Answering this Tribesteemup weekly question largely comes down to different ways of interpreting the question. I’ve read a number of great answers that are each framing the question in a unique and interesting way.
Are we talking about unity of a world of all lifeforms and energies? Because then the world is already united. (Thx @eco-alex)
Are we talking about an individual's capacity to contribute to peace among humans? (Thx @phillyc) Or are we talking about a unified culture for all people on the planet? (Thx @elamental)
I resonate with all these ways of framing the question and the answers other tribe members have given in response. I’m going to deliberately reach for a different way of framing the question, so as to offer a different answer.
Responding to: Is it possible to achieve unity within the human species?
I do believe unity is possible, but not sameness. We don’t want conformity, but rather ever increasing diversity within a context of harmony. We want things to keep spiraling away from the center while the center continues to hold. Things do not fall apart.
The challenge for humans has been that we are needing to continue advancing the frontier of our greatest strength, and right now we are bracing against those edges.
What Makes the Slowest Animal Most Dominant?
Well okay, snails, turtles, sloths, and snails are slower than humans, but I’m pretty sure that’s about it. Most animals are so much faster than us that our eyes can’t even fully track their movements. (I learned this trying to use a pellet gun to hit a raccoon that had attacked my dog in our yard. The darned thing was over a 6 foot fence from half-way across the yard faster than I could even blink.)
They're faster, stronger for their body size, and even more aggressive than we are -- as hard as that is to believe looking at what we’ve done with the planet.
And yet, we have clearly won the battle for dominance over what happens on this planet. How?
Community.
I know that one is especially hard to accept as true. I mean, look around. We’re constantly at war with each other. And even when it isn’t outright bombs and fighter jets, we’re just slashing each other to death each day with a constant assault of meanness, what are called microaggressions. And then there are our systems of institutionalized abuse and exploitation, best represented by politics serving only the interests of the rich (with a few special privileges allowed for penises and white skin… but mostly just the rich).
Even with all that, it’s still true.
We have had the ability to band together in groups of a size that would be impossible for any other mammalian species and work together to accomplish an aim.
Whether that aim was hunting an animal much more powerful than any of us alone, or organizing a waste management system for all homes in a city so that we didn’t poison ourselves with our own excrement, we’ve been able to get it done. As much as we fight, we sometimes communicate, cooperate, and think as a mastermind.
What If We Could Do More of What Works Best?
The natural next question is what we would be capable of if only we would lean into our strength. If community cooperation was able to get us to the level of dominance where we’re capable of destroying the planet’s ability to support most current lifeforms, might it not also help us save that life?
And yes, I think we can do exactly that.
We can do it by learning to appreciate diversity as a strength, whether biodiversity, cultural diversity, ethnic diversity, gender perspective diversity, etc. When we see that a system is more resilient when it is more diverse, and that this applies to us too, then hopefully we can stop treating our advantages as burdens to be overcome.
We can also learn to communicate better, and here I’m mostly talking about men. Specifically, men need to learn from women how to communicate better. Appreciate this about us, so that the entire species can benefit from it.
We can also learn to see compassion and consideration for the needs of others as strengths, not as sissified weaknesses. It does not make me less to help someone else become more, even if they don’t look like me or in any way directly reflect upon my own value. Helping others simply because we can is a mark of higher competence within this survival of the species game we’re playing. Somehow it seems we lost track of that game and started playing 'my survival/dominance within the species' instead.
I could probably go on and on like this, but I think you get the picture enough to start adding your own “we can” statements. The fact is, there is a lot of room for improvement, so many things we can do to work together more effectively.
Progress
But let’s not be too hard on ourselves. There’s a lot we’ve already done. We must not let the perfect become the enemy of the good, to where we can only ever condemn ourselves, and never celebrate our many successes along the way to an ever advancing frontier.
To quote Martin Luther King, Jr.:
The line of progress is never straight…. Focusing on the ultimate goal and discovering it still distant, they declare no progress at all has been made…. [yet] A final victory is an accumulation of many short-term encounters.
He’s speaking of a particular type of progress here, but more broadly speaking I think the same idea applies, only there isn’t even any finality ever available. There is only the series of “short-term encounters,” and who we each contribute ourselves as within those daily encounters.
And who are you contributing yourself as on a daily basis?
Are you cooperating with others or condemning them?
Do you greet the imperfections and wrongdoings of others with a desire to punish or with a more compassionate desire? (adrienne maree brown has eloquently stated: “We are so deeply socialized into punitive systems that it feels impossible to us to consider that when someone has caused harm, harming them might not be the move.”)
