Good Will Toward....

Tribalism still burdens humanity

Christmas is a time for positive thinking. It symbolizes hope and love, manifestations of birth. The Passion story is as yet untainted by crucifixion. But goodwill is still more an aspiration than reality in our World.

We humans seem much closer to the hate side of the spectrum. Most of the world remains locked in tribalism. Consider the Muslim world. Far from Mohammed’s vision, Shiites, Sunnis, Alawites kill each other in the name of Allah. Muslim Arabs fight a genocidal war in the Sudan against Africans. Jews and Muslim fundamentalists fight. In India Hindus suppress minorities and men murder strong women. Russia kills Ukrainians. In the United States, white supremacists rail against blacks. The Holocaust, a systematic extermination of a single ethnic group, still casts a long shadow over the World.

In the age of the internet humans remain tribal even though genetically humans are 99+% the same. Given the character of the conflicts, it is obvious that religion exacerbates the human tendency to fear the stranger.

What can be done to slow the trajectory of human conflict? Deghettoization for one. When different people live together in proximity, empathy often increases with understanding. Scrubbing the anthropomorphic characteristics of God would also make a difference.

Unfortunately, this is not likely to occur except among a minority. Still there is no harm in aspiring to a higher level of civilization. And the good news is that in the last 1000 years we have actually advanced individual rights and expanded justice. Who can say what the world will look like in 3024? We can always hope.