Overcoming the texture of your nature

I was once doing a one-to-one English course in London. Most of my course was based on conversations with my teacher. He went to a public school in England, spoke a very upper-class English,was cultivated and keenly interested in cultural matters. 

According to him there are three main traits that characterise a cultural entity. His example was the English people themselves: they are primarily known for their reservedness, politeness and humour. He went on to explain the main factor that moulded these behaviours with this explanatory sentence: We are stuck on this island and we can't go anywhere, so we need to get along with our neighbour as politely and as agreeably as possible. 

I didn't understand at first, mainly because of the expansiveness of that nation in its younger history, but as my teacher explained this was a very long process that went on for hundreds of years.

…very intense, strong, instinctive and intrinsic patterns of behaviour…

In general it can be claimed that homo sapiens has been developing a few very intense, strong, instinctive and intrinsic patterns of behaviour since the first eight individuals of this species started out their long journey around the planet about two-hundred-thousand years ago.

One of these behaviours is the notion of the purging property of water. It's the belief that water can carry away all our wastes. People still dispose of their wastes at rivers and at the sea. In some countries the sea is even used as an official dump. One of my acquaintances who lives by the sea, complained that the newly built wastewater treatment plant wasn't working. But, as he explained further, this wasn't that much of problem because in the end the cleansing property of the sea is the best wastewater treatment. Until not long ago the riverbeds of major cities in Europe were littered with garbage bags. And this was so not because people have changed the way they think about water and how they consequently do things but because the waste we create has changed considerably, mainly in its biodegradability. This cleansing property of water is one example of those intrinsic convictions that are woven into the most ancient texture of our belief-systems. 

But there is another belief - and it exhibits certain behaviours - that has developed from the interaction within a group: group-loyalty. This group can be formed around a leading person: a Roman general or the 'Führer' for instance; it can be based on a certain geography: the United States of America (nationalism); or it can be formed based on an idea or belief-system: the first monotheist group of Egypt or the 'supremacy of the white race'.

This behaviour has probably become this strong and instinctive because it has ensured not only our survival but the rise to the top of the food chain.

…This in turn resulted in a higher protection: 'if you stand guard in the morning I'll stand guard in the evening'…

It probably gave protection, order, and an acceptable explanation for the inexplicable. The group loyalty would then enable mutuality. This in turn resulted in a higher protection: 'if you stand guard in the morning I'll stand guard in the evening'.

Spiritualism, or the group loyalty based upon a religion, would establish a set of rules and these in turn would increase efficiency. A higher efficiency results in more time. And when  homo sapiens didn't have to constantly gather or hunt for food they would probably have more time for cognitive processes. These in turn would result in more sophisticated weapons, strategies and other life enhancing activities.

This is probably why loyalty to a group has resulted in such a strong and instinctive feeling.

Now the strange thing about this emotion is that it neutralises or switches off another trait that in turn sets us apart from the animal kingdom: empathy, or the ability to mirror in your brain the situation and feelings of others. The most amazing atrocities have been committed in the name of a group, be it of nationalist, idealist or religious origin: genocide, slavery, torture just to name the worst. The thing is that both feelings are mutually exclusive: it's either loyalty to the group or empathy. In our console there is only space for one chip: either Animal Crossing or Doom Ego Shooter.

…In our console there is only space for one chip: either Animal Crossing or Doom Ego Shooter…

Another really remarkable characteristic of this emotion is its inheritability. It's an emotion you inherit from your parents and it is being applied regardless of its material reasonability. I have met children of immigrants that would keep the patriotism of their parent’s country of origin even though developing a patriotism towards the country iin which they were actually born would make more sense from a materialistic point of view.

But there is yet another very strange feature of nationalism: sometimes it is applied to non-human facts. I have heard one person once say: 'this oil spill doesn't affect us because it happened in international waters'. So it seems that nationalism overrides intelligence too. I have met doctors, philosophers and other graduates from higher education neutralising logic, wisdom and reasonability when it comes to the star-spangled banner,  'Queen and country' or 'das Vaterland' ...etc.

…So it seems that nationalism overrides intelligence too…

In spite of this aberrant behavior, and without moral judgements, this group feeling might have served well for materialistic purposes in the long run. In the past.

Nowadays nationalism has become, from a cosmopolitan point of view, a rather awkward behaviour: I grew up in a multicultural environment, I have lived in many countries (Germany, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Italy and Spain), traveled around the globe and had relationships with many nationalities. This has enabled me to become aware of all kinds of patriotic feelings. 

I used to have a French girlfriend who once said to me: 'You don't know how great it is to be French', I have seen bill-board advertisements in Greece praising the Greek language as the origin of everything (in English!). Italians who believed themselves the inheritors of the Roman Empire. An American girl praising her country as the most advanced in terms of technology, even though she personally didn't contribute in the least to that type of progress. 

…You don't know how great it is to be French…

Not only Donald Trump claims that some countries south of Utah and Colorado are shithole countries. I have heard many Swiss statements that  all countries outside their borders are “higgledy-piggledy”  (in order to avoid strong language and be more in agreement with Swiss politeness and moderation).

In the past, the borders of these groups were clearly demarcated geographically, culturally and idealistically. Any contact point at which groups would clash the result was in most cases war and death. The borders were so harsh that even encountering another human being who uttered some ungraspable sounds (i.e. a different language) was reason enough for killing. 

I suppose that commerce was the first time groups would encounter each other without fatal consequences. Later on in the 19th century, tourism and scientific expeditions were other non-lethal encounters in which the borders of groups were crossed.