Do you face your own imperfection with gentleness and patience?
Do you truly value encountering different opinions, particularly when they come from a different set of fundamental assumptions about the world? Do you assume you’re right and they’re wrong and that you just have to convince them before there can be peaceful relations between you, or can you peacefully find the workable goals within continuing differences of values and perspectives? Can you build an irrigation system with people who marry off their children at the age of 12, for example?
I’m not saying you should do this or that. I’m simply observing that the more we have the ability to answer questions like these a certain way, the more we are personally able to contribute to our species working together for survival. Now one might argue that some principles are more important than survival. I’m not addressing that, but only the question of the path to achieving the unity necessary to keep our species alive.
And so I now turn the question to you. How do you frame the title question, and what’s your answer? Share in the comments below or in a post of your own.
(Photo source: Pixabay)
Resteems always appreciated!
The longest post I ever read from you and with an interesting subject matter.
To me, the question should have being
How will you unite the world
I choose it to be this way because, uniting the world is possible but the big question is How can that be achieved?
Looking at the world today, we see alot of evils happening and one tends to wonder if others really have conscience and if there is any possibility of the world to be united again. The whole world can be united if
The above, the world can be united.
A common thread in your prescription for living is really kindness. First we have to be kind with ourselves, so that we can admit we are imperfect without fearing being punished or cast out for it. Then we can also extend that same compassion to others, so then be less prone to selfishness and pride. And if many people do this, then they will be able to create a government that is also kind to its people. So really, you value kindness supremely.
Yea kindness is highly valued by me because I have experienced kindness from people I never knew and that is why the @steemminna team had a meet up last week Saturday and did a brainstorming of three hours on hour to seek funds outside the steem platform and some head ways is already being made in submitting applications to charity groups outside the shores of Nigeria.
Being kind is what we do for ourselves and not really about others
Great post indigo, I'll have to write one up.
This part: Do you greet the imperfections and wrongdoings of others with a desire to punish or with a more compassionate desire?
I think is vital. We don't know other people's experience of the world, the best we can do is embrace them in love. Sometimes that means tough love, but forgiveness should always play a role imo.
I think this world will change in an instant once people learn to love instead of condemn or judge or blame
Very true. I recall watching a video from I think Sweden (some Scandinavian country) in which they were showing their prisons, even for murderers. They were isolated from the main society, but given freedom, respect, a beautiful environment in contact with nature and trained in skills they could use once they got out. I can't even describe just how different it was in so many ways from how the US does prisons. Basically they were rehabilitating members of their community, not punishing those they considered to be animals. Their recidivism rate is of course way, way lower than ours in the US is. No surprise though. This system isn't meant to rehabilitate. It is meant to punish as far as citizens are concerned, and profit from slave labor as far as the prison industry is concerned.
Interesting questions I think, for example, of the underlying knowledge that bees must act as they do and stay together for an end without losing their purpose. How long do human beings have no purpose? Time has been criticizing differences instead of accepting different ones. If there were an intuitive knowledge in our genes that would force us before the disaster to move in a synchronized way to solve our problems, it would be possible.
Meanwhile I see a lot of individualism, a lot of fear and a lot of bad faith from kind people in manipulating people that require acts of kindness and then stealing or hurting them. It's sad.
I use the google translator, because my English is not good, sorry if there is an error.
It's funny that bees are able to work together so well, as are ants, when we consider them "just insects." If they were as big as we are and had more complex goals than simply eating next and maybe shelter they could probably run rings around us with their ability to organize themselves! Thankfully we also have these abstract reasoning skills that help us. If only we could combine that with more emotional intelligence.
Seriously, women need to get on with saving the world already.
This is a great response, and I feel that you come to the question with a very grounded and heart based approach. Love your work Indigo 😄
💖
You got a 32.00% upvote from @ocdb courtesy of @indigoocean!
Our communities are the result of our intelligence. We are the dominant species because we are the most intelligent one, that allows us to develop tools that no animal can comprehend.
Domination is always about intelligence, the most intelligent one will tend to be the one with the most power.
There are different types of intelligence though. Creating tools is more of an analytical intelligence, but even with a tool (a pellet gun) I couldn't hit that raccoon. If there had been several of us surrounding him with pellet guns though, all working together, it would have been a different story. Our ability to unite our individual intelligence in a mastermind is our GREATEST strength, and one of our greatest future potentials.