or spears. Now the lions must contend with a much more dangerous prey.

How do we know that our earliest ancestors were hunted by predators on the African savannah, and that our instinct to protect our loved ones is a primordial part of our psychology? Many scientific fields offer evidence to support this and, surprisingly, war propaganda also offers evidence. When we study military history we see that war propaganda works the same way in every country and time period. Every war in history has been enabled by propaganda that dehumanizes the other side, and there has never been a war where both sides saw each other as human beings who are just like them.

By dehumanizing the other side, war propaganda portrays the “enemy” not as human beings who are just like us, but as dangerous animals or an evil force. War propaganda basically tells us, “Evil predators (in the form of barbarians, terrorists, etc.) want to kill our family or hurt another group of innocent people, and we must fight out of self-defense or in the name of peace.”

There are certainly dangerous people in the world, but as I explain in my book The Art of Waging Peace, war is always framed, even by the aggressor nation, as a moral crusade necessary to defend one’s country, liberate oppressed people, or protect a noble ideal such as peace, freedom, or justice. In a speech Hitler gave in 1939, he explained why Germany invaded Poland. The speech, which is full of propaganda, describes the Polish people as “sadistic beasts”:

The Polish Marshal … said that he would hack the German Army to pieces. And martyrdom began for our German nationals [living in Poland]. Tens of thousands were dragged off, mistreated, and murdered in the vilest fashion. Sadistic beasts [emphasis added] gave vent to their perverse instincts, and this pious democratic world watched without blinking an eye … At a certain moment England herself offered to bring us into direct discussion with Poland. I was ready. Of course it was the Poles who did not come … Then came the next day and nothing occurred except for Polish general mobilization, renewed acts of terror, and finally attacks against Reich territory.

Now in the life of nations, patience must not always be interpreted as weakness. For years I patiently looked on these continuous provocations [from Poland]. What keen suffering I underwent in these years only few can imagine … In the last six years I had to stand intolerable things from States like Poland … If peoples go to pieces it will not be the German people, who are fighting for justice, who have no war aims and who were attacked [by Poland] … England, with lies and hypocrisy, already has begun to fight against women and children … I hope then they do not suddenly begin to think of humaneness and of the impossibility of waging war against women and children. We Germans do not like that. It is not in our nature. In this campaign I gave an order to spare human beings.24

By using dehumanization to depict the enemy as predators, war propaganda manipulates the primordial part of our brain that protected our loved ones from predators on the African savannah. Because our fear of predators is such a powerful instinct, every war in recorded history, without a single exception, has relied on propaganda that dehumanizes the enemy as subhuman or evil. The propaganda that depicts people as predators has worked quite well in all cultures and time periods.

In this chapter I am just scratching the surface of dehumanization and war propaganda. Later in this book we will journey much deeper to learn more about the propaganda techniques that hide our shared humanity. We will also learn how we can combat the illusions of dehumanization by increasing our awareness, understanding, and empathy.

More evidence of early humans being hunted by African predators can be found in the fact that these predators usually hunt at night, and human beings have an instinctual fear of darkness. It is no coincidence that religions, philosophies, and mythologies around the world depict darkness as a metaphor for danger. In modern epics such as the Star Wars film series, the villains are “Dark Jedi” who use the “dark side of the force.” In The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the villain Sauron is known as the “Dark Lord.” In the Harry Potter series, the villains are “Dark Wizards” who practice the “dark arts.” And in a famous African folk tale, the hero Mwindo must journey underground into darkness and danger to confront Muisa, the lord of the underworld.

Unlike human beings, lions have excellent night vision and do most of their hunting at night. Night is the best time for lions to fill their bellies, and they also do not have to endure the blazing African heat when the sun goes down, so why would a lion pride consisting of a large male and many females be afraid of darkness? But when human beings are concerned, sources as diverse as religion, science fiction, and even modern horror films depict darkness as a symbol of danger to us. In horror stories from long ago, it is no coincidence that vampires and werewolves come out at night.

Adults may read this and think, “But I’m not afraid of the dark.” If we look closer, however, we realize that nearly all children are naturally afraid of the dark. Pediatrician Sue Hubbard tells us, “Nearly all children go through a phase when they’re afraid of the dark. It’s interesting to see a toddler who happily goes to bed in his crib in complete darkness turn into a 2-year-old terrified of shadows and monsters in a dark room … Fear of the dark is called ‘nyctophobia’ and is amazingly common. Even as an adult, my worries and anxieties seem to be worse at night, in the darkness, than the same issues are during daylight hours.”25

Adults may not fear darkness when they are sleeping in a house with a lock on the door, but put an adult in a dark alley or in a jungle with no flashlight, and many will be afraid of the dark. Isn’t it common sense that human beings, who have such poor night vision, would be afraid of the dark when so many predators hunt at night?