…group borders have become blurry and complex…

Nowadays these group borders have become blurry and complex. A multiplicity of loyalties is one reason for this complexity. The first instance of double group loyalty is nationality and the religion. A catholic person from Spain, for instance, would be loyal to Spain and the Vatican. A zionistic American Jew is loyal on the one hand to the United States and on the other hand to Israel. This makes in total three groups: two nationalities and one religion. 

Tourism and the interest for other cultures resulted in many cross-border love relationships and, in many people, a double nationality. In the recent past many people crossed - or tried to cross - borders for economic reasons. After World War Two, many southern Europeans and immigrants from former colonies moved to northern European countries to find work. The descendants of these people have in many occasions multiple loyalties: the one inherited from their parents and the one they adopted from their new cultural environment.

…When economic reasons come into play that loyalty becomes porous…

The other big reason for the before mentioned complexity is the missing integrity of the loyalty. When economic reasons come into play that loyalty becomes porous. 

In the U.S., for example, many people hang their star-spangled banner from poles outside their house, but  decide to move their company headquarters to another country in order to save taxes. Or move their production lines to cheaper countries in Asia or Central America. This lack of loyalty results in less tax income for their country and less work for their fellow country men and women. Here we have a double loyalty towards a country and a company with contradictory and opposing results. The most curious thing is that, probably, employees making these decisions are not even aware of this contradiction and, if they are, don't consider them reprehensible, because they probably prioritise the groups they belong to. And the corporate group is directly responsible for one’s daily bread and butter.

…trend of dissolutional borders … will most probably progress exponentially…

This trend of dissolutional borders has been going on mainly since WW2 and it will most probably progress exponentially, for the following reasons.

Increasing standardisation across borders

Increasing internationally accepted standards have facilitated cross-border relationships to a great extent. For instance, almost all countries have adopted the arabic numbers as their numbering standard, even Asian countries with very diverse symbolism.
 

The English language has been widely accepted as the international lingua franca. According to a 1994 article in the English newspaper The Guardian, the expansion of the English language has caused the extinction of 4000 languages. It is foreseeable that this trend will continue and other major languages, like German, for instance, will  give way to a more internationally prone language. 

There are a few TV shows in Germany in which they increasingly use English words and expressions - not because of their absence in German but because it seems to be more culturally adapted. 

More recently many Anglo-Saxon cultures are adopting the metric system mainly for scientific reasons as the they have been common in most European countries. 

But there are other internationally accepted standards that have also had far-reaching consequences: the invention and standardisation of the modern cargo container after WW2 has enabled the massive transportation of goods. This standard has enabled companies to distribute parts of their value chain on different parts of the globe and therefore across the so far known borders. That is one of the reasons why so many Western companies have relocated their production facilities to China and other Asian countries. For instance, there is almost no manufacturer of sporting goods that produces locally, not even smaller companies like the Swiss ON sporting goods manufacturer.

Maturation of communication and cooperation technologies

Even though many communication and cooperation technologies were already in place, the Covid19 pandemic has and is propelling the sophistication of this type of digital technology. Bigger software companies like SAP, for instance, were already developing business software around the clock due to cooperating developing teams in USA, India and Germany. But now the pandemic has forced a new thinking paradigm:  many companies were forced to have their employees working from home and in this course have realized that productivity hasn't declined. What has and is evolving are the digital cooperation tools and the way leadership is practiced. As a result companies have detached unified geographical sites from their human resource pool and canceled their real estate contracts. So now, not only bigger chunks of the value chain can be split up and be distributed across borders, but also human resources.

Further trend toward cross-border political and economical cooperation

It probably needed two world wars to enable a union like the European Union: a union of many small and culturally rather diverse countries with their own languages. In spite of, in my opinion, fugacious hiccups like the planned wall between the US and Mexico, Brexit or regional independences, this trend is most probably going to intensify mainly due to pressure from a new and much more dynamic group: the corporation. This group produces a direct and materialistic benefit for its owners, employees, suppliers and customers; and is very quick and focused. Exactly the opposite of national political systems: slow, reactive and short-sighted.

National group-independent global and life-threatening problems

Climate change is not only an expression void of meaning but very much noticeable to anyone - and it intensifies every year. Yet this is not the only problem that needs to be tackled at global scale: overpopulation, poverty and large migratory movements, decreasing biodiversity and global pandemics are the most important problems. All of these problems have become more acute every year and, in the end, will need to be solved by a major cooperative effort. This common denominator will further dissolve old nationalistic group borders.

The future of group loyalty

The old thinking of 'us against them' or the mentality of 'a plane crashed in the French alps, two of the victims were French (the rest we don't care)' will disappear mainly and simply because it doesn't serve any life sustaining purpose.

I have begun practicing what I like to call group detachment and I have come to one conclusion: it is very hard! One really has to overcome those almost hard-wired feelings. But it is damn good practice because it removes walls and obstacles of prejudice and lets you see much more clearly a person with her or his character traits, but also the influence of groups on their identity. It has been an amazing and revealing experience. 

The only way I managed to do this is by avoiding any national expressions. I stopped using words like `the American…´, or `Spanish tapas ´.  I started using expressions like `in that cultural environment ´ or `that people on the other side of the ocean´. All of a sudden I removed all kinds of group features from my brain and I was able to go straight to the person in question instead of hiding behind a wall of group characteristics. I invite you to do the same and to remove the filtering glasses of your group.

And while doing this with nationalities, do it with races or with groups altogether. You will start seeing people as they are, as individuals and not as mere members of a group.