Wildlife documentary makers have filmed lions hunting fully grown African elephants at night. They have even filmed large groups of hyenas hunting female lions to the point where the lions had to climb trees to escape the attacking hyenas.26 One purpose of the male lion is to protect female lions from hyenas. If hyenas will hunt animals as dangerous as lions,* and if lions will hunt an animal as dangerous as a fully grown African elephant, these predators would certainly have hunted our vulnerable early ancestors.

Although my books show that human beings are not naturally violent against other human beings, this does not mean we did not come from a warlike environment. The African savannah has many warlike characteristics, because predators were relentlessly hunting us. Lions and hyenas need to feed their offspring after all, and will provide for their young at all costs, just as we would. When our early ancestors discovered how to use fire, it shifted the balance of power on the African savannah.

Our ancestors had to endure dark nights filled with predators; our incredible intelligence, willingness to protect and die for our loved ones, and enormous capacity to cooperate enabled us to survive this threat along with catastrophic changes in climate. Predators and changes in climate have driven countless species extinct. According to leading scientists, the dinosaurs were not driven extinct merely by an asteroid, but by the climate change that resulted when the asteroid struck the earth and threw vast amounts of dust and debris into the sky, reducing sunlight and lowering global temperatures.

The cosmic ocean is a metaphor for the universe, and there are two ways to drown in the cosmic ocean. The first way is extinction. Most of the species that ever existed have drowned in this way. The second way is to lose our sense of purpose and meaning. This form of drowning seems unique to human beings. Due to our heightened craving for purpose and meaning, we are the only species on the planet that can sink into self-destruction, quiet desperation, and suicide when we have access to safety, food, community, and freedom.

In fact, when we do not have a solid foundation of purpose and meaning, our freedom can feel empty because our lives lack direction. As we discussed in the preface, “man does not live by bread alone.” For human beings, which form of drowning is worse? This book will explore that question and discuss ways to navigate the dangerous waters that threaten to drown us.

When our early ancestors lived in small tribes, how did they find purpose and meaning? Purpose is like satisfying food that fuels our zest for life, and meaning is like fresh water that quenches our thirst for a life worth living. Humanity has always dealt with two major struggles, the struggle for survival and the struggle for purpose and meaning. But for most of human history these two struggles were combined into one, because our nomadic ancestors found purpose and meaning in protecting and providing for their tribe.

In an early human tribe every person was needed to help the tribe survive. Everybody mattered. In our society today, millions of people feel like they are not needed, and many elderly feel alienated, shunned, and discarded. But in early human tribes everyone was essential for the continued survival of the tribe, from the youngest child (who would ensure the future of the tribe) to the oldest adult. Elders could teach the young and help raise children, and also use their experience and wisdom to guide the tribe. Spencer Wells explains why elders were important in early human communities:

Old people are good to have around. A reliance on teaching and learning, rather than instinct, is one of the things that distinguishes humans from other animals. Most of our early lives are spent learning, and it isn’t until we are well into our twenties that most of us feel that we are in command of sufficient knowledge to be able to synthesize and teach others. The older we get, the more knowledge we accumulate, and the more we can help our offspring to benefit from our experience. Grandparents … have “been there and done that”—and, crucially, lived to tell the tale. Having grandparents around also allowed higher fecundity, since (as any new parent can tell you) they can care for children while younger generations go about their lives. This includes continued childbearing … Anthropologist Kristen Hawkes has suggested that grandmothering—the act of a child being cared for by its grandmother—may have played a substantial role in the population expansion of modern humans.27

We may have different national identities, but just as every river flows into our world’s interconnected oceans, every nation is part of the interconnected universe I call the cosmic ocean. The metaphor of our universe as an ocean has been used by other philosophies and religions before me,* but we will use this metaphor as a tool for solving the twenty-first-century problems that threaten our country and planet.

Although the perspective of being an outcast helped me perceive the truth of our shared humanity, this perspective revealed another vital truth. Because problems such as environmental destruction, nuclear weapons, and war threaten human survival, we must learn to navigate these dangerous waters as a global human family, or we will drown. To save ourselves from drowning into extinction, we must journey deeper into darkness to reveal what makes humanity so powerful, vulnerable, and unusual.